ALLEN, TEXAS: Police have confirmed that the Texas mall shooter brought eight guns to the mass shooting site at Allen Premium Outlets on May 6. Mauricio Garcia, 33, killed eight people and injured seven others before being shot dead by a police officer on the scene.
Although Garcia used an AR-15-style rifle to carry out the mass shooting, he as per police had additional guns with him. “He had eight weapons with him,” Hank Sibley, the regional director of the Texas Department of Safety said on Tuesday as per Fox 4. Police also confirmed that he had “neo-Nazi ideation”.
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'A brave servant with a gentle heart'
According to Hank Sibley, Garcia carried three of the weapons, while the remaining five were in his car. All the firearms were obtained legally. The shooting, which lasted three to four minutes, left eight people dead and seven injured. The victims have been identified as Christian LaCour (20), Aishwarya Thatikonda (26), Kyu Song-cho (37), Cindy Cho (35), James Cho (3), Daniela Mendoza (11), Sofia Mendoza (8), and Elio Cumana-rivas (32).
The police officer who shot down the mass shooter at the Allen Premium Outlets mall has spoken out for the first time. The anonymous officer's attorney characterized him as "a brave servant with a gentle heart" and said he is "doing well" but requests privacy "as he continues to process this life-altering tragedy" in a statement on Monday.
The officer was at the mall for an unrelated situation when gunman Garcia opened fire, murdering eight innocent civilians. Meanwhile, a GoFundMe campaign has raised $1,495,900 for William Cho, a six-year-old boy whose parents, Cindy Cho and Kyu Cho, as well as his three-year-old sibling James Cho, were killed in the shooting.
'He was not awarded a military occupational specialty'
As previously reported, the gunman was discharged from the US Army in 2008 due to mental health concerns. “Mauricio Garcia entered the regular Army in June 2008; he was terminated three months later without completing initial entry training. He was not awarded a military occupational specialty. He had no deployments or awards,” Heather J Hagan, US Army Public Affairs Spokeswoman said as per Independent. The assassin gunman had a tattoo swastika. He is suspected of links to far-right organizations, white nationalism, and neo-Nazism.
