Residents across the city, which is among the safest in the US, are reeling from the attack that left at least 21 dead

The sheriff of El Paso did not mince his words when he spoke of Saturday’s mass shooting that left 21 dead.

“This Anglo man came here to kill Hispanics.”

In a Facebook post, the sheriff, Richard Wiles, called the 21-year-old suspect a “racist” who came to the Texas border city to kill people because of “the color of their skin”.

While US politicians have engaged in predictable policy debates in the wake of two deadly massacres this weekend, residents of El Paso said they were not afraid to call the shooting a white supremacist hate crime and terrorist attack against Latinos.

“We see this as an act of racism toward all Hispanics,” 21-year-old Daisy Fuentes told the Guardian on Sunday. She and her family were gathered at a local hospital where both her grandparents were taken after they were shot in the Saturday morning Walmart attack that left at least 21 dead and two dozen more injured. “It was full of Hispanics in that Walmart. It’s just super sad.”

Residents across El Paso were reeling from the horrific violence, shaken by the news that the white suspect, Patrick Crusius, allegedly published an anti-immigrant, racist “manifesto” before opening fire in a crowded store. The document reportedly warned of the “Hispanic invasion of Texas”, and Crusius is facing murder charges and a federal hate crime investigation.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Flowers and mementos at a makeshift memorial in El Paso, Texas. Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images

The western Texas city has been the subject of intense national attention in recent years, as the Trump administration made it a target of attacks on migrants and refugees. Trump’s former attorney general once said El Paso was “ground zero” and the “frontlines” for border conflicts. The president also famously launched his campaign by calling Mexican immigrants “rapists” and drug dealers, and has continued to label Latino migration an “invasion”.

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In reality, El Paso, which has about 680,000 people and an 80% Latino population, has consistently ranked as one of the safest cities in the US, directly contradicting Trump’s false narratives linking immigration and crime.

“A lot of the rhetoric that this president has made is found in that manifesto,” said the Texas representative César Blanco, whose El Paso district office is located blocks away from where the shooting took place. “These words like ‘invasion’ are harmful to our community and come from the president, who has alluded to my community as ‘murderers and rapists bringing in crimes and drugs’. When our national leaders are speaking in such a way, it sends a message to a lot of these white supremacists that it’s OK to allow hate to continue and spread.”

We don’t want El Paso to be known for this. This is not our city Phoenix Vasquez, El Paso resident

The Walmart shooting killed almost as many people as the total number of homicides in 2018 in El Paso.

“I pray this doesn’t bring a stigma on our city,” said Phoenix Vasquez, a 42-year-old lifelong El Paso resident who came to one of the hospitals on Sunday to pray with victims’ families. “We are a very friendly city, a very united city.”

More than 23,000 people cross the border from its Mexican twin city, Ciudad Juárez, each day to go to work.

“We don’t want El Paso to be known for this,” Vasquez said, adding that people should not be afraid to visit. “This is not our city.”

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Officials and locals were quick to remind people that the suspect was not associated with El Paso, but had traveled from more than 600 miles away, from a Dallas suburb.

“The perpetrator of this crime was not from here,” said David Stout, the El Paso county commissioner. “This has been one of the safest cities in the United States for years, and we are going to continue to be safe … But we always find ourselves in the middle of this negative rhetoric that is being perpetrated by our president. They are always trying to demonize the border. It’s something that we have constantly had to battle.”

It seemed clear, he said, that this attack was “very calculated and purposefully done to attack our community”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Gilbert Medina comforts his children at a make shift memorial along the street near the scene of a mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas. Photograph: Larry W Smith/EPA

David Rios, a 42-year-old who works in IT at a hospital, and has lived in El Paso his whole life, said he was trying to shield his seven-year-old daughter from the news.

“We are trying to be normal,” he said, as he and his daughter drew hearts in the sand at a playground not far from the site of the shooting. “But people are going to be a little more vigilant … You hope these types of things never happen, but unfortunately it did. We are just going to have to learn to acclimate back to normal.”

Sam Thomas, a local pastor who was providing support to families, said he was glad to see police treating the crime as terrorism, and was hoping the tragedy could inspire change.

“The racism, the hate, the vitriol can hopefully subside – at least for a moment,” he said. “But these things always seem to go back to the way they were.”

“In the last several months, the borderlands have shown the world that generosity, compassion and human dignity are more powerful than the forces of division,” said Bishop Mark Seitz, the Roman Catholic archbishop of El Paso, in a statement in the wake of the shooting.

“The great sickness of our time is that we have forgotten how to be compassionate, generous and humane,” he added.



The bishop, who has spoken out to defend migrants crossing the border into the US from Central America via Mexico, previously urged Americans not to categorize migrants as the latest convenient group of people “to look down upon and to fear”.