A man accused of killing almost two dozen people at an El Paso Walmart in 2019 is back in court as his defense lawyer files additional court documents to get access to information that he says the prosecution should have turned over earlier. .
In 2019, Patrick Crusius is accused of driving 700 miles from Allen, Texas, to a Walmart in El Paso to commit mass murder. Crusius allegedly started shooting from his car outside the store before going inside to gun down more shoppers. Twenty-three people were left dead and several dozen others were injured.
Though Crusius ran away from the scene of the crime he surrendered himself to a Texas state trooper shortly after. He told police he was targeting Hispanics in an effort to “defend his country.”
Now, Crusius’ defense lawyer, Joe Spencer, said he’s filing additional discovery motions for evidence, calling the District Attorney’s office under former DA Yvonne Rosales “a disaster.” He said he was stunned by the “type of misconduct” the DA’s office engaged in.
Prior to this recent hearing, the court had agreed to a six-month timeline for the defense to go through and collate all the data and evidence provided by the prosecution. This week Crusius’ lawyers asked for another 15 months to two years to go over this and new evidence.
Judge Sam Medrano said the court would have to consider the requests, but he did order the DA to hand over 3.5 hours of phone call recordings and logs. He also ordered the DA to preserve any evidence the office has collected.
As for the defense’s new requests for evidence, the court scheduled an October 31 hearing to decide on whether to grant the numerous additional evidence requests from the defense. So far no trial has been scheduled, but judge Medrano said the parties can expect to get a date announced before the end of September.
Families of the victims are frustrated at how long the case is dragging out. Christopher Morales said the trial is “about the victims” who were killed that day, and he says the defense team is “making a mess of it” while the victims suffer waiting for justice.