A daughter recalled the life lessons taught by her father. A woman said she was forever changed by her injuries. A father spoke of celebrating his son’s birthday in a cemetery.
One by one, in an El Paso courthouse not far from where a gunman killed 23 people at a Walmart in a 2019 attack targeting Hispanic shoppers, victims’ family members and survivors got their last chance to address him face-to-face in court this week.
They described to Patrick Crusius, now 26, the pain and devastation left by one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history. Several told him the community had met his hatred with love and unity.
Crusius, a white community college dropout, had posted online a racist screed about a Hispanic invasion of Texas before opening fire with an AK-style rifle at the store near the U.S.-Mexico border on Aug. 3, 2019. Wearing shackles and a protective vest during his plea hearing Monday, Crusius did not address the families and survivors. Crusius, who told officers following the shooting that he’d targeted Mexicans, will serve multiple life sentences after pleading guilty to capital murder and 22 counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
Here is what some of the victims’ families and survivors said:
‘A survivor, not a victim’
Stephanie Melendez told Crusius on Tuesday that she didn’t want to address him, but wanted to read a letter in court to her father, 63-year-old David Johnson, who was shielding his wife and 9-year-old granddaughter when he was killed.
Melendez thanked her father for the life lessons he doled out — making her study, giving her a curfew and telling her when she was 16 that she needed to get a job. “You made me into the strong woman I am today,” she said.
Her husband, Raul Melendez, said Crusius had taken a man that he respected, traumatized his child and left a family trying to pick up the pieces.
“I struggle with how to even put my feelings into words,” he said. “Anger doesn’t cover it, heartbreak doesn’t either. What he did was cowardly.”
Their daughter, now 14, also spoke. Kaitlyn Melendez told Crusius that as she had contemplated what she wanted to say to him but concluded that nothing she said would have an impact on him.
So, she said, her words for were for her 9-year-old self, whose social life was ruined for years after the shooting, and who was too scared to do something as simple as go to a restaurant. She said: “I am a survivor, not a victim.”
“I’m going to walk out these doors and move forward with my life and not let you haunt me anymore,” she said.
‘A disgrace to humanity’
Dean Reckard, whose 63-year-old mother Margie Reckard was among those killed, expressed anger and forgiveness as he addressed Crusius on Tuesday.
“You’re a disgrace to humanity and to your family,” Reckard said.
He called Crusius “diabolical scum” and told him that he hopes he wakes up each morning wishing he were dead. “You’ll be living in a cage, like an animal,” he said.
But Reckard also said he forgave the gunman who will spend the rest of his life behind bars.
“In order to be forgiving, you have to forgive others,” he said. “That’s the only reason I forgive you. May God have mercy on your soul.”
Thousands of people attended Margie Reckard’s funeral after her partner of 22 years, Antonio Basco, invited the public to the service, saying he felt alone after her death.
‘Left me sad, bitter’
Liliana Munoz of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, said in court Monday that she was shopping for snacks to resell across the border when Crusius opened fire, forever changing her life physically, economically and emotionally.
In her statement, which was read by someone sitting beside her in court, she said she used to be a “happy, dancing person,” but now is afraid every morning when she awakes. Since she was shot, she has had to use a cane to walk and wears a leg brace to keep her left foot from dragging.
“It left me sad, bitter,” said the 41-year-old mother.
But she also granted Crusius forgiveness “because what would be the point of forgiving what was easy to forgive?”
‘You brought us together’
Javier Rodriguez, was 15 and starting his sophomore year in high school when he was killed at a bank in Walmart.
On Tuesday, his father told Crusius that he had forever changed his life that day. As Francisco Rodriguez began speaking, he shouted at Crusius: “Look at me, I’m talking to you.”
He told Crusius that he and his family have to go to the cemetery to celebrate his son’s death.
“I wish I could just get five minutes with you — me and you — and get all of this, get it over with,” he said.
But Rodriguez also referred to comments made about Crusius’ impact on El Paso during his sentencing.
“Like the judge said yesterday, you came down to El Paso with the intention of tearing us apart, but all you did, you brought us together,” he said.
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