The Latest: Foreign minister: Mexico planning legal action
EL PASO, Texas (AP) - The Latest on a mass shooting at an El Paso shopping complex (all times local):
4:30 p.m.
Mexico's foreign minister says the country plans to take legal action against whoever sold the gun to the man suspected of killing at least 20 people and wounding more than two dozen others in El Paso, Texas.
Marcelo Ebrard said Sunday that "it's urgent that we take corresponding actions against weapons." Ebrard has frequently cited the flood of illegal weapons from the U.S. to Mexico as a factor in Mexico's rising rate of violent crime.
Gun ownership is highly restricted in Mexico, requiring special permits, and gun shops are rare. The average Mexican has trouble legally acquiring a handgun, much less an assault weapon.
Ebrard also called Saturday's shooting "a terrorist act" against Mexicans and urged the U.S. government to "set a clear position against hate crimes."
___
4:10 p.m.
The city of El Paso, Texas, has issued a local disaster declaration following a shooting that left at least 20 dead and more than two dozen injured.
The declaration by Mayor Dee Margo allows for state financial assistance and activates the city's emergency management plan.
Margo issued the declaration on Sunday, one day after a gunman opened fire at a crowded shopping area.
Margo says the El Paso community is resilient and will not be defined by the rampage.
___
3:45 p.m.
President Donald Trump has denounced two mass shootings in Ohio and Texas, saying "hate has no place in our country."
Addressing reporters in Morristown, New Jersey, Trump said Sunday that "we're going to take care" of the problem. The president says he's been speaking to the attorney general, FBI director and members of Congress, and will be making an additional statement Monday.
He says the problem of shootings has been going on "for years and years" and "we have to get it stopped." Trump also pointed to a mental illness problem in the U.S., calling the shooters "really very seriously mentally ill."
The shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, over the weekend left at least 29 people dead.
___
3:10 p.m.
Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador says the number of Mexicans killed in the shooting in the border city of El Paso, Texas, has risen to six.
López Obrador made the comments during a visit Sunday to a rural hospital in the western Mexican state of Michoacan. He had previously said three Mexicans were killed.
López Obrador also says that the events in Texas reaffirm his conviction that "social problems shouldn't be confronted with the use of force and by inciting hate."
The FBI has not publicly released the names or nationalities of the 20 people killed Saturday at a shopping complex in El Paso.
___
2:50 p.m.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says the federal agency does not conduct immigration enforcement operations "during tragedies" such as the shooting in El Paso, Texas.
ICE spokeswoman Leticia Zamarripa says the statement was issued Sunday afternoon in an effort to dispel "false rumors."
Zamarripa says ICE agents immediately responded to aid local and state law enforcement officers as the shooting unfolded.
Saturday's shooting at an El Paso shopping area left 20 people dead and more than two dozen injured.
___
1:30 p.m.
FBI agents have executed search warrants at three homes in the Dallas-Fort Worth area where suspected El Paso gunman Patrick Wood Crusius had stayed.
An agency spokeswoman, Melinda Urbina, declined to give more details on the locations.
One of them was the home of his grandparents in Allen, Texas, where authorities shut down streets following the shooting.
Allen, located 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of Dallas, is an affluent community of about 100,000.
The shooting Saturday at an El Paso shopping area left 20 people dead and more than two dozen injured. Crusius has been booked on capital murder charges in connection with the attack. Authorities say they are investigating the shooting as a possible hate crime and could seek the death penalty.
--- Associated Press reporter Jake Bleiberg in Dallas.
___
1:20 p.m.
Police in the hometown of the suspected gunman in a Texas mass shooting say they had few past interactions with 21-year-old Patrick Wood Crusius.
Authorities in the Dallas suburb of Allen, Texas, released a statement Sunday saying their contact with Crusius "can be described as limited at best."
Crusius has been booked on capital murder charges nearly 600 miles (966 kilometers) away in El Paso. At least 20 people were killed and more than two dozen injured when a gunman opened fire at a shopping area in the Texas border city Saturday.
Allen police say Crusius was reported as a juvenile runaway in 2014 but returned home roughly a half-hour later. He was also among eight students on a school bus involved in a minor crash in 2016 that resulted in no injuries.
Allen police say their last involvement with Crusius came in March, when he reported a false residential alarm at his grandparents' home.
___
12:50 p.m.
The president of a leading Hispanic group says politicians such as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and President Donald Trump must stop making anti-immigrant statements that he blamed for "costing the lives of innocent people."
Speaking in downtown El Paso on Sunday, League of United Latin American Citizens president Domingo Garcia said that "unfortunately what we saw here was another massacre by again somebody using racial hatred as a basis to kill people of Mexican American descent, and we need to stand up and fight against it."
A shooting at a shopping area in El Paso Saturday left 20 people dead. Authorities increasingly believe that an anti-immigrant screed posted before the attack was written by 21-year-old Patrick Wood Crusius. He was arrested and booked on capital murder charges in connection with the shooting. Prosecutors say they are investigating the attack as a possible hate crime.
___
12:20 p.m.
Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard says Mexico will take legal action to protect Mexicans and Americans of Mexican descent after the shooting in El Paso, Texas.
In a video statement, Ebrard called the shooting an "act of barbarism" and said the country's first priority is attending to the impacted families.
Next, he said, Mexico plans to seek legal measures to protect Mexican nationals and Mexican-Americans in the U.S.
Mexican officials say three Mexican nationals were killed and another six were wounded in the Saturday shooting at a Texas Wal-Mart.
El Paso is a popular weekend shopping destination for Mexicans who live across the border, in Ciudad Juarez.
The shooter appears to have been targeting Hispanics and authorities are investigating it as a hate crome.
- Associated Press reporter Amy Guthrie in Mexico City.
___
11:30 a.m.
President Donald Trump is ordering flags at half-staff in remembrance of the victims of two mass shootings in less than a day that killed at least 29 people and injured dozens more.
A proclamation released by the White House on Sunday says the nation shares "in the pain and suffering of all those who were injured in these two senseless attacks."
The first attack Saturday at a shopping area in El Paso, Texas, killed at least 20 people. That was followed by another shooting in a nightlife district in Dayton, Ohio, which claimed nine lives.
Trump has been out of public view since both shootings. He has reacted to the attacks on Twitter.
___
11 a.m.
A man and woman injured when a gunman opened fire in an El Paso, Texas, shopping area were there to raise money for a youth sports team one of their children played on.
Norma Coca tells Wichita, Kansas-television station KWCH that her daughter and son-in-law were near the front doors of the Walmart on Saturday morning when they were shot.
Coca, who lives in Salina, Kansas, said her daughter, Jessica Coca Garcia, was shot three times in the leg. She says her son-in-law, Memo Garcia, was shot twice in the leg and once in the back. She said Saturday that her daughter was in stable condition and her son-in-law was in critical condition.
Jessica Coca Garcia's father, Don Coca, said they have family in the El Paso area who were able to be with the couple. Don Coca says: "She was just crying ... I told her that our prayers are there and we're on our way."
The couple's 5-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter were also at the Walmart. They were not shot.
___
This version of the 11 a.m. item fixes garble in the word station; corrects 2nd reference to Don Coca; and deletes reference to Garcia's fundraising for baseball team and replaces with sports team.
___
10:45 a.m.
The police chief in El Paso is linking a racist, anti-immigrant screed posted online shortly before a shooting that killed 20 people to the suspect in custody.
Authorities have booked 21-year-old Patrick Wood Crusius on capital murder charges. El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen told reporters Sunday that "we have to attribute that manifesto directly to him." Prosecutors say they'll seek the death penalty.
The document posted online expressed concern that an influx of Hispanics into the United States will replace aging white voters, potentially turning Texas blue in elections and swinging the White House to the Democrats.
When asked whether the shooting was a hate crime, Allen said "it's beginning to look more solidly like that is the case."
Federal prosecutors say they're treating the shooting as a domestic terrorism case.
___
10:18 a.m.
A Justice Department official says the federal government is treating the El Paso shooting that killed 20 people as a "domestic terrorist" case.
U.S. Attorney John Bash said Sunday at a news conference in El Paso that the federal government is also investigating the attack at a shopping plaza with a view toward bringing federal hate crime charges.
Authorities have been working to confirm whether a racist, anti-immigrant screed posted online shortly before the attack was written by the suspected gunman, 21-year-old Patrick Wood Crusius.
El Paso County District Attorney Jaime Esparza told reporters that the state of Texas also plans to seek the death penalty.
___
9:50 a.m.
The Justice Department is seriously weighing federal hate crime charges against the El Paso shooting suspect that would carry the potential for a sentence of the death penalty.
That's according to a person familiar with the department's decision making process, who was not authorized to speak on the record and spoke on condition of anonymity to The Associated Press.
A gunman armed with a rifle opened fire in an El Paso shopping area packed with as many as 3,000 people during the busy back-to-school season, leaving 20 dead and more than two dozen injured, police said. Law enforcement officials who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity identified the suspect as 21-year-old Patrick Crusius.
--- Associated Press reporter Eric Tucker in Washington, D.C.
___
10 a. m.
A hospital official in El Paso says at least three victims of a mass shooting at a shopping area that left 20 people dead remain in critical condition.
Dr. Stephen Flaherty said Sunday that a total of 11 victims were taken to Del Sol Medical Center. They ranged in age from 35 to 82 years old. More than two dozen people in all were injured in Saturday's shooting, some of whom were treated elsewhere in the Texas border city.
Flaherty told reporters that "a number of the patients" being treated at Del Sol will need to return to the operating room, and potentially multiple times.
Jail records show that the suspected gunman, 21-year-old Patrick Wood Crusius, has been booked on capital murder charges.
___
9 a.m.
Jail records show the gunman arrested in the El Paso shooting that left 20 people dead has been booked on capital murder charges.
El Paso County records Sunday showed that 21-year-old Patrick Wood Crusius was booked at the downtown jail in the Texas border city. There was no immediate indication that he had an attorney.
Police say more than two dozen people were also injured in the attack Saturday at an El Paso shopping area.
Authorities are investigating the possibility the shooting was a hate crime. They're working to confirm whether a racist, anti-immigrant screed posted online shortly beforehand was written by Crusius.
___
2 a.m.
A gunman armed with a rifle opened fire in an El Paso shopping area packed with as many as 3,000 people during the busy back-to-school season, leaving 20 dead and more than two dozen injured, police said.
Hours later, there was another mass shooting across the country. Police in Dayton, Ohio, said nine people were killed by a shooter who was shot to death by responding officers.
Authorities are investigating the possibility the Saturday shooting in El Paso was a hate crime, working to confirm whether a racist, anti-immigrant screed posted online shortly beforehand was written by the man arrested in the attack on the 680,000-resident border city.