El Paso’s DA vows: ‘We will seek the death penalty’ against mass shooting suspect

The man suspected of killing 20 people and injuring 26 others in El Paso on Saturday is being charged with capital murder by the state of Texas and El Paso’s district attorney Jaime Esparza vowed Sunday morning: “We will seek the death penalty.”

“I know the death penalty is something very powerful, but in this occasion it’s something that’s necessary,” Esparza said, declaring that suspect Patrick Wood Crusius had “lost the right to be among us.”

In addition, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said it is looking at bringing federal hate crimes and firearms charges that would also carry a potential death sentence.

U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas, John Bash, said the mass shooting was being treated as a case of “domestic terrorism” — because “this meets [the definition], it appears to be designed to intimidate a civilian population.”

Bush promised: “We’re going to do what we do to terrorists in this country, which is to deliver swift and certain justice.”

Authorities said a document they believe was written by the 21-year-old white man currently under arrest, has a “nexus to a potential hate crime.” (Watch the entire news conference by authorities in the video player below.)

The four-page document posted online espouses white nationalist and racist views. It rails against immigrants and Hispanics, blaming immigrants and first-generation Americans for taking away jobs and for the blending of cultures in the U.S.

“We have to attribute that manifesto directly to him,” El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen said Sunday. “And so we’re going down that road.”

FBI El Paso Special Agent in Charge Emmerson Buie said three search warrants related to the shootings have been executed outside of El Paso, but he did not elaborate.

An FBI spokeswoman later confirmed agents executed search warrants at three homes in the Dallas-Fort Worth area where Crusius had stayed. One of them was the home of his grandparents in Allen, an affluent community of about 100,000 that’s located 20 miles north of Dallas.

Crusius surrendered to police after Saturday’s mass shooting “without incident,” and was jailed without bond, authorities said. There was no immediate indication that he had an attorney.

Chief Allen told reporters that Crusius has been talking to investigators.

“He was forthcoming with information. He basically didn’t hold anything back,” Allen said during Sunday’s news conference, declining to comment on specifics of what the alleged gunman told investigators.

But ABC News reported that two law enforcement officials indicated Crusius told investigators he wanted to shoot as many Mexicans as possible.

The officials also said an assault-style rifle, similar to an AK-47, was secured at the scene along with several magazines. El Paso police confirmed Sunday that a rifle was used in the mass shooting, and investigators said the weapon used in the shooting was purchased legally.

Police said they did not reveal when or where the weapon was purchased. However, Allen acknowledged that it is legal under Texas law to carry a long gun openly in a public place.

“Of course, normal individuals seeing that type of weapon might be alarmed,” but before he began firing, the suspect was technically “within the realm of the law,” Allen said at the news conference on Sunday. “Within our purview, allowed to open carry, that weapon [is] allowable in state of Texas, yes.”

The document police believe the suspect wrote was posted on 8chan, an online messaging board full of racist, bigoted and anti-Semitic content. A CNN analysis of the document reveals it was posted less than 20 minutes before police received the first calls about the shootings.

The online rant speaks of a “Hispanic invasion of Texas.”

El Paso County is more than 80% Latino, according to the latest census data. Tens of thousands of Mexicans legally cross the border each day to work and shop in the city.

(ABC News, CNN and the Associated Press contributed to this report.)