El Paso gunman told police ‘I’m the shooter’ & admits targeting ‘Mexicans’: Arrest warrant affidavit

“I’m the shooter.” Those are the words suspected gunman Patrick Crusius told El Paso police as he got out of a car at an intersection near the eastside Walmart and approached officers with his hands in the air last Saturday morning.

That’s according to an arrest warrant affidavit by Detective Adrian Garcia, obtained by ABC-7 on Friday.

The affidavit was given to a judge early last Sunday, who ordered the 21-year-old from the Dallas-suburb of Allen held without bond on capital murder charges.

El Paso County District Attorney Jaime Esparza has said he plans to seek the death penalty against Crusius, who is charged with killing 22 people and injuring a couple dozen others in the attack.

According to the affidavit, Crusius initially declined an attorney after his arrest and spoke to investigators — telling them that he traveled to El Paso with plenty of ammunition and “once inside the store he opened fire using his AK-47 shooting multiple innocent victims.”

The detective wrote that Crusius also told police that his intended targets in the mass shooting were “Mexicans.”

Crusius has since requested and received a court-appointed attorney, Mark Stevens of San Antonio. Stevens has defended numerous murder and capital murder suspects over the years in west and central Texas. Court sources told ABC-7 that Stevens volunteered to defend Crusius.

The Council of Judges, in a statement issued Friday, called Stevens “a lawyer of considerable experience and repute” and said it decided to appoint him as the public defender in this case because of “the potential for conflicts of interest among El Paso’s legal community given the large number of people affected.”

So far, Stevens has not commented on the case or the revelations contained in the newly-released affidavit.

Below is a copy of the entire arrest warrant affidavit document obtained by ABC-7…