Texas mall gunman Mauricio Garcia may have been neo-Nazi sympathiser, police say

Published

3 years ago

May 8, 2023

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A gunman who killed at least eight people and injured several others at a Texas shopping centre was a 33-year-old suspected neo-Nazi sympathiser, police have said.

Police have named Mauricio Garcia as the gunman who opened fire on shoppers at the Allen Premium Outlets mall, in a suburb north of Dallas, on Saturday.

Garcia, who was shot dead by a police officer who happened to be at the scene, was armed with an “AR-15 style assault weapon,” according to President Joe Biden.

He was also wearing a tactical vest and was equipped with a handgun during the shooting, police added.

Garcia, who lived in Dallas, is believed to have interacted with neo-Nazi and white supremacist content online, as well as posting such content, two senior police sources told Sky News’s US partner, NBC News.

According to officers, an initial review of what are believed to be his social media accounts revealed hundreds of posts about ethnicity and race, including what is being described as violent extremist rhetoric.

Authorities also found a clothing patch with a far-right acronym on his chest.

The patch included the letters RWDS, believed to stand for Right Wing Death Squad, according to CBS, who cited two senior police sources.

Right Wing Death Squad are said to be a neo-Nazi group.

Police and the Texas Rangers, working with the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, were investigating whether the shooting was racially or ethnically motivated, officials said.

However, they stressed that the investigation was ongoing and was at an early stage.

Detectives are also said to have interviewed Garcia’s relatives and friends about his ideological beliefs.

According to reports, Garcia lived with his parents in an area of northeast Dallas.

He is also reported to have worked as a security guard.

A neighbour, who asked to be identified only as Julie, told NBC she would see Garcia going to and coming home from work every day like clockwork.

“He tried to acknowledge us but seemed a little off,” Julie said. “He wasn’t somebody you could carry a conversation with.”

She said she was stunned when she learned the suspect’s identity.

“You could have knocked me over with a feather when I found out,” she said.

Another neighbour, Gilda Bailey, said three police squad cars were parked outside his house when she got home.

She said officers were not letting the suspect’s relatives inside the residence and that she later saw the FBI removing items from Garcia’s home.

Saturday’s shooting is the second deadliest mass shooting in the US this year and the second in Texas in a little over a week.

Following the shooting, President Joe Biden renewed calls for a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, as well as to enact universal background checks and end immunity for gun manufacturers.

“Such an attack is too shocking to be so familiar. And yet, American communities have suffered roughly 200 mass shootings already this year, according to leading counts,” said Biden, who ordered flags to be lowered to half-mast.

There is little chance that the Republican-controlled House or the narrowly Democratic Senate would pass such legislation, despite polls showing most Americans support background checks.

There have been at least 199 mass shootings in the US so far in 2023, the most at this point of the year since at least 2016, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

The president added in a tweet: “Jill and I are praying for their families [of the victims] and those critically injured.

“We’re grateful to the first responders who acted quickly and courageously.”

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, called the shooting “devastating” in a Sunday morning interview on Fox News.

But he said that the best way to tackle gun violence effectively is through improved mental health services.

“There has been a dramatic increase in the amount of anger and violence that’s taking place in America,” he said.

“We are working to address that anger and violence by going to its root cause, which is addressing the mental health problems behind it.”

US

Trump says he will cancel all Biden executive orders ‘signed with autopen’

Published

4 hours ago

November 29, 2025

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Trump says he will cancel all Biden executive orders 'signed with autopen'

Donald Trump has said he will cancel all executive orders that he claims were signed with an autopen by his predecessor Joe Biden.

The US president alleged Mr Biden was “not involved” in signing the orders and claimed “the radical left lunatics circling Biden around the beautiful Resolute Desk in the Oval Office took the presidency away from him”. He did not provide any evidence for his claims.

An autopen is a device which reproduces a person’s signature, allowing them to repeatedly sign documents without having to do so by hand each time.

In a post on his Truth Social platform, he said: “Any document signed by Sleepy Joe Biden with the Autopen, which was approximately 92% of them, is hereby terminated, and of no further force or effect.

“The Autopen is not allowed to be used if approval is not specifically given by the President of the United States.”

He added: “I am hereby cancelling all Executive Orders, and anything else that was not directly signed by Crooked Joe Biden, because the people who operated the Autopen did so illegally.

“Joe Biden was not involved in the Autopen process and, if he says he was, he will be brought up on charges of perjury.”

Mr Trump has repeatedly claimed Mr Biden was not mentally capable by the end of his term and his staff made decisions on his behalf, using an autopen to sign them off without his knowledge.

Mr Trump has not provided any evidence for his claims, while Mr Biden and his former aides have denied they made decisions on his behalf.

In June, Mr Biden said: “Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency.

“I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false.”

Mr Trump has also used an autopen, but claimed he only used it “for very unimportant papers”.

Earlier this year, Mr Trump replaced a portrait of Mr Biden in the Oval Office with a picture of an autopen signing the former president’s name.

US

Suspect in US National Guard shooting now facing first-degree murder charge

Published

13 hours ago

November 28, 2025

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Suspect in US National Guard shooting now facing first-degree murder charge

The suspect in the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington DC is facing a first-degree murder charge.

It follows the death of one of the soldiers, 20-year-old Sarah Beckstrom.

The other soldier, Andrew Wolfe, 24, was taken to hospital in critical condition after the incident on Wednesday afternoon. On Friday, West Virginia’s governor said Wolfe remained in a “very critical condition”.

US attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office said the suspect, 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, now faces charges including one count of first-degree murder, three counts of possession of a firearm during a crime of violence and two counts of assault with intent to kill while armed.

Pirro said there are “many charges to come” beyond the upgraded murder charge and that Lakanwal had driven across the country to launch an “ambush-style” attack with a revolver.

She said her heart went out to the family of Beckstrom, who volunteered to serve and “ended up being shot ambush-style on the cold streets of Washington DC by an individual who will now be charged with murder in the first degree”.

President Donald Trump called Beckstrom, part of the West Virginia guard, a “highly respected” and “magnificent person”.

Investigators are continuing to execute warrants in the state of Washington, where the suspect lived, and other parts of the country, Pirro said.

However, she declined to discuss the suspect’s motive, saying officials have been working around the clock on that question.

Officials said Lakanwal entered the US in 2021 through Operation Allies Welcome, a Biden administration programme that evacuated and resettled tens of thousands of Afghans after the US’s chaotic withdrawal from the country.

People who knew him say he served in a CIA-backed Afghan Army unit before immigrating to the US.

Kristina Widman, who claims to be Lakanwal’s former landlord, said he had been living in Bellingham, close to Seattle, with his wife and five children.

The #AfghanEvac charity said Lakanwal applied for asylum during the Biden administration, but his asylum was approved under the Trump administration.

On Wednesday night, Trump called for the reinvestigation of all Afghan refugees who had entered under the Biden administration.

The director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services, Joseph Edlow, said in a statement that the agency would take additional steps to screen people from 19 “high-risk” countries “to the maximum degree possible”.

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The President has since said he wants to “permanently pause migration” from poorer nations and is promising to seek to expel millions of immigrants from the US by revoking their legal status.

Organisations that work with refugees are worried that those who fled dangerous situations to start again in America will face a backlash after the shooting.

US

US to review immigration from 19 countries after Washington DC double shooting

Published

16 hours ago

November 28, 2025

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US to review immigration from 19 countries after Washington DC double shooting

The US will review green cards issued to the citizens of 19 countries after two members of the National Guard were shot by a suspected Afghan gunman in Washington DC.

Immigration from Afghanistan has also been suspended indefinitely, the White House said, following the double shooting on Wednesday.

Joseph Edlow, director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), revealed the order from President Trump.

He wrote on X, formerly Twitter: “At the direction of @POTUS, I have directed a full scale, rigorous re-examination of every Green Card for every alien from every country of concern.”

Asked which countries would be affected, USCIS pointed to a presidential proclamation from June listing 19 countries.

The proclamation sought to “fully restrict” arrivals from Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen.

It also “partially” restricted arrivals from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela.

Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, has been named as the suspected gunman in this week’s shooting and has been detained.

He worked as part of a CIA-backed unit in Afghanistan, and reportedly came to the States under a programme meant to help Afghans who’d risked their lives assisting US troops in Afghanistan.

He’s thought to have driven thousands of miles to the capital from his home in Washington state, where he lives with his wife and five children.

Attorney general Pam Bondi called him “a lone gunman” who “opened fire without provocation, ambush style”.

President Trump described him as a “savage monster”.

He was granted asylum in April this year, according to NBC News.

One of his victims, 20-year-old Sarah Beckstrom, died of her wounds, while the other, Andrew Wolfe, 24, remains in a critical condition.

Lakanwal reportedly came to the US under Operation Allies Welcome, a programme enacted by former President Joe Biden after he pulled American forces out of Afghanistan in 2021.

Edlow explictly targeted the previous president as he announced the new green card regime.

He wrote on X: “The protection of this country and of the American people remains paramount, and the American people will not bear the cost of the prior administration’s reckless resettlement policies.”

Speaking after the attack, President Trump was even more caustic.

He said: “The suspect in custody is a foreigner, who entered our country from Afghanistan, a hellhole on Earth.

“He was flown in by the Biden administration in September 2021 on those infamous flights that everybody was talking about.

“His status was extended under legislation signed by President Biden – a disastrous president, the worst in the history of our country.”

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He continued: “This attack underscores the greatest national security threat facing our nation.

“The last administration let in 20 million unknown and unvetted foreigners from all over the world, from places that you don’t even want to know about.

“No country can tolerate such a risk to our very survival.”