The white nationalist who shot 23 people dead at an El Paso, Texas supermarket in 2019 in a racist anti-Hispanic attack will plead guilty after execution was dropped as possible punishment, court documents showed Tuesday.
Patrick Crusius has notified the federal court in El Paso "of his intention to enter a plea of guilty," his attorney said in a recently submitted filing.
Crusius, 24, is scheduled to enter the plea to federal hate crime charges on February 8.
The move came after federal prosecutors told the court on January 17 that they would not seek the death penalty in the case.
Crusius has pleaded not guilty to murder in a separate state case that has been held back pending resolution of the federal case against him.
On August 3, 20189 Crusius drove some 660 miles (1,060 kilometers) from Allen, Texas to the Walmart Supercenter in El Paso, on the border with Mexico, with an assault rifle and more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition.
He opened fire on people in the supermarket parking lot, killing 23 and wounding 22.
According to the federal indictment, before he launched his attack he uploaded a document to the internet titled "The Inconvenient Truth" in which he said his attack "is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas."
He said he was "defending my country from cultural and ethnic replacement," referring to a concept by white supremacists claiming other ethnic groups are "replacing" them in the population.
Crusius's attack was the fifth deadliest mass shooting in US history.
It came two years after a gunman killed 58 at an outdoor concert in Las Vegas and three years after a man murdered 49 at an LGBTQ nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
