About 20 minutes before the shooting started at an El Paso Walmart, a rambling screed was posted to an online message board saying the massacre was in response to an "invasion" of Hispanics coming across the southern border.
Titled "The Inconvenient Truth," it railed against the dangers of mass immigration and warned that Hispanics will eventually take over the economy and government.
The writer argued that attacking "low-security" targets was a way to "fight to reclaim my country from destruction."
"We have to attribute that manifesto directly to him," El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen said Sunday at a news conference. "And so we're going down that road."
The online rant speaks of a "Hispanic invasion of Texas." "They are the instigators, not me," it says. "I am simply defending my country from cultural and ethnic replacement brought on by an invasion."
Though a Twitter account that appears to belong to Crusius included pro-Trump posts praising the plan to build more border wall, the writer of the online document says his views on race predated Trump's campaign and that any attempt to blame the president for his actions was "fake news."
Still, some of the language included in the document parroted Trump's own words, characterizing Hispanic migrants as invaders taking American jobs and arguing to "send them back."
On his LinkedIn page, since removed, it lists a job bagging groceries and the comment: "I'm not really motivated to do anything more than what's necessary to get by. Working in general sucks. ... I spend about 8 hours every day on the computer so that counts toward technology experience I guess."
Under skills, he posted "Nothing really."
Crusius responded by tweeting "#BuildTheWall is the best way that @POTUS has worked to secure our country so far!"
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