Texas mall shooter had a memory card with a handwritten note, handcuffs and a hat marked “security”
The Texas gunman who killed eight people and wounded another seven when he opened fire at an outlet mall last weekend had a memory card with a handwritten note attached and three boxes of ammunition in his motel room.
Mauricio Garcia, 33, was staying at the Budget Suites of America on North Stemmons Freeway in Dallas before shooting up the Allen Outlet Mall on Saturday afternoon.
There, a new unsealed warrant says, investigators found a wealth of evidence linking Garcia to the fatal shooting — including three boxes of ammunition, a tactical vest, a knife in the sheath, nine bullets in a “critical defense box,” handcuffs, a rifle handguard and an extra holster.
They also found two black hats, one emblazoned with the phrase “Killin It” and the other with “Security,” several micro CD cards, a micro SD adapter with a handwritten note on it, and receipts from the Carolina firearms company caliber. , as well as one for GT distributor tactical gear and several other notes.
It is unclear what was on the handwritten notes.
DailyMail.com verified a photo of gunman Mauricio Garcia uploaded to an account on a Russian social media site showing him next to a Hooters waitress at a Texas branch. It was uploaded alongside the caption, ‘Me at the Twin Peaks in Frisco on Preston Road. That’s a girl who knows how to make a boy smile. How to drive a man crazy.’
Garcia stayed at the Budget Suites of America on North Stemmons Freeway in Dallas before shooting up the Allen Outlet Mall on Saturday afternoon
Garcia had recently moved out of his parents’ home in Dallas, it has been reported
An army spokesman has since confirmed that Garcia had been a member of the US military in 2008 but was discharged due to mental health issues.
“Mauricio Garcia joined the regular army in June 2008,” Army Public Affairs spokeswoman Heather J. Hagan said in a statement to WFAA.
“He was discharged three months later without completing initial entry training,” she said. “He was not given a military occupational specialty. He had no broadcast or awards.’
An unnamed Army official also told the news station that Garcia was “divorced under the 2005 edition of Army Regulation 635-200, Sections 5-17, “Other Designated Physical or Medical Conditions.”
“This is a common discharge for recruits unable to adjust to military life,” explains attorney Bradford J Glendening, a former member of the US Army Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps.
“Soldiers who are discharged without completing initial entry-level training will receive an uncharacterized discharge,” which is “exactly what they sound like,” he said.
“They are neither favorable nor unfavorable,” Glendening said. “No benefits are earned, nor lost, with an uncharacterized layoff.”
Garcia went on to work in security, WFAA reports, and had recently moved out of his parents’ home.
A bulletin sent by the FBI to local law enforcement agencies said: “An initial review and triage of the subject’s social media accounts revealed hundreds of posts and images containing writings containing racially and ethnically motivated violent extremist rhetoric, including neo-Nazi material and material in which the supremacy of the white race.’
One such social media account, reviewed by DailyMail.com, was littered with photos of Nazis, guns and ammunition, as well as extremist diatribes about Jews, women and racial minorities.
And in the weeks before he committed the senseless mass shooting at the Allen Premium Outlets, more than two dozen photos of the mall and its surroundings were uploaded to an account on the OK.RU platform, including screenshots from Google location information tracking. peak visit times.
Both Toler and NBC said the account, on Russian site OK.RU, belonged to Garcia, who was shot on the spot.
Posts on Garcia’s social media accounts show a series of shirtless photos with white power tattoos on his body, including SS Lightning Bolts and a swastika
The account was littered with Nazi messages. The following four photos were all uploaded with the caption: ‘My kind of people’
Messages also include Google location information that monitors peak times downtown
The account on the OK.RU site is also full of photos of weapons and ammunition
A post appears to show the receipt for the guns and ammunition he bought in 2020 and ended up using to carry out the shootings.
Other photos include a body armor that appears to match the one described by witnesses to the shooting, which features an acronym for “Right Wing Death Squad” — a popular meme among far-right extremist groups.
In a video showing the account holder giving a tour of his apartment, a tattoo visible on his hand appears to match the one in a photo of Garcia lying dead after being shot by police Saturday at Allen Premium Outlets.
Posts also show a series of shirtless photos with white power tattoos on his body, including SS Lightning Bolts and a swastika.
The account also links to other sites, including a YouTube account with a video allegedly showing Garcia removing a “Scream” mask before asking in a modulated voice, “Not quite what you expected, huh?”
The video was uploaded before shooting, but would be published later, according to Bellingcat researcher Eric Toler.
The OK.RU account also features posts about Hitler, “superior races,” and wanting to escape life, while enthusiastically writing about mass murderer Jeffrey Dahmer.
The last entry on OK.RU contained the lyrics to a heavy metal song titled “You’ve dug your grave now lie in it.”
The shooter, Mauricio Garcia, was dressed in SWAT gear with a semi-automatic weapon at his side. He is seen dead outside another Allen store ten yards from the H&M store
Eight people at the mall were killed in the massacre at the Allen Premium Outlets and seven others were injured
Footage from Saturday’s deadly shooting shows the gunman stopping by the Allen Premium Outlets in the afternoon.
Dashcam video also showed him getting out of a car, then shooting at people on the sidewalk. More than three dozen shots were heard as the vehicle recording the video drove away.
Authorities say Garcia used an AR-15 style weapon during the mass shooting and was dressed in full tactical SWAT gear at the time.
He was then shot and killed on the spot by a police officer.
Investigators have said they believe Garcia worked alone, but have not yet released a motive for the shooting.