"On Thursday, September 12, 2019, an El Paso County Grand Jury indicted Patrick Crusius for Capital Murder in relation to the shooting deaths of twenty-two individuals at the Cielo Vista Walmart on August 3, 2019", the release said. "Capital Murder is the highest charge in the State of Texas and is punishable by death or life imprisonment without parole if found guilty".
The release noted that El Paso Country District Attorney Jaime Esparza will seek the death penalty against Crusius.
On 3 August, the 21-year-old Crusius killed 22 people and wounded more than 20 others when he opened fire in a Walmart shopping centre in El Paso.
Crusius admitted that he had intentionally targeted Mexican nationals, according to a police report. The Office of Mexican Secretary of Foreign Affairs Marcelo Ebrard said that seven Mexican citizens were killed in the shooting.
US Attorney for the Western District of Texas John Bash said the US Justice Department is treating the shooting as a case of domestic terrorism.
In another mass shooting incident that took place less than 24 hours after El Paso incident, a gunman killed nine people in Dayton, Ohio. Police said they neutralised the shooter, identified as 24-year-old Conner Betts, in less than a minute.
