The gunman who killed 23 people in a racist attack at an El Paso Walmart in 2019 in one of the the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history has been offered a plea deal to avoid the death penalty. The decision was announced Tuesday by El Paso County District Attorney James Montoya. It marks an abrupt end to years of efforts by prosecutors to see that 26-year-old Patrick Crusius face execution by lethal injection. Crusius has already been sentenced to 90 consecutive life sentences at the federal level after pleading guilty in 2023 to hate crime charges. Additionally he was charged in state court with capital murder.
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