Evil gunman Mauricio Garcia was a neo-Nazi with a chilling message written on chest when he killed eight in a mass shooting at a shopping mall, it has been revealed.
Federal agents have been reviewing social media accounts they believe Garcia, 33, used and posts that expressed interest in white supremacist and neo-Nazi views, said the anonymous official.
Garcia also had a patch on his chest when he was killed by police that read "RWDS," an acronym for the phrase "Right Wing Death Squad," which is popular among right-wing extremists and white supremacy groups, the official said.
In addition to reviewing social media posts, federal agents have interviewed family members and associates of Garcia to ask about his ideological beliefs.
Investigators are also reviewing financial records, other online posts they believe Garcia made and other electronic media, according to the official.
Allen Police Chief Brian Harvey said "we actually don't have a lot" on the investigation The Texas Department of Public Safety identified Garcia as suspected of killing eight people at a Texas outlet mall, a day after the attack turned an afternoon of shopping into a massacre.
Garcia was fatally shot Saturday by a police officer who happened to be near the suburban Dallas mall.
A law enforcement official said investigators have been searching a Dallas motel near an interstate where Garcia had been staying.
The official said police also found multiple weapons at the scene after Garcia was killed, including an AR-15-style rifle and a handgun.
Two law enforcement officials said investigators searched a Dallas home connected to the suspect.
A woman who lives three houses down from the low brick Dallas-area home that was searched said she saw a a large group of uniformed officers go into the home Saturday between 6pm and 7pm.
"They went in like real fast, and I seen them do that like twice," said Marsha Alexander, who said officers were still in the area when she went to bed around 9pm to 10pm.
They were gone by Sunday morning.
On Sunday afternoon, a woman named Julie was sitting on the porch of her house, which is next door to the house police searched the day before.
She awoke from a nap around 6pm Saturday to see four police squad cars and a large group of officers outside her neighbour's home.
She said they entered the home and were joined about an hour later by FBI agents and other people wearing plainclothes, who she also took to be law enforcement.
The woman said she did not know her neighbours well, but knew them to be "very polite, very nice people."
She said the man she now understands to have been the shooter was always friendly and would wave or honk his horn as he came and went.
At about 2pm Sunday, a man entered the home that was searched, but when reporters knocked on the door and waited, no one answered.
In a statement, President Joe Biden said the assailant wore tactical gear and fired an AR-15-style weapon.
He urged Congress to enact tighter restrictions on firearms and ammunition.
"Such an attack is too shocking to be so familiar. And yet, American communities have suffered roughly 200 mass shootings already this year, according to leading counts," said Biden, who ordered flags lowered to half-staff.
Republicans in Congress, he said, "cannot continue to meet this epidemic with a shrug."
The shooting was the latest attack to contribute to the unprecedented pace of mass killings this year in the U.S.
Barely a week before, five people were fatally shot in Cleveland, Texas, after a neighbour asked a man to stop firing his weapon while a baby slept, authorities said.
Information about the gunman in Allen emerged as the community mourned the dead and awaited word on the seven people who were wounded.
Authorities have not publicly identified those who were killed.
Three remain in a critical condition and four in fair condition, the Allen Police Department said in a statement.
Some said they also saw what appeared to be a police officer and a mall security guard unconscious on the ground.
Andria Gaither, the assistant manager at the Tommy Hilfiger clothing store, said Sunday she was at the back of the store Saturday afternoon when she saw two young girls trying to hide in a dressing room.
At first, she thought they were playing. Then she heard one say shots were being fired.
Gaither looked around to see customers and the store manager running to the back of the business.
Eventually, Gaither and the others ran out a back door.
"As soon as I got outside the back of the store, you could hear the shooting," Gaither said Sunday.
"It was so loud. I'd never ever heard anything like that in my life. It was deafening."
Allen, about 25 miles (40 kilometres) north of downtown Dallas and with a population of about 105,000 residents, is among the Dallas-Fort Worth area's diverse suburbs.
Allen also is connected to another of Texas' recent mass shootings.
Patrick Crusius lived there in 2019 before he posted a racist screed online that warned of a "Hispanic invasion" and drove to El Paso, where he opened fire at a Walmart killing 23.
Crusius, 24, pleaded guilty to federal hate crime and weapons charges in February.
Mass killings have happened with staggering frequency in the United States this year, with an average of about one per week.
