horror in el paso--6/15/2026

15 Jun 2026

horror in el paso--6/15/2026

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Today's selection-- from El Paso by Jazmine Ulloa. The 2019 school shooting in El Paso, Texas:

“Here is what I remember from the place in my hometown where twenty-three people were massacred: high school dates, taking metal shopping carts for a ride through empty parking lots, filming our pranks on an old camcorder, watching the city lights and cars passing by as we waited for our parents or debated what to do next–with the night and with our lives.

“We were bored kids back then, in the early 2000s. Good students with a mischievous streak. We called ourselves Mexicanos and México Americanos and Hispanics and Latinos. Afro-Latinos and Blaxicans. Gringos and gabachos and coconuts if we looked Mexican but acted white. Presas and juniors if we had a little money. Mexas and Frontchis if we came in from Ciudad Juárez or looked like it–and our parents drove cars with license plates marked with decals that read ‘Front’ for Frontera and "Chi" for Chihuahua. Chucas and chucos if we knew our history. Chicanos and Chicanas if we had love for our patria and claimed our rights.

“Many of us were underestimated, even as we dreamed of going away to college and moving to bigger cities and living the better lives that our parents–some immigrants, some here for generations–had wanted for us. Not old enough to drink, and even after we were, we would wander through the collection of parking lots, stores, and chain restaurants off of Interstate 10 that descended into chaos on that sweltering August morning. The Cinemark cheater, Cielo Vista Mall, Olive Garden, and Walmarc, not quite suburbia, no skyscraper-lined metropolis either. This was before the city built a swankier shopping district next door, attracted a music festival and a baseball stadium, and renovated the downtown San Jacinto Plaza, which had once featured live alligators.

“Nearly four years after the mass shooting, in July 2023, friends and family members of the victims packed into a federal courtroom for the killer's sentencing. It was an exercise not unlike mass. People sat in uncomfortable pews and spoke in hushed whispers and waited in reverence. It was a ritual to punish the guilty but also to remember.

“Over the next couple of days, the people of El Chuco shared their memory–with the killer and the nation–of the lives he took and the city they shaped. Some sobbed when they first saw him enter in shackles, a navy blue jumpsuit, and thin-rimmed glasses. Most news accounts of the testimony say he bobbed his head and swiveled in his chair, showing little remorse. At least two witnesses accused him of smiling and rolling his eyes as they spoke, though some saw him hold back tears as the testimonies condemning his racist crimes went on.

“On the stand, Genesis Davila, sixteen, remembered the first crackling round of shots that sounded like fireworks, the screams of people, the blaring of a fire alarm, and the voice of an adult yelling at her and the other girls on her soccer team to ‘just run.’ Before that, they had been having fun. She had helped unload the aguas frescas from her dad's truck and set up their outside stand at the Walmart. They had been collecting a ton of donations for their out-of-state tournament. She had greeted her coach Guillermo ‘Memo’ García with a hug. It would be their last.

"We are all grieving his loss, but why was it us in pain and not you?" she asked.

“Kaitlyn Melendez remembered she was nine when she lost her grandfather David Johnson as he shielded her and her grandmother Kathleen from the gunfire. The young girl said she had thought of the mass shooting drill she had practiced in school as they walked out past the dead and injured. Back in her bed that night, she lay awake for hours, unable to sleep. Kathleen felt that the shooter had robbed her of herself, saying that since the massacre she was often deeply depressed and struggled with uncontrollable emotions. But she told the young man that he had not taken from her the memories of her husband nor ‘the light and joy he brought to his family.’

“Raymond Arraguile, David's brother-in-law, told the killer he had fired and missed.

"You hit the whitest man in El Paso–NASCAR-loving, bass-fishing, golf-loving, Dallas Cowboy–loving person–man–in El Paso,’ he mocked. ‘You hit the white man that you were not able to see in the mirror.’

“The city's origins and history ran deep in the Remembering. The people of El Chu co spoke of the bicultural and transnational veins that ran through their community, of the worlds within worlds that existed in la frontera. They were speaking out for fronterizos and Mexicans and Mexican Americans but also for immigrants and Latinos, the journeys of their loved ones tracing those of people who had passed through the Pass for over one hundred years, as well as the roots of families who had lived in the borderland long before the U.S.-Mexico border had been drawn.

“Gloria Irma Márquez, who had been huddled in the small bank branch inside the store when she was killed, had followed the paths of Mexicanos into the city from Sinaloa and had been hoping to reunite with the daughter she had been separated from for thirteen years. After years of struggling with American immigration laws, her Mexican daughter had finally been granted a visa to attend her mother's funeral. Raul Flores and his wife, Maria, who died near the checkout aisles, had met in Juárez as young adults and raised their family in the San Gabriel Valley of Southern California. They had moved back two decades earlier to a spacious, brightly lit home in El Paso.

“As a longtime ironworker, Luis Alfonso Juarez–at ninety, the oldest victim of the massacre–had scraped together a pedacito (small piece) of the American Dream, his family first told The Washington Post. He had been a traquero who worked on the railroads. He had been a construction worker who helped erect buildings across El Paso and Los Angeles. He had earned his citizenship and bought a home. Together with Martha, his wife of seventy years, he had raised a large family, including seven children and many grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren.

“In the federal courtroom, Luis Alfonso's daughter, MegJuarez, remembered both her parents had been shot but only her mother had survived. She denigrated the defendant and other ‘ignorant white supremacists’ for contributing hate to society and decrying an ‘invasion of Hispanics’ when in reality, she said, Hispanics like her father contributed more to the United States and its economy than they ever would.

"Let me tell you something: Native Americans and Mexicans were already here in Texas when your American settler homies rolled up," she testified. "Think about that when you say it is your country that you're defending."