Anthony Paz Torres, 38, pleaded guilty on Thursday to multiple federal hate crimes in connection with a fatal shooting he carried out on Christmas Eve 2015....
Torres admitted to going to Omar’s Wheels and Tires, a Muslim-owned business in Pleasant Grove, on or about Dec. 17, 2015 and “made anti-Muslim comments, and pledged he would come back,” according to court documents. He admitted to returning to the business on Christmas Eve with a firearm and opening fire on people who were at the location “with the intent to target Muslims.”
Torres asked people at the tire shop “where they were from and if they were Muslim,” documents stated.Enrique Garcia Mendoza, a bystander who was at the business, was fatally shot. Torres admitted to shooting and injuring three others, and also opening fire at the owner of the shop. In a written statement Thursday U.S. Attorney Leigha Simonton for the Northern District of Texas said religious hatred “has no place in America.”
“And when that bigotry crosses the line into violence, we will not hesitate to hold perpetrators to account,” the statement read.For Muslims across North Texas, 9/11 set off a wave of Islamophobia that has endured to this dayWilliam White, director for the Houston chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, thanked law enforcement officials for their work on the case.
“We welcome this guilty plea and look forward to a sentence that will send a strong message of deterrence to all those who would turn bigoted views into violent action,” White wrote.
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