El Paso shooting case being treated as “domestic terrorism”

A single capital murder charge was filed on Sunday against the man accused of killing 20 people and wounding more than two dozen others at a Walmart store in El Paso, a mass shooting authorities are viewing as a case of domestic terrorism.

Police on Sunday said he had been charged with capital murder, meaning he could face the death penalty.

US President Donald Trump has said "perhaps more has to be done" to prevent mass shootings.

"Hate has no place in our country, and we are going to take care of it," he told reporters on Sunday. "This has been going on for years, for years and years in our country and we have to get it stopped."

The president went on to link both attacks to a "mental illness problem".

"If you look at both of these cases, this is mental illness. These are people who are very, very seriously mentally ill," he said.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott said Saturday’s rampage in the heavily Hispanic city appeared to be a hate crime, and police cited a manifesto they attributed to the suspect as evidence that the bloodshed was racially motivated.

The FBI said in a statement on Sunday the attack “underscores the continued threat posed by domestic violent extremists and perpetrators of hate crimes.”

The agency said it remains concerned that more U.S.-based extremists could become inspired by these and previous high-profile attacks to engage in similar acts of violence.

The Texas rampage was followed just 13 hours later by another mass shooting. In Dayton, Ohio a gunman in body armor and a mask killed nine people in less than a minute and wounded 27 others in the city’s downtown historic district before he was shot dead by police.