El Paso shooting suspect said he ordered his AK-47 and ammo from overseas

The white suspect in the racist massacre told El Paso police he bought the gun from Romania and picked it up at a Dallas-area store. Experts say guns imported from overseas are often cheaper than those from the U.S.

BY JOLIE MCCULLOUGH AUG. 28, 2019 21 HOURS AGO

When the alleged gunman walked into an El Paso Walmart earlier this month to carry out the worst massacre of Hispanic people in recent American history, he went in with an assault weapon he said he bought from Romania, according to a Texas Department of Public Safety report obtained by The Texas Tribune.

The white 21-year-old suspect in the shooting told El Paso police shortly after his arrest that the Romanian AK-47 was sent to a gun dealer near his home in Allen, a suburb outside of Dallas. He also said he bought a thousand rounds of ammunition from Russia.

El Paso police previously said that the AK-47 used in the shooting that killed 22 people was bought legally, but they did not provide any additional details about its purchase. In a manifesto published just before the shooting, the alleged shooter said the rifle was a WASR-10, a semi-automatic version of a Romanian military AK-47 weapon. The DPS report obtained by the Tribune includes a summary of the suspect's interview with police, providing more details on the weapon and the suspect's actions in the racist slaying where he said he “wanted to shoot as many Mexicans as possible.”

DPS referred questions about the report to the El Paso Police Department, which declined to comment on the investigation. The suspect's lawyer did not respond to request for comment.

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