This story was updated at 3:55 p.m. EDT to remove the description of Mauricio Garcia as an \u201cArmy veteran\u201d after a Pentagon spokesperson said Garcia\u2019s service had not warranted \u201cveteran\u201d status.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Investigators have not yet made public what drove Mauricio Garcia to open fire on weekend shoppers at a Texas outlet mall on Saturday, killing 8 people, including families, and children, of color<\/a>. But a picture is emerging of a failed soldier with alleged white supremacist beliefs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Garcia, 33, spent just three months in the Army in 2008, but was dismissed from infantry training due to a mental health issue, Army officials told Military Times. As investigators dig into Garcia\u2019s past life to determine what drove him, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism said it had found years of Garcia\u2019s past posts, spouting racist hate speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If the mass shooting is determined to be an act of domestic violent extremism, <\/b>the killings would add to a growing list of violent acts by active-duty service members or veterans. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a bipartisan think tank, veterans were responsible for 10% of all domestic terrorist attacks and plots between 2015 and 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cViolent far-right and far-left networks have solicited military personnel because of their skill sets,\u201d according to a 2021 CSIS report<\/a>. \u201cAccording to one estimate, veterans and active-duty members of the military currently make up roughly 25% of active militia members<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n News of Garcia\u2019s ouster from the Army sparked questions about whether his discharge should\u2019ve been flagged in a background check while purchasing firearms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Garcia was dismissed with an \u201cuncharacterized\u201d discharge for a mental health condition, an Army official told the Military Times, which is an entry-level discharge that signifies neither honorable nor poor service. Garcia entered the Army in June 2008 but was removed from infantry training at Fort Benning, Georgia, after three months, the Army official said, speaking anonymously to describe personnel records.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Texas, federally licensed firearms dealers must conduct a background check on gun purchasers, but private sellers do not. Moreover, Garcia\u2019s uncharacterized military discharge wouldn\u2019t have been flagged even if a background check were conducted. Only military personnel with dishonorable discharges are federally banned from owning firearms. Those discharges are given to people convicted by the military of crimes equivalent to felonies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Department of Defense submits the names of personnel with dishonorable discharges to the FBI\u2019s National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS. As of January, the NICS contained information for 19,493 dishonorably discharged service members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Texas Governor Greg Abbott responded to the shooting and Garcia\u2019s separation from the military by emphasizing the need to address mental health issues, rather than gun laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPeople want a quick solution,\u201d Abbott said in an interview on Fox News Sunday. \u201cThe long term solution here is to address the mental health issue.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n President Joe Biden said Garcia wore tactical gear and fired an AR-15-style weapon<\/a>. He urged Congress to pass legislation banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, as well as enacting universal background checks and requiring the safe storage of firearms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Officials who are investigating Garcia\u2019s possible extremist beliefs told reporters he wore a patch on his chest that read \u201cRWDS,\u201d an acronym for \u201cRight Wing Death Squad,\u201d which is a popular phrase among right-wing extremists, the AP reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The badge was worn by some members of the neo-fascist Proud Boys during the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and it appeared on shields used at the \u201cUnite the Right\u201d rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, according to the Anti-Defamation League.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Heidi Beirich and Wendy Via, co-founders of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, said Garcia exhibited multiple signs of violent extremism<\/a>, including following conspiracy theorist Andrew Anglin, who runs the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGarcia spread white supremacist and vile racist and misogynistic material online, largely on the Russian social media site, OK,\u201d Beirich said in a statement Monday. \u201cWe\u2019ve obtained Garcia\u2019s social media posts. We are currently analyzing years\u2019 worth of posts to help us better understand his radicalization process and motivations. We\u2019re also analyzing how the far-right movement is reacting to this attack.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tom O\u2019Connor, a retired FBI agent who focused on domestic violent extremism for 20 years, said in cases like this, the FBI would typically look through a suspect\u2019s phones and computers for any writings about their ideological beliefs. The AP reports that investigators are reviewing Garcia\u2019s social media posts, as well as interviewing his family members and looking into his financial records.<\/p>\n\n\n\n O\u2019Connor said determining a motive for the shooting could help prevent another attack by educating the public to be on the lookout for the neo-fascist Right Wing Death Squad insignia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cKnowledge is power, and we have to be able to get knowledge out to people so we can try to prevent some of these things,\u201d O\u2019Connor said. \u201cLaw enforcement can\u2019t do it by themselves. It has to be a community approach.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The probe into Garcia\u2019s suspected neo-Nazi ideology prompted thousands of social media comments <\/b>from people who said it was unlikely he held those beliefs because of his appearance. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia, tweeted <\/a>that Garcia \u201cappears Hispanic with what looks like a gang tattoo on his hand,\u201d and she used the moment to call for more security on the southern border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n O\u2019Connor argued that if it was proven Garcia held extremist views, his case wouldn\u2019t be unusual. He pointed to the example of Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the Proud Boys who was convicted last week of seditious conspiracy in the Jan. 6 attack. Tarrio is of afro-Cuban background.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis shooter appears to be Hispanic, and you have people saying, \u2018Well, he can\u2019t be a white supremacist.\u2019 But that\u2019s not accurate,\u201d O\u2019Connor said. \u201cThey pick their own portion of that ideology to go to.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Three other Proud Boys members convicted of seditious conspiracy alongside Tarrio were military veterans, like Garcia technically was, though his service was short-lived. A disproportionate number of veterans and service members were charged with crimes related to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the aftermath of the attacks, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered a forces-wide \u201cstand-down\u201d to teach troops what extremism is<\/a>, and the limits on troops\u2019 participation. <\/b>A policy prohibiting extremist activities within the DoD has existed in some form since 1969. In 2009, <\/b>one year after Garcia entered and was separated from the Army, the Pentagon revised the policy to add examples of prohibited behavior, which included advocating for the overthrow of the U.S. government. In 2021, the list of banned activities was expanded further, ranging from advocating for terrorism to rallying on behalf of an extremist group or sharing extremist views on social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet according to CSIS, the number of domestic terrorist plots and attacks perpetrated by service members is increasing, with 6.4% of attacks and plots were carried about by troops in 2020, up from 1.5% in 2019, and none in 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The DOD issued a 2021 report that found only a small number of extremists among service members, basing that on data from the <\/b>West Point Cyber Security Institute and the University of Maryland\u2019s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. According to that report<\/a>, there\u2019s been <\/b>only a handful extremist cases reported among service members. But the study authors acknowledge that \u201ceven the actions of a few can have an outsized impact on unit cohesion, morale and readiness \u2013 and the physical harm some of these activities can engender can undermine the safety of the total force,\u201d the report reads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This story was produced in partnership with <\/i>Military Veterans in Journalism<\/i><\/a>. Please send tips to <\/i>MVJ-Tips@militarytimes.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The suspect in the deadly shooting at a Texas outlet mall was discharged from the U.S. Army in 2008.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":106983,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":13,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[23,13,24,89],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3378,3409],"class_list":["post-72664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-disaster","category-flashpoints","category-home","category-middle-column"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"JQ4KPNZI7JCT5N2SEVY3GWWVMA","arc_canonical_url":"\/home\/left-column\/2023\/05\/08\/texas-mall-shooter-failed-army-infantry-training-over-mental-health\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n