Inside the El Paso shooting: A store manager, a frantic father, grateful survivors

By the time it was over, 22 people would die, 25 would be wounded, and a white man with an AK-47-style weapon and a hateful heart would surrender to authorities without a fight.In a tragedy that drew a presidential visit and ignited demands for gun control, countless lives were forever changed Aug. 3 by a stranger who police say drove nearly 600 miles from suburban Dallas and opened fire, later telling police, "I'm the shooter" and that he targeted "Mexicans."The impact will be measured for years, and some of the events of that day are still unfolding. Let’s raise some money for your team.” Reluctantly, Madison crawled out of bed, put on her summer league soccer jersey and headed to the car for the 25-minute drive to the Walmart, where she and her dad would meet her teammates for a day of fundraising.The EP Fusion all-girls soccer team had planned to sell fresh-squeezed juices for $2.50 and chicharrones (pork rinds) for a buck apiece outside the store. Evans saw several people shot there.“Once I saw more rounds coming out, and these people dropping, I proceeded back into the store,” Evans said. He looked back to the tent area and saw a puff of smoke.Then came a second gunshot.“I looked at my daughter and said, ‘Run!’ “ McGuire said. McGuire remembers running through the home décor section and seeing towels and kitchen items, and then veering into another section.“I looked at my daughter and said, "Run!" It just felt like time stopped.”"Shooter, shooter!" Evans said into his radio. “I was grabbing (customers) by the shirt, by the arm,” and getting them to run to the emergency exits at the back of the store and the Garden Center exit on the side of the store facing Cielo Vista Mall, Evans said.“'Come on, come on, you got to go out the exits,'” he remembered yelling to the customers in English and Spanish. “'This isn’t a test, we need to get out of the building right now.'” ----Octavio Ramiro Lizarde, a 23-year-old construction worker from El Paso, was in line with his nephew at a bank inside the store when the gunman stormed in. “I thought something fell over and crashed." People started running toward the back of the building in a panic — a lot of people.“And then I saw some women that were dripping blood,” he said. There was an active shooter in El Paso, it said, but he didn’t know where, how many shooters there were or how many people were injured.“Usually, that message doesn’t ... The man, who had been driving, was “kind of slouched over and he was bleeding heavily from his back,” and in the front, he said.----El Paso Mayor Dee Margo was in Austin, 576 miles away, attending a Saturday morning meeting in the state capital when he started getting alarming emails.“It was pretty stressful,” Margo said. I thought about it and prayed.”----Evans eventually made it back to the front entrance where he had been taking his break, and police were there.“The officers taped off the store and wouldn’t let me back in,” Evans said.One of his assistant managers had helped employees hide in the store’s money center and then started helping the wounded.A customer said the shooting was over. But he said his faith will give him the strength to one day forgive.“I really hope that if he doesn’t get the death penalty, I hope he gets better mentally and realizes what he did and betters his life,” he said.When he's released from the hospital, Lizarde wants to tattoo Javier's face on his body. They say he surrendered without a fight.The suspect did not have a rifle on him, a police spokesman said, declining to say where the rifle was found and other details, citing the ongoing investigation.Crusius showed no remorse to investigators and appeared to be in "a state of shock and confusion,” police Chief Greg Allen said.The mass shooting is being considered a hate crime and federal prosecutors are looking at domestic terrorism charges.Crusius was charged with capital murder and was being held in isolation in the El Paso County Jail. El Paso County District Attorney Jaime Esparza has said that prosecutors will seek the death penalty.----McGuire got his daughter and her soccer friends away from the store about 11:15 a.m.They drove to his girlfriend’s house, where they drank water, cried and consoled one another. You cannot tell the difference between where El Paso ends and Juárez, Mexico, begins.”Around 8 p.m., staff at Del Sol had all patients “tucked in and safe,” Flaherty said. The couple, relatives said, had just dropped off their dog at a pet groomer before stopping at the Walmart just five minutes from their home.David Campos of San Juan, Texas, had never visited his big brother in El Paso, a place that Leonardo had grown to love for its scenic views and culture.