Online pictures showed Mauricio Garcia having Nazi tattoos
A social media page appearing to belong to a gunman who killed eight people at a Dallas-area outlet mall had shared extremist beliefs with rants against Jews, women and racial minorities posted since September, as well as posts about struggling with mental health.
Mauricio Garcia, 33, maintained a profile on the Russian social networking platform OK.ru, including posts referring to extremist online forums, such as 4chan, and content from white nationalists, including Nick Fuentes, an antisemitic white nationalist provocateur.
In the weeks before the attack, Garcia posted more than two dozen photos of Allen Premium Outlets, where an officer killed him after the shooting Saturday, and surrounding areas, including several screenshots of Google location information, seemingly monitoring the mall at its busiest times.
Many of his posts referred to his mental health. In his final post, he lamented what his family might say and wrote that no psychologist would have been able to fix him.
In another post, he made disturbing comments about what makes a mass shooting "important" and praised a person who opened fire at a private Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee, this year, killing six people, including three children.
The shooter also posted a series of links to other sites, including a YouTube account that featured a video published the day of the shooting. In it he removed a "Scream" mask and said, "Not quite what you were expecting, huh?"
He also posted photos of a flak vest emblazoned with patches, one of them with the initialism for "Right Wing Death Squad," a popular meme among far-right extremist groups. Another post included a series of shirtless pictures with visible white power tattoos, including SS lightning bolts and a swastika.
The shooter was armed with multiple weapons, including an AR-15-style rifle and a handgun, authorities said.
Agents with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were tracing at least four weapons found at the scene, a law enforcement source said, including weapons found in his vehicle.
Electronic receipts posted on the shooter's social media account appear to show he spent more than $3,200 on three types of firearms he bought in June through a Dallas gun distributor.
Many of Garcia's other posts were misogynistic, railing against women and parroting language used in incel, or involuntary celibate, communications. In the posts, Garcia referred to specific incel forums and valorized a gunman whose 2014 mass murder spree in Isla Vista, California, is celebrated in incel communities.
Authorities have not revealed a motive. A senior law enforcement source said the gunman's social media site is part of the investigation.
The officials said the preliminary review found the gunman's social media posts were not liked or shared by other users and stressed that the investigation continues.
An official said that authorities believe the shooter acted alone and that investigators continued to interview his relatives and friends.