ALLEN, TEXAS: Mauricio Garcia, the 33-year-old shooter who allegedly killed eight people and injured seven others at Allen Premium Outlets Mall on May 6, scouted the location three weeks prior to the deadly shooting. Garcia uploaded over 12 photos of the mall and the area around it to an account on OK.RU, also known as Odnoklassniki which is the second most used social network in Russia.
Aric Toler, the Director of Research & Training at Bellingcat, as per Daily Mail, shared the details on Twitter, writing, "Took a while, but I found the Odnoklassniki profile of the Allen. TX shooter described in this NYT article." He also shared the link to the suspect's YouTube account, which stands deleted.
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Toler tweeted, "The most recent post on his OK profile is basically his manifesto/suicide note. He closes it with a quote from South Park." In another tweet, he wrote, "Flashback to @IwriteOK's 2019 Bellingcat article on how mass shootings have been 'gamified', with the Allen shooter talking about a "decent kill score" in Nashville."
He then shared the post from April 21 that showed a vest with RWDS patch on it, followed by a picture mentioning, "He was trying to be the Zodiac Killer I guess." Toler also posted a shirtless picture of the suspect, writing, "His personal politics were very hard to figure out." The picture showed his body filled with white power tattoos which included SS lightning bolts and a swastika.
'He was monitoring the peak visiting times on Google'
Toler pointed out, "Worth noting that the Allen shooter didn't have any friends or groups on his OK profile -- he used it like a personal diary. He may have chosen OK because it has virtually zero content moderation." And then added, "Christ, just noticed this -- he was at the mall where he did the attack 3 weeks prior. He was monitoring the peak visiting times on Google."
The account was also filled with photos of guns and ammunition. Toler wrote, "Receipt for the Kit that the Allen, TX shooter bought back in 2020, posted a few weeks before the shooting. He also posted photos of his weapons." And further added, "Boxes upon boxes of ammunition that he apparently received a few weeks before the shooting. These photos were posted at the same time as pictures he took at the Allen Mall."
Toler then concluded by saying, "Probably done posting in this thread, but in summary: The Allen shooter was obviously a white supremacist / neo-Nazi. He was basically announcing that he was going to do a mass shooting for months beforehand, and planned his target weeks in advance."