logo
Man with assault rifle killed after shooting at Texas border patrol facility

Man with assault rifle killed after shooting at Texas border patrol facility

The Guardian08-07-2025
A man with an assault rifle fired dozens of rounds at federal agents and a US border patrol facility in Texas on Monday, injuring a police officer, before authorities shot and killed him.
Authorities identified the shooter as Ryan Louis Mosqueda, believed to be 27, who they said shot at agents exiting the building, which is near the US-Mexico border. McAllen police chief, Victor Rodriguez, said Mosqueda had a 'utility vest' in addition to the rifle when federal agents returned fire.
Hours before the attack in McAllen, Mosqueda's father was stopped by Weslaco police at about 2.30am for a traffic violation, according to police spokesperson Heriberto Caraveo. The father told police that he was looking for his son, who he said had psychological issues and was carrying weapons in his car, Caraveo told the Associated Press.
Police say the white two-door sedan that Mosqueda drove to the facility had letters painted – possibly in Latin – on the driver's side door.
'What it means, or whether or not it is an underlying reason for him being here, I do not know,' Rodriguez said when asked about the graffiti.
After Mosqueda was killed, law enforcement found other weaponry, ammunition and backpacks inside the vehicle.
'There are many, many more rounds of ammunition in his backpack,' Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez said his department received a call about the shooting around 5:50am One officer who responded to the shooting, a 10-year veteran, was injured after being struck in the knee. Rodriguez said it was unclear if the injury was from shrapnel or a bullet.
Police say Mosqueda was linked to a Michigan address, but was reported missing from a Weslaco, Texas, address around 4am Monday. Weslaco is about 20 miles (32km) from the border patrol facility.
'An hour and a few minutes later, he was at this particular location opening fire on the federal building and our federal agents,' Rodriguez said.
The exact details of the missing person report were not immediately shared with the media.
Rodriguez said there is no ongoing threat to the public, but it is unknown if any other people were involved in the attack. He said the motive and events leading up to the attack are part of the ongoing investigation, which the FBI is taking the lead on.
The attack comes as Donald Trump 's administration ramps up deportations, which will be turbocharged by a sweeping spending bill that became law last week. Stephen Miller, the president's deputy chief of staff and chief architect of his immigration policies, recently set a target of at least 3,000 immigration arrests a day, up from about 650 a day during the first five months of the administration.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Epstein furor undermines public trust, Republican election hopes, two US lawmakers say
Epstein furor undermines public trust, Republican election hopes, two US lawmakers say

Reuters

time26 minutes ago

  • Reuters

Epstein furor undermines public trust, Republican election hopes, two US lawmakers say

WASHINGTON, July 27 (Reuters) - The uproar over disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein could undermine public trust in the Trump administration, as well as Republican hopes of retaining control of Congress in the 2026 midterm elections, two U.S. lawmakers said on Sunday. Republican Representative Thomas Massie and Democratic Representative Ro Khanna, who want the House of Representatives to vote on their bipartisan resolution requiring full release of the government's Epstein files, said the lack of transparency is reinforcing public perceptions that the rich and powerful live beyond the reach of the judicial system. "This is going to hurt Republicans in the midterms. The voters will be apathetic if we don't hold the rich and powerful accountable," Massie, a hardline conservative from Kentucky, told NBC's "Meet the Press" program. Republicans hope to add to their current 219-212 House majority - with four seats currently vacant - and 53-47 Senate majority in November 2026, although the U.S. political cycle traditionally punishes the party of the sitting president during midterm elections. The Washington Post reported late on Sunday that Trump was increasingly frustrated with his administration's handling of the furor around Epstein. Even so, the president was hesitant to make personnel changes to avoid creating a "bigger spectacle" as his top officials underestimated the outrage from Trump's own base over the issue, the newspaper reported, citing unnamed sources. Khanna said Attorney General Pam Bondi triggered "a crisis of trust" by saying there was no list of Epstein clients after previously implying that one existed. The change in position unleashed a tsunami of calls for her resignation from Trump's MAGA base. "This is about trust in government," the California Democrat told "Meet the Press." "This is about being a reform agent of transparency." President Donald Trump, who on Sunday announced an EU trade deal in Scotland, has been frustrated by continued questions about his administration's handling of investigative files related to Epstein's criminal charges and 2019 death by suicide in prison. Massie and Khanna believe they can win enough support from fellow lawmakers to force a vote on their resolution when Congress returns from its summer recess in September. But they face opposition from Republican leaders including House Speaker Mike Johnson, who sent lawmakers home a day early to stymie Democratic efforts to force a vote before the break. Johnson, who also appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press," said he favors a non-binding alternative resolution that calls for release of "credible" evidence, but which he said would better protect victims including minors. "The Massie and Khanna discharge petition is reckless in the way that it is drafted and presented," Johnson said. "It does not adequately include those protections." Massie dismissed Johnson's claim as "a straw man" excuse. "Ro and I carefully crafted this legislation so that the victims' names will be redacted," he said. "They're hiding behind that." Trump has tried and failed so far to distract attention from the Epstein controversy six months into his second term. On Saturday, Trump repeated his claims without evidence that 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and other Democrats should be prosecuted over payment for endorsements from celebrities including Oprah Winfrey, Beyonce and the Reverend Al Sharpton. Last week he accused former President Barack Obama of "treason" over how the Obama administration treated intelligence about Russian interference in U.S. elections nine years ago, drawing a rebuke from an Obama spokesperson. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch Trump ally, said on Sunday that Tulsi Gabbard, Trump's director of national intelligence, had found new information that investigators initially discovered no evidence of Russian election interference but changed their position after Obama told them to keep looking. "I'm not alleging he committed treason, but I am saying it bothers me," Graham told "Meet the Press." Democratic Representative Jason Crow dismissed Gabbard's claims, telling the "Fox News Sunday" program that the national intelligence director had turned herself into "a weapon of mass distraction." The Department of Justice has said it is forming a strike force to assess Gabbard's claims.

Tulsi Gabbard becomes ‘weapon of mass distraction' as Trump White House grapples with Epstein fallout
Tulsi Gabbard becomes ‘weapon of mass distraction' as Trump White House grapples with Epstein fallout

The Independent

timean hour ago

  • The Independent

Tulsi Gabbard becomes ‘weapon of mass distraction' as Trump White House grapples with Epstein fallout

Critics have accused Tulsi Gabbard of trying to shield Donald Trump's administration from scrutiny through her recent claims that top Obama administration officials should be prosecuted for leading a 'coup' against the president in 2016 by investigating Russian efforts to help his campaign. The allegations and conspiracy theories 'would be sad if they weren't so dangerous,' Democratic Rep. Jason Crow told Fox News on Sunday. 'She has turned herself into a weapon of mass distraction, is what I've been calling it." Crow accused Trump's national intelligence director of 'trying to curry and get back into favor with Donald Trump and has concocted these theories to do so,' an apparent reference to Gabbard and Trump's public disagreement over the state of Iran's nuclear program. This month, Gabbard spearheaded the release of materials regarding the then-outgoing Obama administration's attempts to probe Russian influence operations during the 2016 election. Critics saw the release as an attempt to distract from continued criticism of the Trump administration for its handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files and the president's ties to the late financier, who died in prison while awaiting a federal sex trafficking trial. 'Nothing in this partisan, previously scuttled document changes that,' Senator Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told The Hill after the disclosures. 'Releasing this so-called report is just another reckless act by a Director of National Intelligence so desperate to please Donald Trump that she is willing to risk classified sources, betray our allies, and politicize the very intelligence she has been entrusted to protect,' he said. Gabbard claims the Obama materials, including a declassified 2020 Republican report from the House intelligence committee, reveal his 'years long coup' against Trump. She claims that top Obama officials pushed to override past intelligence findings to allege that Russians specifically wanted to boost the Trump campaign, rather than undermine faith in the U.S. election system more generally, and has called for Obama and others to face criminal charges. Trump has echoed such claims, sharing a fake, AI- generated video of Obama being arrested and thrown in jail on his Truth Social account. As evidence of the alleged coup, Gabbard honed in on past conclusions that Russian actors did not successfully hack digital voting infrastructure or change vote counts, suggesting these findings clashed with intelligence officials' later assessments that Russia sought to help Trump. Susan Miller, a former CIA officer who helped oversee the 2017 intelligence assessment, said Gabbard was 'lying.' 'We definitely had the intel to show with high probability that the specific goal of the Russians was to get Trump elected,' Miller told NBC News, adding that intelligence officials had briefed Trump on their findings and he had thanked them. 'At the same time, we found no two-way collusion between Trump or his team with the Russians at that time,' she said. Obama's office issued a rare public statement denouncing Gabbard's allegations. 'These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction. Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes,' a spokesperson said. The White House has pushed back against the argument that Gabbard's investigation is a partisan play. 'The only people who are suggesting that the director of national intelligence would release evidence to try to boost her standing with the president are the people in this room who constantly try to sow distrust and chaos among the president's Cabinet,' White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a Wednesday briefing. 'And it's not working,' she said. Multiple assessments have backed up the intelligence community's original findings of a general, one-way Russian influence operation that sought to boost Trump through tactics like hacking Democratic party materials and spreading disinformation online, even though the Trump campaign itself wasn't shown to have collaborated on the effort. Special counsels have investigated both the underlying 'Russiagate' claims and the origins of the FBI investigation into the Trump campaign without uncovering any intentional 'coup' by the Obama administration. A bipartisan 2020 report by the Senate Intelligence Committee — which Marco Rubio was leading at the time — concluded intelligence officials put together a 'coherent and well-constructed intelligence basis for the case of unprecedented Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.' During the 2024 election, Trump and his allies campaigned on a promise to rid the federal government, and in particular U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies, of politicization, arguing he had been a victim of partisan backlash — with two impeachments, two federal indictments and several criminal and civil cases, including a felony conviction on 34 counts. Since taking office, however, Trump has faced criticism that he is in fact driving politicization of those same entities, through actions like sanctioning law firms that worked with political opponents and calling for the prosecution of his various real and perceived critics. Over the weekend, the president ranted on social media and threatened to prosecute Kamala Harris, Oprah Winfrey and Beyonce while lashing out at news networks whose 'licenses could, and should, be revoked,' claiming without evidence that Democrats spent millions 'probably illegally' seeking high-profile celebrity endorsements during the 2024 campaign.

Moment hero Marine subdues knifeman after 11 shoppers stabbed in 'terror' rampage at Walmart
Moment hero Marine subdues knifeman after 11 shoppers stabbed in 'terror' rampage at Walmart

Daily Mail​

time2 hours ago

  • Daily Mail​

Moment hero Marine subdues knifeman after 11 shoppers stabbed in 'terror' rampage at Walmart

A heroic shopper stepped in to save the lives of terrified locals at a Walmart after a deranged knifeman stabbed 11 people in a 'terror' rampage. The man, identified as ex-Marine Derrick Perry, pulled out a concealed firearm and held knifeman Bradford James Gille at gunpoint until officers arrived at the scene. The 42-year-old Gille had already stabbed 11 people inside the Michigan Walmart and is facing charges of terrorism and assault with intent to murder, according to Grand Traverse County Prosecutor Noelle Moeggenberg. But bystanders credited Perry for potentially saving the lives of many more shoppers. His intervention stopped Gille in his tracks and gave frightened onlookers a chance to flee. It is understood he had a permit to carry a concealed weapon. 'This is what the Second Amendment is all about,' one supporter said, praising Perry for his heroic actions. 'You are a true hero and this town is blessed for people like you,' another wrote. Perry's daughter described her father's instinct to help as a 'proud daughter moment', while his daughter-in-law added that he is a 'true hero.' 'So proud of him for protecting so many,' she added. Others are calling for him to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Video circulating on social media showed the terrifying moment Gille confronted the knife-wielding madman in the parking lot of the Walmart. Perry, along with several other men, cornered Gille in the car park and forced him to drop his weapon. The suspect looked stunned as the tables quickly turned on him. Another man was armed with a shopping cart as he helped to corner Gille. In the chaos, one of the brave men lost his shoes as he shouted: 'Throw the knife away! Throw it away! Another shouted: 'Get on the ground!' 'Drop the knife! Drop it!' another bellowed. Gille backed away slowly until one of the men tackled and subdued him. Police later said he kept repeating: 'I don't care. I don't care.' Moeggenberg, the county prosecutor, told reporters that the terrorism charge will be brought due to the fact that investigators believe Gille intended to 'affect the entire community, to put fear in the entire community, and to change how maybe we operate on a daily basis.' The horrific attack unfolded at the Walmart in Traverse City on Saturday afternoon. Gille allegedly entered the store during a calm shopping afternoon and randomly stabbed the victims with a folding pocket knife, authorities say. Moeggenberg called the attack 'a very random act of violence.' Gille, who police said is a Michigan resident, remains in custody at the Grand Traverse County Jail and is expected to be arraigned Monday or Tuesday. Sheriff Mike Shea praised the quick response from law enforcement officers who arrived within three minutes after receiving the call about the stabbing but also a group of bystanders who intervened and detained Gille in the parking lot. Calls began coming in to authorities at 4:43pm on Saturday and a sheriff's deputy arrived at 4:46pm. 'I cannot commend everyone that was involved enough. When you stop and look from the time of call to the time of actual custody, the individual was detained within one minute,' Shea said at Sunday's press conference. 'That is remarkable. When you look at it in that mitigated Lord knows how many additional victims.' Shea said the 11 victims were both men and women and they ranged in age from 21 to 84. One victim was a Walmart employee. Munson Medical Center Chief Medical Officer Dr. Tom Schermerhorn said at a press conference Sunday that one patient was treated and released; two were in serious condition; and the rest are in fair condition. Walmart said in a statement Saturday that it would continue to work closely with law enforcement in the investigation. On Sunday, a spokesman said he didn't have any details about the store reopening and had no updates beyond the statement released late Saturday. 'Violence like this is unacceptable. Our thoughts are with those who were injured and we're thankful for the swift action of first responders,' the statement read. FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said in a social media post that bureau officials were responding to 'provide any necessary support'. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said: 'Our thoughts are with the victims and the community reeling from this brutal act of violence.' Traverse City is a popular vacation spot on the coast of Lake Michigan. It is known for its cherry festival, wineries and lighthouses and is about 25 miles east of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store