{"id":396182,"date":"2026-08-03T05:00:05","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T05:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/396182\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T05:00:05","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T05:00:05","slug":"el-paso-marks-seven-years-since-the-august-2019-walmart-shooting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/396182\/","title":{"rendered":"El Paso marks seven years since the August 2019 Walmart shooting"},"content":{"rendered":"

EL PASO, Texas (KTSM<\/a>) \u2014 Twenty-three names. Each read solemnly as those in attendance were lost in their thoughts, thinking back to that fateful day seven years ago.<\/p>\n

Sunday night, Aug. 2, El Paso County held its annual remembrance ceremony, marking the Aug. 3, 2019 Walmart shooting.<\/p>\n

In a hate-filled rage, a gunman shot down and murdered 23 people at the Cielo Vista Walmart and wounded more than 20 others.<\/p>\n

\t
\n\t\tHow El Paso plans to remember those lost on Aug. 3\t<\/a><\/p>\n

Each year, El Paso gathers to remember what is the darkest day in its history, to remember the victims but also to honor the heroes. El Paso also remembers how neighbors and the community in general came together in resilience and love in the aftermath of this mass shooting.<\/p>\n

County Judge Ricardo Samaniego says he looks back on being able to create the Healing Garden at Ascarate Park, a place where the community can come together to remember and heal from the trauma of that day.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I\u2019m so glad that we\u2019re able to have this kind of a special place because it was a very tragic situation,\u201d Samaniego said. \u201cBut we\u2019ve turned this day into a very special day. I mean, it\u2019s a very, very special day for everyone.<\/p>\n

\u201cI get to meet the families and it\u2019s unbelievable that you see the healing process because they\u2019ll tell you a story or an incident that I hadn\u2019t heard before,\u201d Samaniego said.<\/p>\n

Sunday night\u2019s event included welcoming remarks from Catholic Bishop Mark Seitz and Pastor Michael Grady. White doves were released to mark the occasion. <\/p>\n

The highlight each year is the solemn reading of the names of the 23 people who lost their lives that day.<\/p>\n

Samaniego said that El Paso has been able to come together in its grief to create something special in the Healing Garden and in the way that residents remember the events of that day. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019ve seen, we have the eternal flame. We have that beautiful mural behind us,\u201d Samaniego said. \u201cAnd I was so very proud that we all came together and decided to never forget that.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, very few communities that have had these mass shootings have ever done something of this nature. We\u2019re one of the very few,\u201d Samaniego said.<\/p>\n

Samaniego said that the Healing Garden at Ascarate Park is a special place.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything is significant \u2014 the smell of the flowers,\u201d Samaniego said. \u201cYou want to get all senses going. The water, the vision, obviously. And of course, just everybody contributed.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the plants here are from UTEP, and everything else just came together,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) \u2014 Twenty-three names. Each read solemnly as those in attendance were lost in their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396183,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[138,140,139],"class_list":["post-396182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}