By Steve Gorman<br> May 9 (Reuters) -<br> The man who shot eight people to death at a Dallas-area shopping mall over the weekend harbored neo-Nazi sympathies but appeared to have targeted his victims at random, without regard for race, age or sex, Texas law enforcement officials said on Tuesday.<br> Authorities also disclosed new details about the gunman’s background.

They said he was discharged from U.S. Army basic training 15 years ago, had once worked as a private security guard and suffered from an unspecified mental illness.<br> The suspect, previously identified as Mauricio Garcia, 33, opened fire with an AR-15-style rifle on Saturday at the crowded Allen Premium Outlets mall in Allen, Texas.<br> The carnage ended about four minutes later when a lone police officer confronted and fatally shot Garcia in a swift response that “undoubtedly saved countless lives, said Hank Sibley, a regional director of the Texas Department of Public Safety.<br> The officer was not publicly identified.<br> The eight people slain in the attack included three children – two young sisters as well as a 3-year-old boy from a different family whose parents were also killed. In addition, 10 other people, ages 5 to 61, were wounded.<br> Investigators recovered three firearms, including the murder weapon, from the gunman’s possession, and five more from his vehicle, and Garcia had legally obtained all eight guns, according to Sibley.<br> “The big question we’re dealing with now is: what’s his motive?

Why did he do this? We don’t know,” Sibley said at an afternoon press conference, adding investigators believe Garcia acted alone.<br> From evidence reviewed so far, including clothing patches and tattoos, “we do know that he had neo-Nazi ideation,” but it was too early in the investigation to say whether the shooting could be considered an act of domestic terrorism, Sibley told reporters.<br> “To me, it looks like he targeted the location rather than a specific group of people,” Sibley said. “He was very random in the people he killed.

It didn´t matter the age, race or sex. He just shot people, which is horrific in itself.”<br> The assailant had enlisted in the Army in 2008 but was discharged before completing basic training over “some questions about his fitness for duty,” Sibley said.<br> Garcia, who had no criminal history before Saturday’s shooting, also had once obtained a state security license, since expired, and worked as a security guard for several firms some time ago, Sibley said.<br> Authorities have given few details about the nature and extent of Garcia’s neo-Nazi sympathies.<br> Multiple news outlets have reported in recent days that the gunman left behind a<br> social media<br> profile filled with white-supremacist ideology, praise for Hitler and diatribes vilifying racial minorities and women.<br> At the time of the shooting, Garcia also wore a patch bearing an “RWDS” insignia, a symbol associated with violent right-wing extremists, including the Proud Boys, according to news media organizations. RWDS is an acronym known to stand for “Right Wing Death Squad.”<br> The author behind some of the posts under investigation repeatedly suggested he was of Hispanic heritage and as recently as last month included a post saying that “white people and Hispanics have a lot in common,” the New York Times reported. (Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Daniel Trotta and Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Will Dunham and David Gregorio)<br>

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