Shooter at Mexico's Teotihuacán pyramid admired school shooters and Hitler - BERITAJA

MEXICO CITY — The assailant who opened occurrence connected visitors from a pyramid astatine 1 of Mexico’s signature archaeological sites — leaving a Canadian female dormant and 13 different overseas visitors injured, including 6 US. citizens — was a copycat who admired overseas schoolhouse shooters and meticulously planned the attack, Mexican authorities said Tuesday.

“Everything indicates that this personification had traits of psychological problems, and was influenced by episodes that person occurred” extracurricular Mexico, said President Claudia Sheinbaum said astatine her greeting news conference.

The shooter, identified arsenic Julián César Jasso Ramírez, 27, changeable himself dormant astatine the segment arsenic constabulary and National Guard troops clambered up the steep steps of the Pyramid of the Moon to face him soon earlier mid-day Monday astatine the Teotihuacán archaeological park, 25 miles northeast of Mexico City.

The tract is among the about visited touristic attractions successful Mexico, hosting almost 2 cardinal visitors past year.

A backpack recovered by the assailant’s assemblage contained lit about different wide shootings, including the 1999 Columbine massacre successful Colorado, authorities said.

Media reports present indicated that the slayer was a far-right extreme and admirer of Hitler. The onslaught occurred connected April 20, which is some Hitler’s day and the day of the Columbine schoolhouse shooting.

The slayer employed a azygous revolver — a .38 Special Smith and Wesson, making love from 1968, authorities said. He besides carried a weapon successful his backpack. He took an Uber to the execution tract and stayed successful a adjacent hotel, authorities said, and he had scouted the area and planned the onslaught for days.

Police and soldiers exchanged occurrence pinch the fishy successful a melodramatic segment astatine the pyramid, arsenic he tried to flight and terrified visitors sought cover. He was changeable erstwhile successful the ft earlier he killed himself, authorities said

Mexican authorities described the incident arsenic a one-off that should not scare disconnected visitors successful a federation wherever tourism is captious to the economy, but vowed to bolster information astatine archaeological sites, apt by installing metallic detectors. Currently, visitors to about archaeological parks look small screening.

“This has ne'er happened before,” Sheinbaum said.

Monday’s shooting fanned interest for Mexico’s captious tourer manufacture astatine a pivotal moment.

Starting successful June, Mexico is owed to big matches for the World Cup shot tournament, a arena that is expected to tie hundreds of thousands of visitors from crossed the globe. Mexican authorities were speedy to repetition earlier assertions that a strict regimen was successful spot to protect to the matches.

“We are convinced that the information of the World Cup is guaranteed,” Mexico’s national information chief, Omar García Harfuch, told reporters.

Six victims remained hospitalized connected Tuesday, authorities said. The injured included some visitors pinch gunshot wounds and others who injured themselves while trying to flight the gunman connected the 140-foot-high pyramid.

The 1 fatality was a Canadian woman. Six U.S. citizens were among the injured.

All of those injured were foreigners, authorities said. It was unclear whether the shooter targeted overseas visitors deliberately.

Mexico has a overmuch higher homicide complaint than the United States and often experiences wide violence, often successful the discourse of organized crime.

But Mexico has not traditionally been the tract of what experts specify arsenic “public wide killings,” for illustration what occurred astatine Columbine High School successful 1999, wherever shooters fired astatine random successful an effort to summation notoriety.

And, experts say, foreigners are seldom targeted successful Mexico’s predominant spasms of violence, overmuch of which is linked to cartel warfare, supplier smuggling and different rackets, including extortion.

Experts successful unit opportunity the largest percent of specified shootings globally hap wrong the U.S. but are connected the emergence successful different developed countries, including a caller spate of schoolhouse shootings successful Western Europe.

Adam Lankford, a criminologist astatine the University of Alabama who has studied the world proliferation of wide shootings, said the net gives wide entree to online communities wherever wide shooters are idolized.

Lankford’s information show a emergence successful wide shootings globally, pinch galore shootings influenced by killings successful the U.S.

“Sometimes the United States has a product, for illustration bluish jeans, aliases McDonald’s, that becomes globalized and fashionable everywhere. It’s benignant of a horrific thought but the aforesaid point could hap pinch bad behaviors, and that’s what the information we collected has shown,” Lankford said.

He added that “attacking a nationalist landmark fits the thought of a fame-seeking attack. Picking a symbolic target is simply a measurement to almost guarantee yourself much attention.”

Lankford said location is simply a shape of attackers shooting from heights, citing a 1966 incident erstwhile a gunman opened occurrence from the University of Texas timepiece building and the 2017 shooting successful Las Vegas, wherever a gunman killed 60 group astatine a performance by firing from the 32nd level of a hotel.

Special corresondent Liliana Nieto del Río contributed.