Racist gunman killed three and then himself, sheriff says
A white man killed three black people in a racially motivated attack in Jacksonville, Florida before killing himself, the city’s sheriff has said.
The man, who appeared to be in his early 20s and was wearing body armour, entered a Dollar General store and opened fire, killing two men and a woman.
Sheriff T K Waters said two men and a woman were killed by the gunman, who wore body armour and left manifestos.
“This shooting was racially motivated, and he hated Black people,” Jacksonville Sheriff TK Waters told a press conference.
“This is a dark day in Jacksonville’s history,” he said. “Any loss of life is tragic. But the hate that motivates the shooter’s killing spree adds an additional layer and heartbreak. There is no place for hate in our community, and this is not Jacksonville.”
Jacksonville’s mayor Donna Deegan said it was a “hate-filled crime” driven by racist hatred. Speaking to local TV channel WJXT, she said: “One shooting is too much but these mass shootings are really hard to take.”
The sheriff said the shooter, who is yet to be officially named, carried both a handgun and a lightweight semi-automatic rifle. Mr Waters described his weapons as a Glock and an “AR-15 style” rifle, with swastikas on it.
He is believed to have acted alone and allegedly wanted to kill himself.
He lived in Jacksonville’s Clay County with his parents and left several messages about his plans, Sheriff Waters said, including one to his parents and another to the media.
The FBI has opened a civil rights investigation into the shooting.
The attack comes tens of thousands of people gathered in Washington on the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington and Martin Luther King Jr’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech.
The attack occurred less than a mile from the historically black Edwards Waters University.
In a statement, the university’s president Dr A Faison said:” “It’s not lost on us that this was, in fact, a racially motivated act.
“It’s also not lost on us that this is the second time in the past 18 months that Florida’s first historically black college and or university has been subject to potential racial violence,” he said, referencing the bomb threat issued to multiple institutions in February 2022.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis called the gunman a “scumbag” and described the shooting as “horrific”.
“He [the gunman] was targeting people based on their race, that is totally unacceptable,” said Mr DeSantis, who is challenging Donald Trump to become the Republican presidential nominee in 2024 and has advanced controversial policies attacking “critical race theory”.
He added: “This guy killed himself rather than face the music and accept responsibility for his actions and so he took the coward’s way out.”
The White House has said President Joe Biden had been briefed on the shooting.
In a statement provided to CBS News, Dollar General said it was “heartbroken by the senseless act of violence that occurred at our Kings Road store”, adding that “supporting our Jacksonville employees and the DG family impacted by this tragedy is a top priority as we work closely with law enforcement”.
There have been over 28,000 gun deaths in the US so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive website.
