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A gunman who ‘hated Black people’ killed three people of colour at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, Florida, city authorities said.
The man, who has not been publicly identified and was described as being in his early 20s, stormed the shop with a swastika-scribbled gun and had written lengthy hate-filled manifestos.
According to the authorities, he left his parents’ home in neighbouring Clay County at 11:39am.
At 1:18pm, he texted his father to check his computer – there the dad discovered his son’s ‘manifestoes’ discussing his ‘disgusting ideology of hate’.
About 30 minutes later, the gunman entered the budget shop on Kings Road.
Two men and a woman were killed by the man, who also wore body armour. He is believed to have acted alone and allegedly wanted to die by suicide.
He was armed with an AR-15-style rifle that bore swastika markings, as well as a handgun, Jacksonville County Sheriff’s Office said at a news conference yesterday.
A white man fuelled by anti-Black hate fired shots inside a discount store in Jacksonville, Florida, killing three Black people (Picture: AFP/Getty Images)
One of the shooter’s weapons was scribbled with a swastika (Picture: AFP)
The Clay County Sheriff’s Office received a call from the gunman’s parents at 1:53pm, igniting a tense stand-off as he barricaded himself inside the Discount General.
‘The suspect was located and pinned down by officers. He was subsequently found deceased and is believed to have taken his own life,’ the Jacksonville County Sherrif’s Office said in a post on X, formally known as Twitter.
None of the victims have been publicly named.
‘He targeted a certain group of people and that’s Black people. That’s what he said he wanted to kill. And that’s very clear,’ Sheriff TK Waters said at the conference.
‘This is a dark day in Jacksonville’s history. There is no place for hate in this community,’ the sheriff added.
‘I am sickened by this cowardly shooter’s personal ideology.’
Waters said police are now probing the gunman’s motives, history with law enforcement and how he obtained the firearms.
The FBI will investigate the shooting as a hate crime, Sherri Onks, the bureau’s special agent for Jacksonville, said at the conference.
The shooter had been spotted only moments before the rampage on the campus of Edwards Waters University, a historically Black university.
University administrators sent out an emergency alert asking students to remain in their dorms until the incident was under control.
‘An on-campus Edward Waters University security officer engaged an unidentified male in the vicinity of the Centennial Library on campus,’ the college said.
‘The individual refused to identify themselves and was asked to leave.’ (The man then left ‘without incident’, it added.)
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis called the gunman a ‘scumbag’ in a video yesterday evening.
‘He was targeting people based on their race, that is totally unacceptable,’ the Republican presidential hopeful said.
The Clay County Sheriff’s Office added in a Facebook post that officers are working together with their Jacksonville counterparts to investigate the ‘heinous act’.
The shooting rattled the tight-knit community (Picture: AP)
‘We know that one person’s actions are not a reflection of our community as a whole,’ the office added.
In a statement to CBS News, Dollar General said it was ‘heartbroken by the senseless act of violence that occurred at our Kings Road store’.
There have been at least 470 mass shootings in the US so far in 2023, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
‘Too many Americans, in Jacksonville and across our country,’ Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, said, ‘have lost a loved one because of racially-motivated violence.’
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‘I am sickened by this cowardly shooter’s personal ideology.’