Three people have been killed in a shooting spree that cops say deliberately targeted black people.
The killings – just the latest incident in a regular stream of gun violence in the United States – happened in Jacksonville, Florida, yesterday (August 26). The shooter killed himself after the attack.
“This shooting was racially motivated and he hated black people,” said sheriff TK Waters.
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The sheriff said the masked killer was a white man in his 20s who left behind manifestos outlining his “disgusting ideology of hate” and his motive for the attack, reported CNN.
The gunman, who targeted black people at a Dollar General store, lived in Clay County, south of Jacksonville.
He was armed with a rifle and a handgun. One of the guns he used had a swastika on it.
Condemning the violence, Florida governor Ron DeSantis – who’s running to become the Republican presidential candidate – called the gunman a “scumbag” and sent his condolences to the victims’ families.
Police said the attacker had texted his dad and told him to check his computer. It was there that his dad found what the sheriff called “manifestoes”, and he called the cops.
But it was too late as by that time the gunman had already started his hateful killing spree.
Students at the nearby Edward Waters University were locked down in their halls during the spree. The gunman was seen on the campus before heading to the Dollar General, but no one there was hurt.
“He took that opportunity to put his bulletproof vest on outside and to put his mask on outside and then proceed to the store where he committed this horrible act,” the sheriff told CNN.
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Jacksonville mayor Donna Deegan said the attacker barricaded himself inside the shop after shootings.
Sherri Onks, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Jacksonville office, said: “We have opened a federal civil rights investigation, and we will pursue this incident as a hate crime.”
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