A British woman has been named as one of the victims of the Oregon college shooting.
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Others weren’t as fortunate. Others were killed after being told to crawl across the floor.
The Douglas County Sheriff, John Hanlin, has refused to say the shooter’s name, stating that he doesn’t want to “glorify” him, but officials have said he is Christopher Sean Harper-Mercer and that he was killed at the scene in a shoot-out with police.
The body-armored gunman then was killed in a shootout with police.
Bonnie Schaan, mother of 16-year-old Cheyeanne Fitzgerald who was shot in the attack, said her daughter told her the shooter chose a male student and handed him an envelope.
Neighbour Steven Fisher said he had never spoken to Mercer.
A source told ABC News that Harper-Mercer gave papers and a thumb drive to someone at the school before the shooting that were filled with statements about “sexual frustration” and “racial animus toward black men”.
One of those wounded, Chris Mintz, 30, a US Army veteran who served in Iraq, was credited with probably saving lives when he stopped the gunman from entering another classroom before police arrived.
Lacey Scroggins told her father the gunman stepped over her and shot someone else.
“The assailant was not able to make it into the classroom, because Chris stopped him”, she said, noting Mintz is hospitalized with two broken legs and seven bullet wounds. Scroggins said the gunman thought his daughter was dead as well.
Investigators found 14 firearms connected to the shooter, authorities said.
Although authorities have disclosed scant information about the gunman, they appeared to be learning more about him and why he might have opened fire.
“I saw him shoot in the window and that’s when I knew ‘Oh my god I have to get out of here, I have to leave this campus”, Roy said.
“They talk about gun control”.
Hanlin said investigators were poring through numerous leads and had interviewed hundreds of people, including neighbors and family members of the shooter, to try to determine what set off the rampage.
Salas said it was like telling the victims “you’re going to be meeting your maker”.
Mercer’s family said in a statement that they were “shocked and deeply saddened” by the shooting.
The details of his weapons arsenal emerged as Oregon governor Kate Brown urged that the debates over America’s gun laws wait, to allow the community to support grieving families.
Mercer was a student at Umpqua and was enrolled in the class where he opened fire, according to authorities.
Shelly Steele, who hired Harper, a nurse, to care for her own son, told the newspaper Harper “said she had multiple guns and believed wholeheartedly in the Second Amendment and wanted to get all the guns she could before someone outlawed them”. He told the man’s mother he would mention her son during his Sunday church service and ask for prayers.
The dead ranged in age from 18 to 67 in the attack in Roseburg, a rural timber town about 180 miles south of Portland.
Los Angeles Superior Court records show Mercer’s parents were married in 1989, the year their son was born; separated in 1990; and their divorce was finalised in 2006. According to a few survivors, he asked whether they were Christian before opening fire on them.
Mercer said he was unaware his son had firearms.
Those who knew Harper say he was withdrawn, close to his mother, and sought a community online.
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He also apparently expresses sympathy for the Irish Republican Army.
