British-born Chris Harper-Mercer has this morning been named as the gunman who opened fire at the American college yesterday, killing at least nine people.
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Authorities investigating the massacre said they had found a number of firearms at the 26-year-old’s apartment. They also linked him to a blog post on August 31, 2015 about a man, Vester Flanagan, who killed two TV news employees in Virginia.
“He is a father, a veteran, a student, and now he’s a hero”, Bourgeois wrote on the GoFundMe page, beneath a picture of Mintz and his son. The Eugene-area hospital says in a news release that two of them are in critical condition and one is in serious condition.
His family members in North Carolina, where the 30-year-old is from, said they weren’t surprised in the least that Mintz charged at the shooter Thursday. Lt. Col. Ben Garrett, an Army spokesman, said Christopher Sean Harper-Mercer was in service at Ft. “It’s been a devastating day”.
“It’s something that Chris and many others are trained to do”, he said.
He says it’s impossible to identify mentally ill people likely to perpetrate mass shootings ahead of time.
“It’s been a bad day”.
Today, a friend posted an update to Mintz’s Facebook profile, saying, “Chris asked me to thank everyone for their support, he is grateful and keeping our community and all victims in his thoughts”.
Survivors and their families say the killer asked people if they were Christians, but investigators have yet to determine the shooter’s motive, reports CBS News correspondent John Blackstone.
“The shooter was lining people up and asking if they were christian”, tweeted Bodhi Looney, who said her grandmother was in the room as the shooting unfolded. He believes the gunman didn’t spot him, Vicari said – adding that J.J. was struggling to deal with what he witnessed.
Chatman said several hundred investigators are involved, ranging from federal agencies such as the FBI and ATF to state, county and city law enforcement.
‘An additional amount of ammunition was also recovered at the apartment’.
Mintz is far from the only veteran at the school, with the school’s interim president, Rita Cavin, referencing how the military subset of the student body may be particularly affected in the coming days and weeks.
President Obama issued a plea for greater gun control and bemoaned that America is “the only advanced country on Earth who sees these kind of mass shooting every few months”.
“It’s not enough”, he repeated.
One such hero is a man who used to live in Tacoma, who was shot multiple times while running at the gunman.
“We’re not sure how his legs got broken”, she told NBC.
The 19-year-old was in a writing class when she heard a sound like a “ruler smacking a chalkboard”. I’m here if you need anything! “I kept envisioning someone is going to come around the corner and and shoot the windows out”.
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The Mintz family said it’s fortunate that Mintz’s father had just returned from visiting him on the west coast, spending lots of time with his son and grandson.
