Police haven’t identified the man and are continuing to search for a motivate behind this tragic attack. Chief John Mina spoke at a press conference Saturday morning, saying, “The suspect is not from Orlando”.
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REFRESH FOR UDPATES Fans, famous and otherwise, expressed shock and sadness over the murder of The Voice contestant Christina Grimmie. She died early Saturday.
“She was doing a meet-and-greet, just signing autographs and selling merchandise”. “We just decided today that we would meet here and honor her and her attractive life, her kind soul”, Ashley Durkot, one of the attendees, told ET. “We believe he came here to commit this crime”.
In 2014, she placed third on the The Voice, a singing competition on NBC, with Maroon 5 lead singer Adam Levine as her coach. Her YouTube channel has more than 11,000 followers.
Below is Grimmie’s first YouTube video from 6 years ago.
Grimmie, 22, was greeting fans along with members of the band Before You Exit after a performance yesterday at the Plaza Live music venue when a gunman approached and opened fire shortly before 10.30pm, police said.
Grimmie’s brother, Marcus, immediately tackled the gunman, who then shot and killed himself during the struggle, police said.
Police spokeswoman Michelle Guido says the suspect was 27 years old. Around 120 others were in The Plaza Live at the time.
“Very heroic actions by Marcus Grimmie to jump in and it definitely could have prevented further loss of life”, Mina said.
A prayer group made up of girls who had been at Grimmie’s Friday night show formed at Lake Eola Park, about two miles from The Plaza Live, to hold a small vigil on Saturday. They said he had two loaded handguns, additional ammunition and a hunting knife at the time of the shooting. “Everyone is just running all over the place”, said Martin, who traveled to see to the concert from Brunswick, Georgia.
The man came to Orlando from another city in Florida, and planned to return there, Mina said.
The venue has no metal detectors, but does employ security guards to check peoples’ bags for weapons, Mina said.
“Christina was a talented young artist and we know that her fans and supporters want as much information as possible”, the police statement said.
In her last tweet on Friday around noon, Grimmie posted a video inviting people to her concert in Orlando. “We are all praying hard that you can pull through this … this just isn’t fair”.
“There are no words”, tweeted “The Voice” early on Saturday. We lost a attractive soul with an unbelievable voice.
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The Philadelphia Inquirer reported in 2014 that Grimmie moved to Los Angeles in 2012 after joining Selena Gomez on tour to focus on her singing career. And it’s unknown if he had contacted her on social media. “She’s very talented and she’s worked incredibly hard – it’s a risky combination”, her brother Mark Grimmie told the newspaper at the time.
