ISLAMABAD: Motivated by racial hatred, a white man fatally shot three Black individuals in a Florida discount store. Following a standoff with the police, he ultimately took his own life, according to authorities.
Jacksonville Sheriff TK Waters told a news conference about the gunman, who was in his early 20s, “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.”
As per the sheriff’s office statement, an unidentified shooter entered a Dollar General store donning a tactical vest, carrying an AR-style rifle and a handgun.
Manifestos discovered by the gunman’s family shortly before the attack “detail the shooter’s disgusting ideology of hate,” Waters said, and at least one of the guns had hand-drawn swastikas on it.
Near Edward Waters University, a historically Black college in the southern US state, the shooting occurred.
The university released a statement affirming that the shooter had been present on campus earlier that day; however, no harm was caused.
“An on-campus Edward Waters University security officer engaged an unidentified male in the vicinity of the Centennial Library on campus,” it stated.
“The individual refused to identify themselves and was asked to leave.”
The university added that the individual – later identified as the shooter – left “without incident.”
he special agent for Jacksonville at the FBI, Sherri Onks, confirmed that they will investigate the shooting as a hate crime. This decision comes in light of the incident in a city of almost one million in the northeast corner of the state.
Officials stressed that the shooter had no affiliation with a larger group, according to them.
“We know that he acted completely alone,” Waters added.
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Easy firearm access in most states and a higher number of guns than citizens in the country fuel mass shootings, which have become disturbingly common across the United States.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis denounced the “horrific” shooting and labeled the gunman a “scumbag.”
“He was targeting people based on their race, that is totally unacceptable,” said DeSantis, who is vying to be the Republican Party’s presidential candidate for 2024.
“This guy killed himself rather than face the music and accept responsibility for his actions and so he took the coward’s way out.”
Part of a weekend marked by gun violence across the United States, the shooting was a grim highlight.
On the preceding Saturday, a shooting at a Caribbean festival in the northeastern city of Boston left at least seven people hospitalized, according to police.
During a baseball game in Chicago the night before, a separate incident resulted in the shooting of two women.
Simultaneously, an argument during a high school football game in Oklahoma escalated, resulting in the shooting death of a 16-year-old and injuries to four others, as per the police report.
US President Joe Biden received briefings on the Jacksonville incident and other shootings occurring in various parts of the country over the past 24 hours, as confirmed by the White House.
Racially Motivated Attacks: Past and Present Tragedies Shake the US
The fatal episode in Jacksonville is the latest addition to a series of shooting sprees with racially motivated undertones in the United States.
In May 2022, Payton Gendron, a self-declared white supremacist, conducted a live-streamed shooting spree in a New York state supermarket, killing 10 Black individuals.
Gendron targeted the store due to the sizable African American population in the vicinity. He pleaded guilty to the killings in state court in November and received a life sentence in prison. However, he could still face the death penalty in a federal case.
In 2015, Dylann Roof, a white assailant, fatally shot nine Black people during a bible study session at a church in Charleston, South Carolina. Roof is currently on death row.
Coincidentally, Saturday’s shooting in Jacksonville occurred on the same date, five years after another mass shooting in the city, where a gunman at a video game tournament killed two individuals and wounded several others before taking his own life.
