The suspected gunman in the Jacksonville, Florida shooting that took the lives of three black people has been identified. Officials announced Sunday that Ryan Christopher Palmeter, 21, is the man who went on this “racially motivated killing” at a local Dollar General store.
As we previously reported, Three people were killed in shooting at a Dollar General in Jacksonville, Florida, on Saturday, authorities said. All three victims were Black, and the suspect detailed a “disgusting ideology of hate” in writings, according to Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters. “Plainly put, this shooting was racially motivated and he hated Black people,” Waters said of the suspect.
The gunman was armed with an AR-15-style rifle and a handgun and outfitted in a tactical vest when he shot three people — two men and a woman — before turning the gun on himself, according to Waters. No other injuries were reported in the shooting. “This is a dark day in Jacksonville’s history,” Waters said. “As a member of this Jacksonville community, I am sickened by this cowardly shooter’s personal ideology of hate.”
Palmeter had authored several manifestos, for his parents, the media and federal agents, detailing his hatred of Black people, police said.
Mr Waters said those manifestos “detailed the shooters disgusting ideology of hate”.
“Finely put: this shooting was racially motivated and he hated black people.”
“The manifesto is, quite frankly… the diary of a madman”, he said. “He knew what he was doing. He was 100% lucid. He knew what he was doing and again, it’s disappointing that anyone would go to these lengths to hurt someone else”.
Mr Waters said Palmeter had been briefly detained for 72 hours in 2017 under the Baker Act, mental health legislation that allows the involuntary detainment of an individual for treatment.
But the sheriff said his weapons had been acquired legally, telling reporters the problem was not with the availability of guns, but with the killer being “a bad guy”. He urged people not to “look for sense in a senseless act of violence”.
Jacksonville police played CCTV video at the news conference showing the moment Palmeter walked up to the car where he killed the first woman with his gun loaded. It then cut to video of him entering the shop. Mr Waters also confirmed that Palmeter let some people out of the shop without injuring them.