Ryan Palmetre, 21, identified as the perpetrator. Photo: Jacksonville Sheriff's Office/via Reuters
A racist gunman shot and killed three black men at a Florida discount department store, then killed himself — as the United States endured a weekend marred by gun violence.
One of the weapons used to kill two men and one A woman from a predominantly black neighborhood in Jacksonville had swastikas painted on her, the Sheriff's Department said.
Across the country over the weekend, a teenager was shot and killed during a high school football game in Oklahoma in a shootout. injured seven revelers at a Caribbean carnival in Boston and two women were shot dead at a baseball game in Chicago.
Saturday's Florida attack came as the country was marking the 60th anniversary of Martin Luther King's March on Washington, where he delivered his famous «I Have a Dream» speech that inspired the civil rights movement.
It also happened the day before the 63rd anniversary of Hatchet Saturday, when 200 Ku Klux Klan members attacked black protesters who were holding a sit-in protesting laws preventing them from using white-only restaurants and shops.
Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters said the gunman, who police identified as 21-year-old Ryan Christopher Palmetre, texted his father at 11:39 am before leaving for Jacksonville asking him to check his computer.Discovery is filled with hate. messages, he alerted the authorities, but by then the shooting had begun.
The shooter first made his way to the campus of Edward Waters University, a historically black college.
Video surveillance of the shooting Credit: Jacksonville Sheriff's Office/via Reuters
After being confronted by a security guard, the gunman refused to identify himself and left without incident, according to the university.
Wearing body armor and carrying a pistol and a semi-automatic rifle, he then made his way to the Dollar General Store, half a mile away, and opened fire on his victims before taking his own life.
«This the shooting was racially motivated and he hated black people. He targeted a specific group of people, and that's black people. That's what he said he wanted to kill. And it's crystal clear,» Sheriff Waters said.
«This is a dark day in the history of Jacksonville,» he added. «Any loss of life is tragic, but the hatred that motivated the shooter for a series of murders adds even more grief.»
Sheriff Waters added that the weapons were legally held.
Ryan Palmetre's CCTV footage Photo: Jacksonville Sheriff's Office/via REUTERS Killer 'went down a cowardly path'
Ron DeSantis, Florida governor and Republican presidential candidate who has been criticized for relaxing gun laws in Florida, criticized the shooting.
«It was racially motivated,» Mr. DeSantis said. “He targeted people based on their race. This is completely unacceptable.
“This guy killed himself instead of facing the music and taking responsibility for his actions. And so he took a cowardly path.”
The FBI said it had opened a civil rights investigation and was investigating the shooting as a hate crime.
President Joe Biden also condemned the shooting.
“We must make it clear and strong that white supremacy has no place in America,” he said.
“We must refuse to live in a country where black families going to the store or black students going to school live in fear of being shot because of the color of their skin.
>“Hatred should not have a safe harbor. Silence is complicity, and we must not be silent.”
A local pastor pleaded with the local community to prevent their grief from turning into violence when he addressed his congregation at St. Paul's AME Church, which is located about three miles from the crime scene.
«Our hearts are broken» , the Reverend Willie Barnes told 100 parishioners Sunday morning. «If any of you are like me, I try not to get angry.»
Police are on the scene. Photo: John Rau
The shooting is the latest in a series of racist attacks against black Americans. In 2015, a white criminal killed nine people at a Bible study group in Charleston, South Carolina. He is currently on death row.
And in May 2022, a white teenager killed 10 blacks in a live-streamed gunfight at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.
< p>According to the latest data released by the FBI for 2021, hate crimes increased by 11.6 percent compared to the previous year.
Crimes against black people, which accounted for 31.1 percent of all incidents represented the largest category of crime. racially motivated crimes.
The shooting in Jacksonville was part of an ongoing trend, says Wendy Via, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism.
“Tonight we We mourn, but, to unfortunately not shocked that another racially motivated shooting has taken place in the US. A white man shot three people today solely because they were black.”
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