Three people were gunned down in a racially motivated attack at a Dollar General in Jacksonville, Florida. The victims were identified as Angela Michelle Carr, 52; AJ Laguerre Jr., 19; and Jerrald Gallion, 29. All three victims were black.
The shooter has been identified as Ryan Christopher Palmeter, 21, who espoused white supremacist beliefs. The perpetrator committed suicide by shooting himself after the attack.
“The shooting was racially motivated, and he hated black people,” Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters stated at a news conference Saturday evening. The perpetrator left behind three manifestos that outlined his white supremacist beliefs and motives for the attack.
The shooter’s father found the hateful manifestos on his son’s computer, but the attack was already in progress by the time he alerted authorities.
Before the attack on the Dollar General location, the gunman was spotted on the campus of Edward Waters University, which is a historically black university. Students on campus were told to stay in their residence halls due to the suspicious figure on school grounds. Officials from the university said the suspect was turned away by campus security.
The perpetrator used an AR-15 rifle, which had swastikas drawn on it to carry out the horrific attack. The attacker was detained in 2017 during a mental health episode under The Baker Act. The act allows authorities to administer involuntary mental health evaluation and treatment for people in crisis. Normally a person who is detained under The Baker Act is not permitted to purchase firearms, but it is reported the gunman bought his weapons legally.
This hate-based shooting is reminiscent of other recent hate-based attacks such as the Tree of Life shooting in Pittsburgh in 2018; the El Paso, Texas Walmart shooting in 2019, and the Buffalo, New York supermarket massacre of 2022. The Anti-Defamation League has stated that white supremacist propaganda distribution is at an all-time high according to a report they released in March.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis condemned the shooting by stating, “He was targeting people based on their race, that is totally unacceptable. This guy killed himself rather than face the music and accept responsibility for his actions, and so he took the coward’s way out. But we condemn what happened in the strongest possible terms.”
President Joe Biden condemned the shooting Sunday morning in a statement saying, “Even as we continue searching for answers, we must say clearly and forcefully that white supremacy has no place in America.”
