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According to investigators, a Florida gunman who was motivated by racial hatred killed three Black individuals on Saturday in a Jacksonville discount store before turning the pistol on himself following a confrontation with law enforcement.
In a press conference, Jacksonville Sheriff TK Waters said, “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.”
Swastika’s on the weapon
The shooter has not yet been named, according to the sheriff’s office. He was carrying an AR-15-style weapon and a handgun when he entered the Dollar General shop while wearing a tactical vest, it continued.
At least one of the guns had hand-drawn swastikas on it, and manifestos found by the shooter’s family just before the incident “detail the shooter’s disgusting ideology of hate,” Waters added.
A historically Black university in the south of the United States was not far from the shooting location. Sherri Onks, the FBI’s special agent in charge of Jacksonville, said the agency would look into the shooting as a possible hate crime.
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Florida gunman called “scumbag”
Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, condemned the “horrific” incident and referred to the shooter as a “scumbag.”
“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,” said DeSantis, who is competing to be the Republican party’s candidate for the 2024 White House race.
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Firearms easily available in the US
The shooting was the most recent in a string of shootings this past weekend in the US. Due to easy access to firearms in the majority of states and a society with more guns than people, mass shootings have grown unsettlingly frequent across the United States.
At least seven individuals were sent to the hospital earlier in the day following a shooting spree at a Caribbean festival in Boston, Massachusetts, according to authorities. In addition, two women were shot the previous evening during a baseball game in Chicago.
