‘Hate crime’: Chilling details of Jacksonville gun rampage revealed

A white gunman has been slammed as a “coward” after fatally shooting three and himself in an attack on innocent shoppers in the US.

A white man driven by racial hatred shot and killed three black people in a Florida discount store before killing himself after a standoff with police, authorities said.

The gunman was wearing a tactical vest and armed with an AR-style rifle and handgun when he barged into a Dollar General discount store in Florida on Saturday and shot three people in an attack that is being investigated as a hate crime.

The shooter has been identified as Ryan Palmeter, 21, who legally purchased his guns even though he had been involuntarily committed for mental health problems in 2017.

Ryan Palmeter, 21, was driven by racial hatred, authorities said.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has decried the “horrific” shooting and called 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.”

All three of Palmeter’s victims were black. They were a 52-year-old woman, a 29-year-old customer and a 19-year-old employee.

The Dollar General store in Jacksonville. Picture: Twitter

Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters speaks to the media. Picture: Twitter

Palmeter lived with his parents and texted his father during the shooting, telling him to go into his room. There the father found a suicide note, a will, and racist writings.

“This shooting was racially motivated and he hated black people,” Jacksonville Sheriff TK Waters said at a news conference.

Sheriff Waters said Palmeter used a Glock handgun and an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle. It’s understood the assault rifle was covered in Nazi swastikas.

Waters said the shooter left behind evidence that outlined his “disgusting ideology of hate” and his motive in the attack.

Investigators believe he committed the shooting because it was the fifth anniversary of when another gunman opened fire during a video game tournament in Jacksonville, killing two people before fatally shooting himself.

Mayor Donna Deegan earlier told TV channel WJXT of her anger.

“This is unacceptable,” Ms Deegan told the station.

“One shooting is too much but these mass shootings are really hard to take.”

This video grab shows a handgun found on the scene of a shooting in Jacksonville, Florida where a white man driven by racial hatred shot dead three Black people. Picture: AFP

An emotional Jacksonville City Council member Ju’Coby Pittman told WJXT: “My heart is heavy. I am tired of all of the shootings.”

US President Joe Biden was briefed on the incident in Jacksonville, the White House said, and had received updates on other shootings over the last 24 hours across the country.

The shooting was part of a weekend spate of gun violence in the United States. Earlier on Saturday, at least seven people were hospitalised after a shooting at a Caribbean festival in the Boston, police said.

Meanwhile, two women were shot at a baseball game in Chicago the night before. That same night, a 16-year-old was shot dead and four others hurt after an argument erupted at a high school football game in Oklahoma, police said.

– With AFP

Originally published as ‘Hate crime’: Chilling details of Jacksonville gun rampage revealed