Three people were killed in a shooting at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, Florida, Saturday, in what the sheriff’s office is calling a targeted hate crime.
According to the Associated Press, a white man in his 20s fatally shot three people inside a Jacksonville, Florida, Dollar General store on Saturday in a predominately Black neighborhood in an attack that the local sheriff called “racially motivated.” The shooter then killed himself.
“He hated black people,” Sheriff T.K. Waters said at a news conference. “There is absolutely no evidence the shooter is part of any larger group.”
According to the AP, Waters said the shooter used a Glock handgun and an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and left behind a writing that led investigators to believe that he committed the shooting because it was the fifth anniversary of another shooting at video game tournament in Jacksonville, killing two people before the shooter fatally shooting himself.
The shooting happened just before 2 p.m. at a Dollar General near Edward Waters University.
The mayor, Donna Deegan, confirmed the situation to News4Jax and said that there are a number of fatalities, although she didn’t provide specific details about the number of victims.
When News4JAX spoke to Deegan, she confirmed that there were a number of fatalities and also said that a man was barricaded in a Dollar General on Kings Road.
“This is unacceptable,” Deegan told WJXT. “One shooting is too much but these mass shootings are really hard to take.”
Law enforcement officials are in the area around Edward Waters University.
The university has taken precautions to keep its students in their dorms, and as of now, there’s no indication that any students or faculty members from the university were involved.
At this moment, further details about the incident are not available, but we will update this story as more details are released.
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