Umpqua Community College shooting
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
On October 1, 2015, a
mass shooting took place at
Umpqua Community College, near
Roseburg, Oregon,
United States. Christopher Harper-Mercer, a 26-year-old student,
fatally shot nine people and injured nine others on the campus. He
killed himself following a gun battle with responding police officers.
Shooting
At 10:38 a.m.
PDT, the first
9-1-1 call was made from Snyder Hall on the
Umpqua Community College campus near
Roseburg, Oregon reporting shooting.
[6] Students reported that the shooting began in Classroom 15, where English and writing classes are conducted.
[7][8]
Harper-Mercer, who was a student in the writing class, shot the
assistant English professor at point-blank range. Some witnesses said he
then forced fellow students to the center of the classroom
[9] and asked several for their
religion before shooting them.
[10] Other witnesses said he asked if students were
Christians, mocking those who replied in the affirmative that they would go to heaven as he shot them.
[a] Some students were shot multiple times;
[10][13][14] one woman was struck several times in the stomach while trying to close a classroom door.
[15]
One witness said he made a woman beg for her life before shooting her,
and also shot another woman when she tried to reason with him.
[16] One victim, Sarena Dawn Moore, was killed while seated in a wheelchair.
[17]
Another witness said Harper-Mercer deliberately spared one student's
life so that student could deliver a package from him to police.
[18]
At 10:44 a.m., six minutes after the first 9-1-1 call was received, two Roseburg Police Department officers and one
Oregon State Police
trooper arrived at the scene. At 10:46 a.m., officials said
Harper-Mercer engaged the officers in a gun battle that lasted for two
minutes, after which he shot and killed himself.
[19][20] None of the officers were injured.
[4][5]
Aftermath
Following the shooting,
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) agents launched a campus-wide search for explosives. Six weapons were recovered from the crime scene:
[21] five
handguns and one
long gun.
[22][23][24] The long gun, an
AR-15 rifle,
[2] was not fired during the incident.
[25] Harper-Mercer also had a
flak jacket and "enough ammunition for a prolonged gunfight".
[26][27]
Police said they found eight other firearms at his apartment, and that
all of the weapons were purchased legally by Harper-Mercer or members of
his family.
[20][28]
The incident was the second
school shooting to occur in the Roseburg area
[b] and was the deadliest mass shooting in Oregon's modern history.
[5][29]
Victims
Fatalities
Eight students and an assistant professor were killed by
Harper-Mercer during the shooting. Of the nine killed, eight died at the
scene and the ninth died after being taken to
Mercy Medical Center. They were identified as:
[30][31]
- Lucero Alcaraz, 19
- Treven Taylor Anspach, 20
- Rebecka Ann Carnes, 18[32]
- Quinn Glen Cooper, 18
- Kim Saltmarsh Dietz, 59
- Lucas Eibel, 18
- Jason Dale Johnson, 33
- Lawrence Levine, 67 (assistant professor)[33]
- Sarena Dawn Moore, 44
Injured
Nine people were injured,
[5][31] some with multiple gunshot wounds. They were all taken to Mercy Medical Center for treatment. Three were later transferred to
PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Hospital in
Springfield.
[30][34][35]
According to a witness, Chris Mintz, a
U.S. Army veteran who was studying fitness training at the college,
[36] ran to the library, where he began pulling alarms and telling people to run away.
[37]
He then ran into the building where the shooting was taking place and
attempted to block Harper-Mercer from moving out of Classroom 15. Mintz
was shot three times while standing and another four times while on the
floor, but survived. At a press conference on October 3,
Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin thanked Mintz for his actions.
[16][38] To help pay for his medical bills, Mintz's family set up a
GoFundMe account. It received more than
US$650,000 in donations by the end of the day.
[39]
Perpetrator
Christopher Sean Harper-Mercer[30] (July 26, 1989 – October 1, 2015) was identified as the shooter.
[40] He was enrolled in the introductory composition class where he shot several fellow students.
[16][30]
Harper-Mercer was born in England and moved as a young child with his parents to
Los Angeles County, California.
[41]
They separated 11 months after their marriage and divorced when their
son was 16, having agreed to shared legal custody. Harper-Mercer had
been living with his mother after the divorce.
[42][43]
He joined the U.S. Army in 2008, but was discharged after five weeks
for his failure to meet the "minimum administrative standards" of
basic training at
Fort Jackson, South Carolina.
[30][44] In 2009, he graduated from Switzer Learning Center, a school for teenagers with learning disabilities or emotional issues.
[20][45] He lived with a protective mother
[46] who tried to shield him from various perceived annoyances, some of them minor, in their neighborhood in
Torrance, California.
[44] He and his mother moved to
Winchester, Oregon, after she received a job there.
[44][47][48]
There were fourteen legally purchased weapons in the house, and
Harper-Mercer's mother wrote online that she always kept full magazines
in
Glock pistols and an
AR-15 in the house.
[2]
Several Internet accounts were maintained by Harper-Mercer, including one in which he described himself as
mixed race.
[49][50][c] Media reports said he had an email address linked to an account on a
BitTorrent website, where he uploaded a documentary on the
Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
[53][54] According to the
Los Angeles Times, unnamed law enforcement sources said he was a "hate-filled" man with
antireligious and
white supremacist leanings, and with long-term mental health issues.
[55] His mother, who called herself an expert on autism, had previously written anonymously in an online forum that her son had
Asperger syndrome.
[56][57]
Neighbors and acquaintances described him as "odd" and "skittish". One
neighbor said he would "sit by himself in the dark in the balcony with
this little light", while another said "his demeanor, the way he moved,
always looking around, I got a bad vibe from him."
[14]
The day of the shootings, Harper-Mercer reportedly gave a survivor
several papers containing numerous writings showing he had studied mass
killings, including
the 2014 killing spree at Isla Vista, California.
[58] The papers, some writings on a
USB flash drive, expressed his
sexual frustration as a virgin, animosity toward black men, and a lack of fulfillment in his isolated life.
[59][60][61] In these papers, Harper-Mercer said "Other people think I'm crazy, but I'm not. I'm the sane one,"
[62] and that he would be "welcomed in Hell and embraced by the devil."
[63]
Reactions
Video (12:44): President Obama delivers a statement on the shooting
[64]
United States President
Barack Obama
said in a statement regarding the shooting, "thoughts and prayers [do]
not capture the heartache and grief and anger that we should feel, and
it does nothing to prevent this carnage from being inflicted some place
else in America next week or a couple months from now."
[64] He ordered the US flag to be flown at half staff in memory of the victims the day after the shootings. Oregon Governor
Kate Brown said she was heartbroken by the events and that she would immediately travel to Roseburg. The
American Association of Community Colleges and the
Association of Community College Trustees issued a joint statement, calling the shooting a tragedy and expressing their commitment to on-campus safety.
[65]
Sheriff John Hanlin of Douglas County said he would not "name the
shooter ... I will not give him credit for this horrific act of
cowardice. Media will get the name confirmed in time ... but you will
never hear us use it."
[13][d]
After the shooting, federal authorities investigated a post from the day before on
4chan, which carried the warning: "Some of you guys are alright. Don't go to school tomorrow if you are in the northwest."
[67][68] A global news director at
BuzzFeed tweeted that some 4chan users were using
Twitter to send phony suspect information to the news media.
[69]
On October 5, the
White House announced that Obama would continue to take more executive action on the subject of gun control.
[70]
He will visit Roseburg on October 9 to meet privately with the families
of the victims, as part of an already planned trip to the
West Coast.
[71][72]
See also
Notes
Quinn Glen Cooper was agnostic and Kim Dietz was pagan.[11][12]
- The practice of withholding a perpetrator's name is controversial. The Associated Press cited a recent study suggesting that copycat crimes
were more likely to happen within an average of 13 days following
significant press coverage of a mass shooting, while noting that
criminologists and ethicists say withholding names could make it more
difficult to track patterns of behavior and prevent future acts of
violence.[66]
References
External links
The first occurred at Roseburg High School in 2006.[5]
According to relatives and neighbors, Harper-Mercer's mother is black and his father is white.[51][52]
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Mapes, Jeff (October 2, 2015). "Jeff Merkley: Relative died in Umpqua college shooting". The Oregonian. Retrieved October 2, 2015. (Senator Merkley:) One of the individuals who died is the great-granddaughter of my first cousin, so she is my cousin.
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author[s]:) Harper-Mercer long struggled with mental health issues, law
enforcement sources said. The allegations add to a messy and mystifying
portrait emerging of Harper-Mercer, who, despite his allegedly white
supremacist leanings, was mixed-race and lived with a hyper-protective
black mother who appeared to be his only true companion.
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was kicked out of the Army in 2008". Retrieved October 6, 2015. Mercer,
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