Three people were killed Saturday in a shooting at a store in Jacksonville, Florida that police said was an intentional attack on black people.
The suspect penned three manifestos outlining his hatred for the race, Jacksonville sheriff T. K. Waters said at a press conference on Saturday night. “This shooting was racially motivated and he hated black people,” he said.
The shooter, who the sheriff said was a white man in his 20s, killed himself after killing the victims, all black individuals.
On Saturday afternoon, the gunman was spotted on the campus of a historically black school in the town area before headed to the Dollar General.
“He took that opportunity to put his bulletproof vest on outside and to put his mask on outside and then proceed to the store where he committed this horrible act,” Waters told CNN.
At the store, the gunman, armed with an AR-15-style rifle and a handgun, shot the three people then used the weapon to end his own life.
“This is a dark day in Jacksonville’s history,” Waters said. “As a member of this Jacksonville community, I am sickened by this cowardly shooter’s personal ideology of hate.”
The suspect lived with his parents and texted his father before the shooting to check his computer, where the documents detailing his plans were stored.
“At 1:53 p.m. the shooter’s family members called the Clay County Sheriff’s Office,” Waters said. “By that time, he had already began shooting in Jacksonville.”
The FBI opened a federal civil rights investigation to probe the incident as a hate crime. The agency’s Jacksonville field office is coordinating with the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida on the situation.
Governor Ron DeSantis on Saturday expressed his sympathies with the loved ones of the victims and denounced the alleged perpetrator and his horrific actions.
“He was targeting people based on their race,” the governor said in a video statement obtained by CNN. “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.”