3 lives lost to hatred
The three black people killed by a white gunman in what authorities are calling a racially motivated hate crime at a Dollar General store in Florida were identified Sunday — including a 19year-old employee who was shot as he tried to escape.
Teenage store worker A.J. Laguerre was named as one of the victims gunned down by racist “maniac” Ryan Palmeter, 21, who targeted the Jacksonville shop Saturday, armed with a Glock pistol and an AR-15-style rifle bedecked with swastikas, authorities said.
Angela Michelle Carr, 52, was shot dead as she sat in her car in the lot outside the store, and Jerrald Gallion, 29, was murdered as he entered the shop, Duval County Sheriff T.K. Waters said.
Numerous other people in the store managed to flee unharmed out a back door while Palmeter chased and shot after them, the sheriff said.
Palmeter — who shot himself to death before police arrived — acted alone in his racist rampage, authorities said.
“There is absolutely no evidence that the shooter is part of any larger group,” Waters told reporters.
“This was, quite frankly, a maniac who decided he wanted to take lives,” the sheriff 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.”
Palmeter left behind a suicide note and several racist manifestos on the computer at his parents house in Clay County where he lived, authorities said.
“The manifesto is, quite frankly, the diary of a madman,” said Waters.
“He was just completely irrational. But with irrational thoughts, he knew what he was doing. He was 100% lucid.”
Disturbed but legal
The guns Palmeter used were purchased legally in April and June, despite him having been involuntarily institutionalized for mental health in 2017. He was released after an examination.
Sheriff Waters noted the guns were purchased completely legally and that the stores had followed all procedures properly.
Palmeter’s parents also called police over a domestic dispute between him and a sibling in 2016, but nobody was arrested.
Just before the shooting, Palmeter was spotted nearby at the historically black Edward Waters University, but he left after security guards confronted him.
Witnesses said Palmeter was seen donning a mask and tactical vest before he left the school.
It is unclear whether he initially intended to attack the school, but Waters noted it was a possibility.
“Any member of that race at that time was in danger — of the black race,” Waters said.
Before the shooting began at around 2 p.m., Palmeter had texted his father telling him to check his computer for the manifestos.
The family notified the police, but by then Palmeter was already at the Dollar General.
“This shooting was racially motivated, and he hated black people,” Waters has said.
Federal authorities are probing the attack, which they are treating as a hate crime and “an act of racially motivated violent extremism,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said.