*(CNN) — The White gunman, identified as 21-year-old Ryan Christopher Palmeter, who killed three Black people in a racially motivated attack at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, Florida, on Saturday legally purchased the two firearms he used in the shooting earlier this year, Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters said in a news conference Sunday.
Palmeter bought a handgun in April and an AR-15-style rifle in June, the sheriff said. He lived with his parents in nearby Orange Park and had no criminal arrest history, although he had been temporarily involuntarily held under the Baker Act in 2017, the sheriff said.
“In this situation, there was nothing illegal about him owning the firearms,” he said.
The news conference came a day after Palmeter fatally shot three Black people at the Dollar General store in what authorities say was an anti-Black hate crime. Attorney General Merrick Garland said the Justice Department is investigating the shooting as a hate crime and an act of racially motivated violent extremism.
The gunman used racial slurs, left behind a racist screed, and drew swastikas on his firearm, authorities said. He was armed with an AR-15-style rifle and a handgun and was wearing a tactical vest and blue latex gloves, the sheriff said.
The victims were identified as Angela Michelle Carr, 52; Anolt Joseph “AJ” Laguerre Jr., 19; and Jerrald Gallion, 29.
Prior to the shooting, the gunman had been turned away from the campus of a nearby historically Black university, Edward Waters University. There, he refused to identify himself to an on-campus security officer and was asked to leave, the university stated in a news release.
“The individual returned to their car and left campus without incident. The encounter was reported to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office by EWU security,” the school said.
The shooting came five years to the day of a mass shooting in downtown Jacksonville at a Madden video game tournament. The attack also coincided with the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington, the iconic civil rights demonstration that called on the government to better protect the rights of Black people.
Source: Ryan Christopher Palmeter is the White Jacksonville Gunman in Racially Motivated Attack | VIDEO
