Ryan Christopher Palmeterthe 21-year-old man who shot three people dead on Saturday afternoon in Jacksonville (Florida), had left written several manifestos for his parents, the media and federal agents in which detailed his hatred of blacks, according to the Police Department. The county sheriff, TK Waters, said at a press conference on Sunday that the documents found by the authorities “detailed the disgusting hateful ideology of the shooter.” The mayor spoke in the same vein. Donna Deeganwho described the killing as a “hate-filled crime” fueled by racist hate.
Palmeter shot a woman sitting in her car eleven times, before going into a store and shooting two other people. He let two white people out of the store. Later, the young man committed suicide, according to the reconstruction of the facts of the Police. The victims were the 52-year-old woman; a 19-year-old employee shot while trying to escape; and another 29-year-old man, shot down when he entered the establishment.
At a press conference, Waters confirmed that Palmeter had no criminal record and that he lived with his parents in Clay County. Although the shooter had been briefly detained for 72 hours in 2017, under the Baker Act, related to mental health, which allows for the involuntary detention of an individual for treatment.
“Simply put: this shooting was racially motivated and I hated black people,” the sheriff said. “The manifesto is, frankly… the diary of a madman”Waters added. “He knew what he was doing. He was 100% lucid. He knew what he was doing and, again, it’s disappointing that someone would go to these lengths to hurt another person.” Along these lines, Attorney General Merrick Garland has announced that the Justice Department was investigating this attack “as a hate crime and an act of racially motivated violent extremism.”
The attack occurred less than a mile from the historically black Edwards Waters University. Palmeter headed for the campus first., where a security agent asked him to identify himself, the university reported in a statement. When he refused, they asked him to leave the compound. “The individual returned to his car and left the campus without incident,” says the note from the center.
The Jacksonville Police Department also confirmed that their weapons had been acquired legally, but he justified that his possession was not the problem, but the nature of Palmeter. “He was a bad guy,” Waters transferred. The murderer used a long rifle and a Palmetto brand pistol, on which he had drawn a swastika.
Joe Biden has unsuccessfully petitioned the House several times to ban assault rifles like the one used by Palmeter in the shooting. The president spoke on Sunday afternoon. “We have to say loud and clear that there is no place for white supremacism in America. We must refuse to live in a country where families go to the store or school in fear of being killed because of the color of their skin,” the statement said. “Silence is complicity and we must not remain silent”.
The White House tenant also regretted that the shooting took place on the same day that the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington against racism was commemorated, in which the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his historic speech “I have a dream» (I have a dream).
