UPDATE: Oct. 2nd, 10:37 a.m.
ROSEBURG, Ore. (AP) – A federal agency says the gunman who killed nine people at an Oregon community college had body armor and was armed with three pistols, a rifle and five additional magazines.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives provided the information late Thursday in an incident report obtained by The Associated Press. The guns included a 9 mm Glock pistol and .40-caliber Smith & Wesson, both traced to the suspect.
He also had a .40-caliber Taurus pistol traced to someone in Portland and a .556-caliber Del-Ton.
The shooting, Thursday, at Umpqua Community College also wounded seven. Officials identified the killer as Chris Harper Mercer. He died after a shootout with police.
He isn’t believed to have a criminal history. Investigators believe he may have been a student there because a receipt found at the scene showed he purchased textbooks from the campus bookstore two days before the shooting.
Social media profiles linked to Mercer suggested he was fascinated by the Irish Republican Army (IRA), frustrated by traditional
organized religion and tracked other mass shootings.
There didn’t seem to be many recent connections on the social media sites linked to Mercer, with his MySpace page just showing two friends. He appeared to have at least one online dating profile.
On a torrents streaming site and blog that appeared to belong to Mercer, posts referenced multiple shootings and downloads included several horror films and a documentary on a mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
A blog post urged readers to watch the online footage of Vester Flanagan shooting two former colleagues on live TV in Virginia, while another lamented materialism as preventing spiritual development.
A MySpace page that appeared to belong to Mercer included several photos and graphics of the IRA as well as a picture of Mercer
holding a rifle.
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UPDATE: 3:58 P.M.
ROSEBURG, Ore. (AP) – A student at the Oregon community college where a mass shooting occurred says the gunman shot her teacher and asked others in her classroom about their religion before spraying more bullets.
Eighteen-year-old Kortney Moore of Rogue River tells the Roseburg News-Review newspaper that she was in a writing class at Umpqua (UHMP’-kwah) Community College in Roseburg on Thursday when a shot came through a window.
The gunman entered her classroom and told people to get on the ground.
Moore says the man started asking people to stand up and state their religion and then opened fire.
The shooting left 13 people dead and at least 20 injured.
Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin says authorities responded and exchanged gunfire with the man. He says the shooter died at the scene, but he didn’t say whether the man killed himself or was shot by police.
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ROSEBURG, Ore. (AP) – Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin says the 20-year-old shooter is dead.
At least seven people are confirmed dead and 20 injured today in a shooting at a community college.
The shooting happened at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, about 180 miles south of Portland. The local fire district advised people via Twitter to stay away from the school. It later tweeted that there were “multiple casualties,” but didn’t elaborate.
A state police lieutenant told KATU-TV that seven to 10 people were dead and at least 20 others were injured. A photographer for the Roseburg News-Review newspaper said he saw people being loaded into multiple ambulances and taken to the local hospital.
Umpqua Community College has about 3,000 students.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press.