Three Killed in Racially Motivated Shooting at Dollar General Store in Jacksonville, Sheriff Says

Three people were killed in a shooting Saturday afternoon at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, Florida, that authorities say was racially motivated. The suspect committed suicide, authorities said.

At a news conference Saturday night, Jacksonville Sheriff TK Waters said the suspect, described as a white male in his 20s, entered a Dollar store shortly after 1 p.m. and opened fire. , killing three people. All the victims were black, Waters said.

“He targeted a certain group of people, and that’s black people,” Waters said.

The suspect later died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Waters revealed. His name was not immediately mentioned.

No one else was injured in the shooting. The victims, two men and a woman, were not immediately identified.

The suspect was wearing a tactical vest and mask and was armed with a Glock and an AR-15-style rifle, Waters said. He also had swastikas on his weapons, he added.

At the press conference, Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan called the shooting a “hate-filled crime.”

The suspect, who lived in Jacksonville’s Clay County with his parents, “wrote several manifestos,” Waters said, including one for his parents, another for the media and a third for “federal agents.” At 1:18 pm local time, the shooter told his father to check his computer, and at 1:53 pm the shooter’s family called the Clay County Sheriff’s Office, Waters said.

“At that point, I had already started filming in Jacksonville,” Waters said.

Waters said the gunman’s journals “detailed” his “disgusting ideology of hate.” In them, the gunman also revealed that the shooting was “racially motivated and that he hated black people,” Waters added. The gunman “acted completely alone” and was not believed to be part of “any large group,” Waters said.

Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office officers and firefighters from the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department were on scene investigating, along with members of the FBI. The Jacksonville FBI said they will prosecute this as a hate crime.

Deegan previously said WJAX-TV, a CBS affiliate that after the murders, the suspect had barricaded himself inside the store.

“One shooting is too many, but these mass shootings are really hard to take,” Deegan told the station from the scene during the standoff.

Meanwhile, nearby Edwards Waters University saying in a campus security alert that said all students were “kept in their residences.” The university said the shooting was not believed to have involved any faculty, staff or students on campus.

In a statement provided to CBS News, Dollar General said it was “heartbroken by the senseless act of violence that occurred at our Kings Road store,” adding that it “stands with our Jacksonville employees and the DG family impacted by this tragedy. It is an absolute priority as we work closely with the authorities”.

The attack came as tens of thousands of people gathered to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington where in 1963 the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.