By Jerald Jimenez
Aug 27, 2023, 16:05 PM EDT
The gunman who killed three people in a Jacksonville, Florida store, who authorities identified as a white supremacist, has finally been identified, and details of the possible motivations for the shooting have emerged.
The suspect was identified as 21-year-old Ryan Christopher Palmerer, who investigators say texted his father to check his computer, which had “manifestos” allegedly demonstrating his hatred of African-Americans.
Evidence led officials to believe that Palmerer had timed Saturday, Aug. 26, to coincide with the 2018 shooting during a video game tournament that left two people dead and nine injured, also in Jacksonville.
In that incident, 24-year-old David Katz, who won a local Madden NFL tournament the previous year, opened fire on attendees at the event and then killed himself.
Likewise, the recent shooting occurred a day before the 63rd anniversary of “Ax Handle Saturday”, the most tragic incident of a racial nature in Jacksonville, carried out by the Ku Klux Klan.
At that event, 200 KKK members attacked African-American anti-apartheid sit-in protesters armed with bats and ax handles, beating them while police stood by and stood by.
“This shooting was racially motivated and he hated black people,” Jacksonville Sheriff TK Waters told reporters on Saturday regarding the events involving Palmerer.
Waters noted that Palmerer donned a tactical vest and carried a Glock-style semiautomatic rifle and AR-15 emblazoned with Nazi German swastikas and other such symbols.
Reports stated that the shooter was seen donning a mask before entering the Dollar General, where he killed two men and a woman before committing suicide.
Palmerer may have originally planned to shoot students at Edward Waters University, but may have been scared off by security agents who asked him to leave when he first arrived on campus, Waters added.
“This is a dark day in Jacksonville history. There is no place for hate in this community,” Sheriff Waters said. “The personal ideology of this cowardly shooter disgusts me.”
With information from Fox News