Police Identify 21-Year-Old Shooter And Victims In Racially Motivated Jacksonville Shooting

Topline

The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office has identified the three Black victims and 21-year-old white assailant in what police describe as a racially motivated shooting at a Dollar General in the Florida city on Saturday—an incident officials are investigating as a hate crime.

This video grab shows police cars on the site of a shooting in Jacksonville, Florida, August 26, … [+] 2023 after a white man driven by racial hatred shot dead three Black people before taking his own life. (Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images)

AFP via Getty Images

Key Facts

A little after 1 p.m. on Saturday, the shooter—who authorities later identified as 21-year-old Ryan Christopher Palmeter—drove from nearby Clay County to a Dollar General in Jacksonville armed with a tactical vest, an AR-style rifle and a handgun, Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters said at a news conference Saturday.

Palmeter took his own life, according to Waters.

There were no additional injuries beyond the three killed—all of whom were Black—and the shooter; the victims were Angela Michelle Carr, 52; Anolt Joseph “AJ” Laguerre Jr., 19; and Jarrald De’Shaun Gallion, 29, according to NBC News.

The shooter was believed to have lived in Clay County with his parents; he had been involved in a 2016 domestic call that did not result in arrest and, in 2017, Waters said he “had a Baker Act,” which is a Florida law that allows people to be placed in temporary detention with emergency services for up to 72 hours for a mental health examination.

Waters said in a press conference Sunday that Palmeter bought the guns in June legally as he had no criminal arrest history, CNN reported.

The shooter had authored three manifestos—one to federal agents, one to his parents and one to the media—in which he detailed his “disgusting ideology of hate,” Waters said, adding there is “absolutely no evidence” he was part of a group and that they know he acted alone.

One of the guns the shooter used had swastikas on it, a photo of the weapons shared at a press conference revealed.

The shooting occurred less than a mile away from Edward Waters University, a historically Black college, and the university said in a statement a member of its security team saw the shooter on campus and when he wouldn’t identify himself, asked him to leave; Waters said he put on his vest and mask before leaving, but it isn’t known if he intended to attack the school.

The FBI’s Jacksonville office has opened a federal civil rights investigation and will pursue the incident as a hate crime.

Crucial Quote

“This was, quite frankly, a maniac who decided he wanted to take lives,” Waters said. “He targeted a certain group of people, and that’s Black people, that’s what he said he wanted to kill. And that’s very clear.”

Chief Critic

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called the shooter “a scumbag,” saying it was “totally unacceptable” that he targeted people based on their race. He also said the shooter “took the coward’s way out” by killing himself rather than facing the consequences of his actions. “We condemn what happened in the strongest possible terms,” DeSantis said in a video released Saturday.

What We Don’t Know

Waters told CNN that it’s unclear if the 2017 situation involving the shooter was properly recorded or if it was “considered a full Baker Act,” because typically someone who has had the Baker Act invoked is prevented from purchasing guns.

Big Number

30.7%. That’s how much of Jacksonville’s 971,319 residents were Black, according to 2022 census data.

Key Background

Jacksonville has not been a stranger to racially motivated attacks. Mayor Donna Deegan mentioned that Saturday’s shooting was on the five-year anniversary of a shooting at a gaming tournament in which three people, including the gunman, died. Deegan said Saturday’s gunman mentioned that shooting in one of his writings, the New York Times reported. The shooting was also just one day before the 63rd anniversary of “Ax Handle Saturday,” the Associated Press reported, an event in which members of the Ku Klux Klan beat a group of Black protesters who were having a peaceful sit-in protest of Jim Crow laws. The attack on the Black community in Jacksonville is reminiscent of last year’s mass shooting at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York in which a racist white shooter killed 10 Black people. That shooter, who was 18 at the time, was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole and still faces federal charges that could carry the death penalty.

Tangent

Because just three people, not including the shooter, were killed in this act and there were no other injuries, it is not considered a mass shooting by Gun Violence Archive, an organization that tracks mass shootings in the U.S. So far in 2023, according to the Gun Violence Archive, there have been 473 mass shootings, putting this year on track to be the deadliest since GVA started tracking the numbers almost a decade ago.