Light is sown like seed for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart. Psalm 97:11
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Once
again, the Land of the Brave and the Home of the Free has been rocked
by a needless massacre, committed by a crazy person, on a college camps.One man with a gun can control 100 without one. - Vladimir Lenin
The gunman who opened fire at an Oregon community college was forcing people to stand up and state their religion before he began blasting away at them, survivors said Thursday.
A woman who claimed to have a grandmother inside a writing class in Snyder Hall, where a portion the massacre unfolded, described the scene in a tweet.“The shooter was lining people up and asking if they were Christian,” she wrote. “If they said yes, then they were shot in the head. If they said no, or didn’t answer, they were shot in the legs. My grandma just got to my house, and she was in the room. She wasn’t shot, but she is very upset.Modal Trigger Students, staff and faculty are evacuated from Umpqua Community College.Photo: AP The Twitter user, @BodhiLooney, then recalled how her grandmother attempted to save the life of one of her close classmates.
Modal Trigger Two women wait outside Umpqua Community College campus after a shooting.Photo: AP “She tried to perform CPR on her friend, but it was too late,” the woman said. “I hope nothing like this ever happens again.”
Kortney Moore, an 18-year-old student at Umpqua Community College who was also in the room, told Oregon’s News Review that the shooter was indeed on the hunt for Christians.Moments after hearing a bullet come flying through a window, she said the 20-year-old shooter made his way inside and targeted their teacher, pumping a single round into their head.
As the young man ordered people to the ground, Moore laid patiently with her classmates and waited, according to the News Review.Once they all got down, she said the gunman began asking people to rise and say what their religion was. After they stood and gave their answer, he started shooting.
As the chaos continued, students began scrambling “like ants,” according to Brady Winder, a 23-year-old student from Portland who was in the room next door.“People (were) screaming, ‘get out!,” he told NRToday, adding that he witnessed a girl frantically swimming across a nearby creek to escape.Modal Trigger A woman is comforted as friends and family wait for students at the local fairgrounds after a shooting at Umpqua Community College.Photo: AP
Hannah Miles, another Umpqua student, was also sitting in a class room next door and said she initially heard a pop that sounded like a yardstick slapping on a chalkboard when the shooting broke out.She said that when her class heard the noise again, her teacher went to see if everything was all right. Minutes later, shots rang out repeatedly and they all fled, leaving their belongings behind.Jared Norman, a nursing student, was locked down in the cafeteria with 50 other students when he heard gunfire — which prompted a mass panic, he said, with his voice trembling.
UCC Foundation Executive Director Dennis O’Neill was also on campus during the shooting and said him and other school officials were running around and securing classrooms as the gunman made his way through Snyder Hall.“We locked our door and I went out to lock up the rest rooms and could hear four shots from the front of campus,” he recalled.Christian Bringhurst, a teacher at nearby Camas Valley Elementary School, said his daughter Justine was also on campus at time of shooting and was safely evacuated.“It’s awful. The uncertainty of what is going on is tough to deal with,’ he explained. “We have a dozen (Camas Valley) kids going to school out there. Trying to find out who is there and make sure everybody is OK. Our hearts going out to the victims.”
At around noon, officials sent out an automated phone call to parents at Roseburg School District, which referenced the shooting and assured the school was safe.
Sometime later, students’ cell phones were confiscated and they were escorted out of their buildings with their hands up as authorities patted them down and lined them up to be evacuated on buses, according to NRToday.Around 200 people were estimated to be waiting at the Douglas County Fairgrounds to pick up the students. Red Cross grief counselors were also on hand to provide care to anyone who needed it.
The gunman in Thursday's mass shooting at an Oregon community college specifically targeted Christians, three witnesses said, while online accounts linked to the shooter expressed disdain for organized religion.Authorities say Christopher Harper Mercer killed at least nine people and wounded at least seven others at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg before he was killed in an exchange of gunfire with police.
Investigators have shed very little light publicly on Mercer's possible motive for the shooting. However, reports indicated they were examining Mercer's online presence very closely. One law enforcement official described Mercer to The New York Times as appearing to be "an angry young man who was very filled with hate." Another official said investigators were poring over what he described as "hateful"writings by Mercer.
Oregon's top federal prosecutor told The Oregonian newspaper that authorities had heard rumors that the gunman had issued "some sort of race-related manifesto" before the shooting.
