The Florida sheriff investigating racist mass shooter Ryan Palmer has said guns are not the problem and that “bad” people are responsible for such tragedies.
Jacksonville Sheriff TK Waters said the 21-year-old, who fatally shot three black people at a Dollar General store in the city this weekend, legally owned his guns.
Palmer walked into the store on Saturday armed with two firearms, including an AR-15 style rifle emblazoned with swastikas, and opened fire in what police are calling a hate crime.
He shot and killed Angela Michelle Carr, 52, Anolt Joseph “AJ” Laguerre Jr., 29, and Jerrald De’Shaun Gallion, 19, before turning the gun on himself.
Investigative Sheriff TK Waters told a press conference on Sunday that guns were not to blame.
Jacksonville Sheriff TK Waters, who is investigating racist mass shooter Ryan Palmer, has said that guns are not the problem and that “bad” people are responsible for such tragedies.
Palmer, 21, walked into the store on Saturday armed with two firearms, including an AR-15-style rifle emblazoned with swastikas, and opened fire in what police are calling a hate crime.
Palmer purchased his guns legally from Wild West Guns and Orange Park Gun and Pawn, and wrote a manifesto that detectives have described as “a madman’s diary” before committing the grisly murder.
“The story is always about guns. It’s the people who are bad,” he said.
“This guy is a bad guy. Now if I could take off my gun and put it on the counter nothing would happen. It will sit there.
“But as soon as an evil person takes that gun and starts shooting people with it, there’s the problem. The problem is the individual.’
“Guns are a tool that people use to do terrible things. But it’s the individuals who handle these things… but there was nothing illegal about him owning those firearms.
“There was no flag that could have stopped him from buying those guns… they were legally owned.”
The gun dealers — Wild West Guns and Orange Park Gun and Pawn — followed proper procedures in the sale, he added.
Sheriff TK Waters said he does not believe there is any “racial divide” in the city and that Palmer’s “manifesto” is “quite frankly a madman’s diary.”
“He was completely irrational, but he was 100 percent clear — he knew what he was doing,” the sheriff said.
Those who knew the killer have begun sharing details about his life, including neighbors who knew his parents and believed he had just come off the medication.
Terrifying footage shows the racist entering the Jacksonville Dollar General before shooting the three victims and then pointing the gun at himself.
Jerrald De’Shaun Gallion, 29, pictured with his infant daughter, was one of the victims
Jerrald De’Shaun Gallion, 29, is shown alongside family member Demornae Gibbs in a commemorative Facebook post from her page
Angela Michelle Carr, 52, (right) was killed in Saturday’s shooting
Authorities said he was seen Saturday trying to enter a local historically black college, Edward Waters University, before heading to the Dollar General store.
Palmer had refused to identify himself to a campus officer and was rejected. “It was later determined that the individual was involved in a shooting near the EWU campus,” the university said.
Palmer left a detailed manifesto, which police call the “diary of a madman.”
Sheriff TK Waters previously said the shooter “hated black people” and wanted to kill “n******.” He described the shooting as a “dark day in Jacksonville history.”
A federal civil rights investigation has been launched and officials are considering the shooting a possible hate crime and an act of domestic violent extremism.
Palmer left his home for Jacksonville at 11:39 a.m. and texted his father to check his computer.
His shocked parents then called the sheriff’s office at 1:53 p.m. to report the manifest they found, but he had already begun his assault.
Palmer was seen donning tactical gear on the nearby Edward Waters University (EWU) campus just before the shooting.
“Guns are a tool that people use to do terrible things. But it’s the individuals who handle these things…but there was nothing illegal about him owning those firearms,” Sheriff TK Waters told the conference.
Security from the historically black university tried to detain him, but he managed to evade them.
Palmer was reportedly involved in a 2016 domestic phone call without arrest and was detained in 2017 under the state’s Baker Act, which allows people to be involuntarily detained and subjected to investigation for up to 72 hours in a psychiatric facility. Hopital.
Agents from the Clay County Sheriff’s Office and the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office stood outside Palmer’s home after the attack.