He asked the hostages whether they were Christians and shot them point-blank if they wereTen people were killed and nine were injured Thursday, after a 26-year old gunman went on a shooting rampage at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon.
The father of one of the wounded told CNN, that the gunman singled out Christians.
Before going into spinal surgery, Anastasia Boylan told her father the gunman entered her classroom firing.
“I’ve been waiting to do this for years,” the gunman told the professor teaching the class. He shot him point blank, Boylan recounted.
Others were hit too, she told her family.
Everyone in the classroom dropped to the ground.
The gunman, while reloading his handgun, ordered the students to stand up and asked if they were Christians, Boylan told her family.
“And they would stand up and he said, ‘Good, because you’re a Christian, you’re going to see God in just about one second,'” Boylan’s father, Stacy, told CNN, relaying her account.
“And then he shot and killed them.”
One law enforcement official told the New York Times, “He appears to be an angry young man who was very filled with hate.”
The gunman, identified as Chris Harper Mercer, died in an exchange of gunfire with police officers. It is not clear whether he was shot or whether he shot himself.
President Obama appeared at the White House to call voters to consider candidates’s voting records on gun control when going to the polls. “Whether they are Democrats or Republicans or independents whether this cause of continuing death for innocent people should be a relevant factor” on election day.
