Oregonians leapt into action in grocery shooting. But how were early warning signs missed?

Jason and Molly Taroli were walking through the frozen foods section of their Safeway store in Bend, Oregon, to get a pizza for dinner when they heard gunshots in the parking lot.

They jumped into action. As people panicked and began to scatter, Molly whipped a firearm out of her purse and kept guard at the back door as she ushered customers outside. Jason ran out the front door to retrieve a gun from his truck.

"As I got back in, he was coming down, shooting up aisles," said Jason Taroli, 43, a lifelong hunter and sport shooter who works in sales.

Toward the back of the store, a Safeway worker attempted to disarm the gunman and was killed. A customer was also killed and two others injured. It all ended when the 20-year-old shooter with an AR-15-style rifle died by suicide, police said.

Patrons and employees of the Safeway went above and beyond to try to help others and stop the shooter late Sunday. But as details emerge about the killer and his social media postings, the question begs to be asked: Why didn't the gunman raise red flags before the deadly assault happened?

BACKGROUND: Safeway worker 'acted heroically' to disarm shooter who killed 2 in store

In the days and weeks leading up to the shooting, someone who appears to be the gunman posted on several sites and suggested he planned to attack his former high school, the Associated Press reported.

"This could have been prevented just like most of the rest of them," Jason Taroli said. "The warning signs were there."

Bend Police "received information about the shooter's writings after the incident had taken place," spokesperson Sheila Miller said at a news conference Monday.

"We have no evidence of previous threats or prior knowledge of the shooter," she said.

'People were panicking'

When he heard the first shots, Taroli said he yelled at his wife to run. Molly, a 40-year-old insurance professional, rushed to the back door. The gunman first shot through the windows of the neighboring Old Navy and Big Lots stores before reaching Safeway, giving Taroli time to retrieve his gun outside.

"As I'm running through, I'm grabbing people, telling them to go this way, get out," Taroli said. "Everybody telling everybody 'get out, get out, get out.'"

Inside the store, Taroli said his wife pushed a shopping cart toward the shooter to try to distract him. She and another customer ushered people out and watched for the gunman through a crack in the door, Taroli said.

"She was there to take him out if he came out the back door," he said.

Between the registers and racks of items, Taroli said he struggled to get a clear line of sight on the gunman.

"I was just making sure everybody ran behind me on that other side as they went out or try to get out, and I was waiting for him to get to a spot where I could actually intervene," Taroli said. "As he was coming down, there was a guy next to me who was kind of freaking out, obviously, so I kind of turned more and got him outside."

That's when the first officers arrived on scene and went to the back of the store to confront the gunman, Taroli said.

"It wasn't like what happened in Texas," said Taroli, referencing the delayed law enforcement response to a mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde. "It wasn't like other places where they surrounded and then waited. These two guys did not wait for anybody."

'He's a hero'

At the back of the store, employee Donald Ray Surrett Jr., 66, "heroically" tried to disarm the gunman and may have prevented further deaths, Miller said.

Surrett's ex-wife, Debora Jean Surrett, told USA TODAY that she wasn't surprised by his actions. She said she believes his military training kicked in.

Donald Surrett spent about two decades in the U.S. Army, serving as a combat engineer who was stationed in Germany three times, along with posts across the country. Those engineers were trained to be "the first ones to go in, the last ones to come out," said Surrett, 65, who lives in Sacramento, California.

MASS KILLINGS: Database reveals trends, details and anguish in every US event since 2006

Lisa Morrison, 62, of Bend, worked at Safeway with Surrett for several years before she left the job in December, she told USA TODAY on Tuesday.

A proud veteran who sometimes wore an Army cap and union buttons, Surrett was friendly and loved to help and joke with customers, Morrison said. Each week, he would ask the floral department for stargazer flowers for his wife.

Morrison said that, when supermarket shootings broke out in other states, she would  recall safety training and even thought out her own plan of escape.

"I thought, Bend – it will never happen here," she said.

Bend, a majority-white city in central Oregon, is home to 100,000 residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Morrison said she stopped into the store to chat with Surrett just a few days ago. Then, on Sunday, she heard "end of the world" sirens from her home a few miles from the supermarket. She was quickly on the phone checking whether people were safe.

Eventually, a friend called.

"It was Don," Morrison said a friend told her. "And we both just broke down crying. And she said, 'He’s a hero.'"

If anyone would decide to confront an assailant, Morrison said, it was Don.

Eric Magidson, a professor at Central Oregon Community College in Bend, told the Oregonian that Surrett had taken information technology classes, but worked at the Safeway produce department because he liked it better than sitting behind a desk.

"What should have just been a normal evening erupted into a mass shooting event that cut lives short, and will forever leave scars in the community," said UFCW Local 555 union President Daniel Clay in a statement. "Retail workers should not go to work facing violence, and deserve more protection than our society has chosen to afford them."

'We've known about the kid'

After the shooting, Taroli said he and his wife reconnected outside, relieved. They sat in their truck, hugged and pieced together what had happened.

"We were lucky," Taroli said. "It could have gone completely different."

Taroli said he and his wife didn't get much sleep Sunday night. He said they've talked about the incident with their 16-year-old son.

"We basically told him what happened but what he needs to do if he's in that situation," Taroli said. "As he's grown up through this, I've always, always talked about how you need to be aware of your surroundings."

Taroli and his wife returned to the Safeway on Monday to collect his wife's purse.

Now, Taroli said he's overcome with anger.

"At this point, we've known about the kid," he said. "... When warning signs are there, they need to be addressed immediately. It can't be waited for anymore."

GUN VIOLENCE: The US is investing millions to stop shootings. Is it going to the right communities?

Police found three Molotov cocktails, a sawed-off shotgun, additional ammunition and "digital devices" in the gunman's vehicle, Miller said. The gunman had no criminal history in the area, and it's unclear how he obtained the firearms, she said.

Taroli said his friends were aware of threats the gunman had made online against his alma mater, Mountain View High School, and had planned to keep their kids home for the first day of school. They became aware of the threats through social media, Taroli said.

Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz said Monday that officers were still determining the gunman's connection to the postings.

"What information is out there on the internet that I think a lot of people have referred to and seen is earlier plans of some sort of attack at Mountain View High School," Krantz said. "That was on the internet, and we haven’t really connected that yet."

According to blog platform Wattpad, the postings were made public early Sunday evening and removed less than twelve hours later. Prior to that, parts of the writing were in a private draft mode and not viewable to readers. Archived webpages of the draft postings date to at least July.

Meta, parent company of Facebook, also took down accounts tied to the gunman, the company told USA TODAY.

Isaac Thomas, a former classmate, told the Associated Press that the gunman had worked at the Safeway and had "tried to fight quite literally everybody" at Mountain View High School. Thomas said the gunman once threatened to shoot him after a fight at their school.

Another former classmate, Akela Haverlandt, told The Oregonian that the gunman was "violent" and "would all the time get suspended."

Bend-LaPine Schools did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Asked about the online threats Tuesday, Miller said: "Our officers have a long investigation ahead of them, and we are going to be thorough and meticulous. These things take a long time, unfortunately."

In the meantime, Taroli said he and wife will go back to the Safeway, eventually.

"It can't change your life. You can't live in fear," he said. "We had things we had to do yesterday that were unavoidable, and we went and did it. I mean, was it hard at times to be out and running around? Of course. But you know, our life is going on."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Safeway shooting in Bend, Oregon followed suspect's threatening posts