‘Racially-motivated:’ 3 killed after Jacksonville Sheriff says shooter hated black people
Heartbreak throughout the Jacksonville community, as a racially motivated shooting leaves three people dead and the suspect turning the gun on himself.
“Plainly put, this shooting was racially motivated, he hated black people and he wanted to kill n******,” Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters said.
A white man in his early 20s left behind three manifestos in his Clay County home before coming to the New Town area of Jacksonville, a predominantly African-American community. Sheriff Waters said he killed two black men and a black woman at the Dollar General on Kings Road. He was wearing a tactical vest at the time of the shooting.
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Sources and neighbors confirmed with Action News Jax Ryan Palmeter was the shooter. In 2017 he was Baker Acted and in 2016 he was involved in a domestic call but had no history of arrest.
Police say he worked alone and there’s no evidence he’s part of a group. It’s unclear if he legally purchased the guns.
“This was quite frankly a maniac who decided he wanted to take lives,” Sheriff Waters said. “That’s an outlier, that doesn’t represent who we are as a city and who we are as people.”
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Sheriff Waters said he used an AR-15 style rifle and a Glock in this mass shooting, swastikas were drawn on the rifle. He went to Edward Waters University, a historically black university, before Dollar General but was escorted off-campus by security.
Prayer vigils were held after the shooting, community members locked arms in unity. Councilwoman Ju’Coby Pittman was extremely emotional.
“This makes no sense. I’m very, very angry right now. I’m emotional, we have kids in this community seeing all of this and this is unnecessary,” she said. “It’s unjust, we can’t walk on the sidewalks, we’re not safe in any stores.”
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Adrian Rawls was in the area and told me he had stopped at a store and said hey to a friend before gunshots went off.
“As soon as I walked by him I heard bop bop bop, I turned around and I see him drop.,” he said.
A neighbor Action News Jax spoke with didn’t want to show her face but said she knows all the employees at Dollar General. She said the cashier was one of the victims.
“He was real sweet, just got out of school he was a real sweet young fella,” she said.
Mayor Donna Deegan had a strong message for the black community.
“I love them, I’m so sorry we have failed you in the ways we have, and I will do anything in my power not to do that going forward,” she said.
The FBI opened a federal civil rights investigation and are pursuing this as a hate crime.
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