The pastor of a church near the site of a racist fatal shooting of three black people has told congregants to follow Jesus Christ’s example and keep their sadness from turning to rage.
Saturday’s shooting came on the same day thousands visited Washington DC to attend the Rev Al Sharpton’s 60th anniversary commemoration of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where the Rev Martin Luther King Jr delivered his historic “I Have A Dream” speech.
The latest in a long history of American racist killings was at the forefront of Sunday services at St Paul AME Church about three miles from the crime scene.
“Our hearts are broken,” Rev Willie Barnes told about 100 congregants on Sunday morning. “If any of you are like me, I’m fighting trying to not be angry.”
The choir sang Amazing Grace before ministers said prayers for the victims’ families and the broader community. Congregants with heads bowed answered with amens from the pews.
A masked white man carried out the shooting with at least one weapon bearing a swastika inside a Dollar General store in a predominantly black neighbourhood, leaving two men and one woman dead in an attack that Jacksonville Sheriff TK Waters quickly called “racially motivated”.
The shooting happened just before 2pm within a mile of Edward Waters University, a small, historically black university. In addition to carrying a firearm painted with a symbol of Germany’s Nazi regime of the 1930s and 1940s, the gunman issued racist statements before the shooting. He killed himself at the scene.
“He hated black people,” the sheriff said.
Rudolph McKissick, a national board member of Mr Sharpton’s National Action Network, was not in Washington DC on Saturday. Yet his thoughts on the shooting touched on issues raised by the civil rights leader.
“The irony is on the day we celebrate the 60th commemoration of the March on Washington, where Dr Martin Luther King stood up and talked about a dream for racial equality and for love, we still yet live in a country where that dream is not a reality,” Mr McKissick said. “That dream has now been replaced by bigotry.”
The gunman, who was in his 20s, wore a bullet-resistant vest and used a Glock handgun and an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. He acted alone and there was no evidence he was part of a group, Mr Waters said.
The gunman sent written statements to federal law enforcement and at least one media outlet shortly before the attack with evidence suggesting the attack was intended to mark the fifth anniversary of the murder of two people during a video game tournament in Jacksonville by an assailant who also killed himself.
Officials did not immediately release the names of the victims or the gunman on Saturday. Local media identified a man believed to be the gunman but his identity was not independently confirmed by The Associated Press by early on Sunday.
The university said in a statement that a security officer had seen the man near the school’s library and asked for identification. When he refused, he was asked to leave and returned to his car. He was spotted putting on the bullet-resistant vest and a mask before leaving the grounds, although it was not known whether he had planned an attack at the university, Mr Waters said.
“I can’t tell you what his mindset was while he was there, but he did go there,” the sheriff said.
#JSO Sheriff T.K. Waters, along with Mayor Donna Deegan, and other LEO partners and city leaders gathered today to speak about a shooting involving three victims - all of which died.
The suspect was located and pinned down by officers. He was subsequently found deceased and is… pic.twitter.com/G9TzOckC7D— Jax Sheriff's Office (@JSOPIO) August 26, 2023
Shortly before the attack, the gunman sent his father a text message telling him to check his computer, where he found his writings. The family notified police, but the shooting had already begun, Mr Waters said.
“This is a dark day in Jacksonville’s history. There is no place for hate in this community,” said Mr Waters, who noted the FBI was assisting with the ongoing inquiry and had opened a hate crime investigation. “I am sickened by this cowardly shooter’s personal ideology.”
Mayor Donna Deegan said she was heartbroken. “This is a community that has suffered again and again. So many times this is where we end up,” Ms Deegan said. “This is something that should not and must not continue to happen in our community.”
Mr McKissick, who is a Baptist bishop and senior pastor of the historic Bethel Church in Jacksonville, said the shooting took place in the New Town neighbourhood, which now needs love and affirmation.
“It’s a black neighborhood, and what we don’t want is for it to be painted in some kind of light that it is filled with plight, violence and decadence,” Mr McKissick said.
“As it began to unfold, and I began to see the truth of it, my heart ached on several levels,” he said, noting the shooting appears to be an extension of a racial divide in the state highlighted by political turmoil, which he said has been fuelled in part by governor Ron DeSantis.
“This divide exists because of the ongoing disenfranchisement of black people and a governor, who is really propelling himself forward through bigoted, racially motivated, misogynistic, xenophobic actions to throw red meat to a Republican base,” Mr McKissick said in reference to Mr DeSantis.
“Nobody is having honest, candid conversations about the presence of racism,” said Mr McKissick.
Mr DeSantis, who spoke with the sheriff by phone from Iowa while campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination, denounced the gunman’s racist motivation, calling him a “scumbag”.
“This guy killed himself rather than face the music and accept responsibility for his actions. He took the coward’s way out,” Mr DeSantis said.
Mr McKinnis said the location of the shooting was chosen because of its proximity to Edward Waters University, where students remained locked down in their accommodation for several hours. No students or staff were believed to have been involved, the university said.
