Oregon gunman was Army dropout

Combined dispatches

ROSEBURG, Ore.

The 26-year-old gunman who opened fire on fellow students in his community college English class, killing nine people, was an Army boot camp dropout who studied mass shooters before becoming one himself.

A day after the rampage in this Oregon timber town, authorities said Christopher Sean Harper-Mercer wore a flak jacket and brought at least six guns and five ammunition magazines to the school. Investigators found another seven guns at the apartment he shared with his mother.

The gunman was a student at the school and a classmate of those he targeted in Thursday’s shooting.

“He was a student at Umpqua Community College and was enrolled in the class where the mass shooting took place,” Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin said Friday. It had earlier been reported that the shooter had no connection to the school.

Officials on Friday released the names of the dead, who ranged in age from 18 to 67 and included several freshmen and a teacher. The victims are: Kim Saltmarsh Dietz, 59; Lucero Alcaraz, 19; Jason Johnson, 20; Quinn Glen Cooper, 18; Lucas Eibel, 18; Lawrence Levine, 67; Sarena Dawn Moore, 44; Treven Taylor Anspach, 20; and Rebecka Ann Carnes, 18.

Seven other people were wounded in the attack in Roseburg, about 180 miles south of Portland.

Harper-Mercer, who died during a shootout with police, was armed with handguns and a rifle, some of which were military grade. The weapons had been purchased legally over the past three years, some by him, others by relatives, said Celinez Nunez, assistant field agent for the Seattle division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

Harper-Mercer’s social media profiles suggested he was fascinated by the Irish Republican Army and frustrated by traditional organized religion.

On Thursday morning, he walked into Snyder Hall at Umpqua Community College and began firing, shooting many victims repeatedly. Survivors described a classroom of carnage, and one said he ordered students to state their religion before shooting them.