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3 killed in Jacksonville store shooting; Officials label it a ‘racially motivated’ incident.

In Jacksonville, Florida, a Dollar General store became the scene of a tragic incident as a white man in his 20s shot and killed three people before taking his own life. The attack occurred in a predominantly Black neighborhood, prompting local sheriff T K Waters to describe it as “racially motivated.” Sheriff Waters stated that the shooter had “hated black people,” and there’s no indication of his connection to any larger group.

The assailant utilized a Glock handgun and an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, with one of the firearms even bearing a swastika symbol. He left behind writings that suggested his motive was related to the fifth anniversary of another shooting during a video game tournament in Jacksonville. In that past incident, two people were killed by a gunman who then committed suicide.

The Dollar General store, situated near Edward Waters University, a historically Black institution, was the location of the attack, causing the university to keep its students in their dorms. Penny Jones, a former store employee who resides in the neighborhood, expressed her anxieties about the incident, pondering its implications for her safety and the community.

This tragedy struck just after a March on Washington in the US capital that highlighted the escalating threat of hate-motivated violence against people of color. The attack on a shopping center in a predominantly Black area inevitably brings to mind previous shootings targeting Black Americans, such as the one in a Buffalo supermarket in 2022 and the historic African Methodist Episcopal church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015. The Buffalo supermarket incident, a grave example of white lone gunman violence against Black individuals, resulted in ten fatalities and a life imprisonment sentence for the perpetrator.

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