Umpqua Community College Shooting

Overview

2015 Umpqua Community College Shooting was a mass shooting that took place on the campus of Umpqua Community College in Roseberg, Oregon.

Background

At 10:38 a.m. (PDT) on October 1st, 2015, Douglas County Sheriff's Office received the first 911 emergency call about a gunman walking through several campus buildings and shooting people indiscriminately at Umpqua Community College in Roseberg, Oregon. The gunman killed nine people and injured seven others before he died during a shootout with police officers who arrived on the scene. According to multiple witnesses, the shooter reportedly asked several students their religion before shooting them.

The Shooter's Identity

The shooter was identified as Chris Harper-Mercer by news sources despite efforts of the Douglas County Sheriff's Office to repress the release of the information. According to a neighbor Mercer “seemed really unfriendly." Mercer was born in England and traveled to the U.S. as a child. A review of army records from Fort Jackson, South Carolina show that Mercer served there from November to December 2008 but was discharged for failing to meet the minimum standards to be in the United States Army.

Notable Developments

4chan /r9k/ post

Shortly after the news broke, rumors began circulating that the shooter had warned of a school shooting in the Northwest on 4chan’s /r9k/ board the previous day (shown below). In the following hours, the thread became flooded with varying reactions and the archived copy was subsequently picked up by several news outlets. By 7:39 p.m. (EST), the New York Times had reported that federal law enforcement officials were in the process of examining the conversation, as well as other social media footprints, to try to determine whether any of it was linked to the gunman.

An association of the name "Eggman" as the original poster was spread online and according to an unknown anonymous NBC caller who identified as "Eggman", he was alive and proclaimed to not be the shooter.

Social Media Presence

On the next day, a number of social media profile pages linked to the shooter surfaced in the news media, including a Myspace profile page featuring a photograph believed to be Mercer holding a rifle and a series of posts praising the Irish Republican Army, an online dating profile in which he describes himself as “conservative, republican" and a blog post expressing sympathy for Vester Flanagan.

“On an interesting note, I have noticed that so many people like him are all alone and unknown, yet when they spill a little blood, the whole world knows who they are. A man who was known by no one, is now known by everyone. His face splashed across every screen, his name across the lips of every person on the planet, all in the course of one day. Seems the more people you kill, the more you’re in the limelight.”

Reactions

President Barack Obama stated “[Thoughts and prayers do] not capture the heartache and grief and anger that we should feel, and it does nothing to prevent this carnage from being inflicted some place else in America next week or a couple months from now.” The event has also reignited gun control debate. Presidential candidate Marco Rubio stated however “Criminals don’t follow gun laws. Only law-abiding people follow gun laws. And there is just no evidence that these gun laws would prevent these shootings.”^[3]

#UCCShooting

Online, the conversation was discussed using the hashtag #UCCShooting. Within 48 hours, approximately 300,000 tweets had been published to Twitter^[10] using the hashtag and an unconfirmed number on Facebook^[11] as well.

External References