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As many as 13 killed in shooting at Oregon community college, officials say 'Another mass shooting in America': Oregon killings a grim familiarity for US
(about 3 hours later)
As many as 13 people were killed and 20 injured in a shooting at a community college in south-western Oregon, emergency officials said. The US is reeling from another school shooting, the 45th this year, after a 20-year-old gunman murdered as many as 10 people and wounded seven more at a community college in Oregon before he was killed.
Investigators were focusing on reports from survivors at Umpqua community college in the rural town of Roseburg that the gunman told students to state their religion before he opened fire. The police were also looking at reports that hours before the attack he posted messages on an internet chat site warning people to stay away. Investigators said they were attempting to trace people on the site who discouraged him while others urged him on. It does not appear anyone reported the messages to the authorities before the shooting.
Related: Oregon college shooting: 'seven to 10 killed' say officials – live updatesRelated: Oregon college shooting: 'seven to 10 killed' say officials – live updates
Oregon attorney general Ellen Rosenblum told NBC that 13 people were killed, while earlier state police Lt Bill Fugate told KATU-TV that seven to 10 people were dead and at least 20 others were injured. The police described the gunman as a white male but did not say if he was a student at the college. CNN reported that four guns were recovered at the scene. At least 20 people were wounded alongside those who died.
Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin would not confirm how many people were killed or injured in the shooting during a press conference on Thursday. Hours after the killings, President Obama, clearly agitated at making his 15th statement on shootings since taking office, said “There’s been another mass shooting in America” and spoke of the country being numbed by the repeated massacres.
“I’ve heard varying numbers and I don’t want to report on a number that is inaccurate,” Hanlin said. “As I said just a few months ago and I said a few months before that and each time we see one of these mass shootings, our thoughts and prayers are not enough. It does nothing to prevent this carnage being inflicted some place in America, next week or a couple of months from now,” the president said. “Somehow this has become routine.”
He said that the shooter was a male and that he was deceased. He said he did not know if the gunman was a student. Kortney Moore, 18, told the News Review in Roseburg that she was in her writing class when a shot came through a window and hit her teacher the head. She said the gunman then ordered students to stand and state their religion before opening fire. Moore said she was left lying on the floor with people who were shot.
“There was an exchange of gunfire, the shooter threat was neutralized and officers continued to sweep the campus looking for other threats,” Hanlin said. Other survivors spoke of not hearing a shot as the gunman moved from room to room through the campus of 16 buildings with the classrooms in a horseshoe next to the Umpqua river. Marilyn Kittelman’s son was in the building next to the science block where the initial shooting occurred.
The fire district said on Twitter that “multiple casualties” had been transported from the scene. CNN reported that a local hospital is expecting an “unknown number” of patients. “He said there was no sound. There were some 30 shots and no sound. He was pretty surprised,” she told CNN.
PeaceHealth hospital in Springfield shared information about three patients who suffered gunshot wounds in the incident. Two of the patients are females, aged 18 and 34, and the third patient’s age and gender are unknown. All were transported by helicopter from the campus to the hospital. The gunman was cornered in a hall by a police officer who reported exchanging shots with the man.
The Douglas County sheriff’s office said in a Facebook statement that the first 911 calls were received at 10.38am PT and that police from multiple jurisdictions had responded. “Suspect is down,” he told the 911 dispatcher. “He’s not breathing, is in Snyder hall.”
The fire department on Twitter advised people to stay away from Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, which is about 180 miles south of Portland. Students and faculty members were being bussed to the being bused to the Douglas County Fairgrounds. A couple minutes later, the officer told the dispatcher: “We’ve got multiple gunshot wounds. We’re going to need multiple ambulances on scene.”
The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is on the scene. An agency spokesperson said ATF agents came in from Portland and Eugene, Oregon. The ATF’s K9 unit and an assistant special agent from Seattle have also been dispatched to the scene. It was not immediately known how many students were on campus at the time. The community college, which mostly provides adult education to students in their late 20s, has about 3,000 students registered but only a few hundred attend full time.
Oregon governor Kate Brown spoke at a press conference in Portland before heading to Roseburg. At the Douglas County fairgrounds, families waited along with grief counsellors and a large international media contingent for students, who were being bused from the campus.
“We are holding the community of Douglas County in our hearts today,” Brown said. Heather Alvers, a UCC student, was waiting to give survivors free trips home. She was on her way to campus when police stopped her. Most of her friends were confirmed safe but, she said, “the community is devastated”.
Ron Wyden, a senator from Oregon, said on Twitter that “Oregonians everywhere want Roseburg to know we’re praying for them”. Alvers said that rumors and confusion had taken the place of facts for most of the day, and “some people were still locked down on campus”.
Oregonians everywhere want Roseburg to know we're praying for them. She had been here for hours, while “hundreds and hundreds” of evacuees came through.
Umpqua Community College has about 3,000 students. Its website was down Thursday, and a phone message left at the school by the Associated Press wasn’t immediately returned. Like everyone else, all she could do was wait.
Colin Goddard, a survivor of the Virginia Tech shooting and senior policy advocate for Everytown for Gun Safety, released a statement through the gun violence prevention group. Oregon’s governor, Kate Brown, spoke of her “profound dismay and heartbreak” at the killings. Douglas County commissioner Chris Boice learned of the shooting when one of his staffers “got a phone call from her daughter who was on campus, and the shooting was happening at that point”.
“My heart goes out to the entire Umpqua Community College family,” Goddard said. “Seeing the breaking news of yet another campus shooting jolts me back to my own experience at Virginia Tech. America is the only developed country where when someone asks if you heard about that campus shooting, you have to clarify ‘which one?’ That is unacceptable.” “I ran down the hall called the sheriff on his cellphone. He was en route to the incident,” said Boice. “We’re a tight-knit community and everybody knows everybody.
“We’re going to be heavily impacted by this and I can’t imagine what those families must be feeling right now.”
Exasperation from Obama
Obama blamed the failure to pass gun control measures after earlier mass killings for having to make yet another address to the nation after yet another tragedy. He expressed frustration that countries such as Britain and Australia have been able to pass legislation that largely prevents such tragedies.
“Right now I can imagine the press releases being cranked out. We need more guns, they’ll say. Fewer safety laws. Does anybody really believe that?”
The president called for news organisations to compare the number of Americans killed by terrorism over the past decade with the number who died in gun violence. He noted that the US spends trillions of dollars and has passed myriad laws to protect people from terrorism.
“Yet we have a Congress that explicitly blocks us from even collecting data on how to reduce potential gun deaths. How can that be?” he said.
The president appealed to voters to elect politicians committed to strengthening gun control and to gun owners to ask themselves whether organisations such as the National Rifle Association, which pour large amounts of money into lobbying against restrictions, are really serving the interests of those who use weapons for sport and hunting.
The kind of opposition the president faces comes from county sheriff John Hanlin, who was at the scene of the killings and spoke movingly of the impact it will have on families he is close to. But in 2013 he wrote to the vice-president, Joe Biden, saying he would not enforce “unconstitutional” laws to restrict ownership.
“Gun control is NOT [sic] the answer to preventing heinous crimes like school shootings. And actions against, or in disregard for our US Constitution and 2nd Amendment rights by the current administration would be irresponsible and an indisputable insult to the American people,” he wrote to Biden.
Guns can be carried openly in Oregon. The police in Portland sometimes get calls from alarmed citizens who spot a person with a semiautomatic weapon walking through the city only to be informed that is legal. The state issues permits to carry concealed weapons as a matter of routine but, unlike many states, requires a mental health check.
Gun laws were tightened earlier this year by requiring background checks on private gun sales to bring them in line with weapons sold through gun shops.
“We have an obligation to protect Oregonians from gun violence,” Brown said before signing the legislation. “If we want to keep our kids, schools and communities safe, we must make it harder for dangerous people to get guns.”
There was an immediate slew of calls for strengthened gun control, including from Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton:
Another devastating shooting. We need sensible gun control measures to save lives, and I will do everything I can to achieve that. -H
Everytown for Gun Safety, a group funded by the billionaire former mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg, noted that the Umpqua college killings are the 45th school shooting this year in the US, and the 142nd school shooting since the attack at Sandy Hook elementary school, in Connecticut, nearly three years ago.
“America is the only developed country where when someone asks if you heard about that campus shooting, you have to clarify: ‘Which one?’ That is unacceptable,” said Colin Goddard, a survivor of the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting and an Everytown advocate. “Something has to change. We need to all come together for the Umpqua families today.”