By Frederick H. Lowe

A White gunman with swastikas painted on his Glock pistol and on his AR-15 rifle, who wanted to kill “Niggers,” shot and killed two Black men and one Black woman in a racially motivated shooting Saturday in Jacksonville, Florida.

During a Sunday news conference, Sheriff T. K. Waters identified the shooter as Ryan Christopher Palmeter, 21. 

He shot and killed Blacks inside and outside outside of the Dollar General Store where he believed a large number of Blacks would be found.

Palmeter killed Angela Michelle Carr, 52, Jerrald De’Shaun Gallion, 29, and Amto Joseph Laguerre, Jr., 19, before turning the gun on himself. 

He murdered Carr in her automobile and Lagueer as he attempted to flee. Gallion was shot as he entered the store.

After the shooting, Ju’ Coby Pittman, a Jacksonville City Council Member, wailed that Black people are no longer safe walking down the sidewalk or going into stores.

The Jacksonville, Florida, shooting followed the same modus operandi as the gunman who murdered 10 mostly Black people in Buffalo, N.Y. 

Payton Gendron, who lived in Conklin, N.Y., drove three hours to Buffalo to find a large population of Blacks. He began killing shoppers and workers at Tops Friendly Markets on May 14, 2022.  

On both of his guns, he had written, “These are your reparations.” He is now serving life in prison without parole.

The Jacksonville gunman left behind writings that led investigators to believe that he committed the shooting because it was the fifth anniversary of a shooting committed by another gunman who opened fire during a video game tournament in Jacksonville, killing two people before fatally shooting himself.

Palmeter walked into a Dollar General Store near Edward Waters University, a small historically Black Christian university. He had gone there first but was turned away by an on-duty security guard when he refused to identify himself as he attempted to enter the campus.

Edward Waters University students were being kept in their dorms, the school said in a statement. No students or faculty are believed involved, the school said.

The FBI is treating the shooting as a hate crime. It also occurred on the same day as the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington.