Florida gunman's crime manifesto was diary of a madman: Sheriff

MIAMI: A 21-year-old gunman who killed three Black people in a racially-motivated shooting attack in Florida, had authored a crime manifesto, which was "the diary of a madman", says Jacksonville's Sheriff T.K. Waters.

On Sunday, the Sheriff’s Office released new CCTV video of gunman Ryan Christopher Palmeter entering the Dollar General store with an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle and a Glock handgun after 1 p.m. on Saturday, reports Fox News.

The store is located in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Jacksonville.

The victims were identified as 52-year-old Angela Michelle Carr, 19-year-old Anolt Joseph Laguerre Jr., and 29-year-old Jerrald De’Shawn Gallion.

According to the police, Palmeter, who shot himself dead after the incident, fired 11 rounds at Carr who was sitting in her car outside the store.

Addressing a press conference on Sunday, Waters confirmed Palmeter had no previous criminal history and lived with his parents in Clay County, reports the BBC.

Palmeter had authored several manifestos, for his parents, the media and federal agents, detailing his hatred of Black people, police said.

Waters said those manifestos "detailed the shooters disgusting ideology of hate. Finely put: this shooting was racially motivated and he hated black people".

"The manifesto is, quite frankly... the diary of a madman. He knew what he was doing. He was 100 per cent lucid. He knew what he was doing and again, it's disappointing that anyone would go to these lengths to hurt someone else".

Waters said Palmeter had been briefly detained for 72 hours in 2017 under the Baker Act, mental health legislation that allows the involuntary detainment of an individual for treatment.

But the sheriff said his weapons had been acquired legally, telling reporters the problem was not with the availability of guns, but with the killer being "a bad guy".

At the press conference, the CCTV video was played which showed the moment Palmeter walked up to the car where he killed the first woman with his gun loaded.

It then cut to video of him entering the shop.

Waters also confirmed that Palmeter let some people out of the shop without injuring them.

Also on Sunday, US Attorney General Merrick Garland said on Sunday the Justice Department was "investigating this attack as a hate crime and an act of racially motivated violent extremism", the BBC reported.

"No person in this country should have to live in fear of hate-fuelled violence and no family should have to grieve the loss of a loved one to bigotry and hate," he said.