A gunman singled out Christians, telling them they would see God in
“one second,” during a rampage at an Oregon college Thursday that left at least nine innocent people dead and several more wounded, survivors and authorities said.
“[He started] asking people one by one what their religion was. ‘Are
you a Christian?’ he would ask them, and if you’re a Christian, stand
up. And they would stand up and he said, ‘Good, because you’re a
Christian, you are going to see God in just about one second.’ And then
he shot and killed them,” Stacy Boylen, whose daughter was wounded at
Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore., told CNN.
A Twitter user named @bodhilooney,
who said her grandmother was at the scene of the carnage, tweeted that
if victims said they were Christian, “then they were shot in the head.
If they said no, or didn’t answer, they were shot in the legs.”
Gunman Chris Harper-Mercer’s disdain for religion was evident in an
online profile, in which he became a member of a “doesn’t like organized
religion” group on an Internet dating site.
Kortney Moore, 18, said she saw the teacher of her Writing 115 class
get shot in the head at the college’s Snyder Hall before the gunman
started asking people to state their religion and opening fire, the city’s News-Review newspaper reported.
Harper-Mercer, 26, was killed in a shootout with police outside one of the classrooms, said Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin.
“There was an exchange of gunfire,” he said. “The shooter threat was neutralized.”
Although police put the death toll at 10 — including Harper-Mercer — with seven people injured,
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