ARE YOU CHRISTIAN? YOU’LL SEE GOD IN ONE SECOND
GUN-WIELDING loner Chris Harper-Mercer singled out Christians for murder during his rampage.
Chris Harper-Mercer, whose father comes from a Catholic family in Lancashire, northwest England, barked orders at terrified students and staff as they lay on the floor at the campus in Oregon.
Witnesses said he told any Christians to stand, saying: ‘Because you’re a Christian, you’re going to see God in just about one second.’
He shot the Christians in the head while others were shot in the body or legs. Some said they survived by staying on the floor and pretending to be dead.
The gunman, who was wearing body armour and carrying an assault rifle and three handguns, killed nine and left seven people wounded in the attack on Thursday before he died in a shootout with police.
Mercer, 26, left behind a ‘multi-page, hated-filled’ statement in a classroom at Umpqua Community College, US news station NBC reported last night.
Yesterday, the full horror of the massacre at the close-knit community college emerged as witnesses told how the powercrazed loner, who hated organised religion and described himself online as a ‘pagan’, walked into a classroom building as morning lessons were under way.
Although Harper-Mercer’s connection to the college, which caters mainly to mature students, remained unclear, it appears he knew exactly where he was going in the large, spread-out campus outside the town of Roseburg.
His first target was classroom 15, where 20 students were in an English and writing class. Student Cassandra Welding, 20, was next door. She heard several loud bursts like balloons popping. When a woman in her class went to close the classroom door, she was hit in the stomach by bullets.
‘He [Harper-Mercer] was just out there, hanging outside the door and she slumped over and I knew something wasn’t right,’ said Ms Welding. She and her classmates huddled in a corner, hiding behind their desks and backpacks. ‘I heard more shooting – it was horrific,’ she said. ‘My whole body was shaking, a chill was going down my spine.’
Police said the gunman then rampaged through at least two other classrooms as he headed for the science building.
Witnesses described how Harper-Mercer prowled through the corridors, saying: ‘Come on out, come on out.’
Anastasia Boylan, 18, said she survived only by playing dead when the gunman called on all the Christians in her class to identify themselves.
Ms Boylan later told her father the gunman shot her professor point-blank, saying: ‘I’ve been waiting to do this for years.’
Many students simply hid under their tables. ‘We were trying to stay invisible,’ said Melody Boqua, a mother of three.
Others fled, one young woman reportedly swam across a creek to get off campus.