WASHINGTON: A heavily-armed man today walked into a college classroom and opened fire after asking students’ religion, killing at least nine people and wounding 20 others before being shot dead by police in the US state of Oregon, in yet another carnage that prompted President Barack Obama to voice outrage over lax gun-control laws.
The gunman was identified as 26-year-old Chris Harper Mercer by local media, which citing eye-witnesses, reported that he allegedly targeted Christians.
An eyewitness said the gunman demanded to know students’ religion before shooting them. The police said the motive of the shooter was not known. One professor in the classroom was shot from point blank range.
The attacker opened fire at Umpqua Community College in rural Roseburg, about 180 miles south of Portland – the capital of Oregon – and then went on to other classrooms gunning down his victims, witnesses said.
The gunman, while reloading his handgun, ordered the students to stand up if they were Christians, one of the wounded students, Anastasia Boylan, was quoted as saying by the CNN. The college has about 3,000 students.
“And they would stand up and he said, ‘Good, because you’re a Christian, you’re going to see God in just about one second,'” Boylan’s father told the channel.
“And then he shot and killed them.”
A security official said the attacker had body armour with him and was heavily armed, with a large amount of ammunition – enough for a long gunfight.
The Oregon college shooting is the latest in a series of shootings in the US, including at a Charleston church, Sandy Hook school and Oak creek Gurdwara.
Since Obama’s re-election in November 2012 there have been 993 mass shooting events in the US, not including Umpqua. Almost 300 of them have occurred in 2015. (AGENCIES)
Follow our WhatsApp channel