Oregon shooting: did killer leave online warning?

People gather at a road block near the entrance to Umpqua Community College, in Roseburg, Ore., Thursday, October 1, 2015, following a deadly shooting at the campus.

Ahead of the shooting, a posting on the message board included a photo of a crudely drawn frog used regularly in Internet memes with a gun and warned other users not to go to school on Thursday in the Northwest.

“Some of you guys are alright”, the thread began on Wednesday evening. Don’t go to school tomorrow if you are in the northwest.

Gunman Harper-Mercer, who was reportedly born in the United Kingdom, had social media profiles featuring content supporting the IRA and apparently demanded to know his victims’ religious beliefs before opening fire at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon.

4Chan is notorious for similar posts in which users discuss committing crimes and, although unconfirmed at this point, the time and accuracy of the post heavily implies that the original creator and the gunman are the same person. “Won’t say more to much to prepare”.

One offered advice on tactics: “I suggest you enter a classroom and tell people that you will take them as hostages”. “Make sure that there is no way that someone can disarm you as it it possible”. I would suggest a powerful assault rifle and a pistol or 2x pistols.

The gunman added another post to the site promising that “normies will pay for their misdeeds”.

“THE MADMAN ACTUALLY DID IT”, another said.

A mass shooting that took place at a community college in Oregon overnight was the 294th of its kind in the U.S. this year-for clarity, that statistic is derived from a mass shooting tracker, which counts shootings that leave four or more people either wounded or killed-following 2015’s trend of, on average, more than one mass shooting occurring in the U.S. each day.

In that case, according to the Connecticut State Police final report on the attack, an unknown individual posted two days beforehand: “I’m going to kill myself on Friday and it will make the news.be watching at 9:00 am”.

Authorities said the shooter was deceased.