Aunt of wounded victim: Nephew tried to stop college shooter

– Federal investigators recovered six weapons at the college and seven at Mercer’s apartment.

Hanlin, the sheriff, said Thursday that he was not going to say the shooter’s name because that’s what he would have wanted.

She said she spoke with her nephew briefly Friday morning. The gunman also died during a shootout with police.

A visibly frustrated President Barack Obama – who has denounced the proliferation of guns in society after more than a half-dozen previous mass shootings – said “thoughts and prayers are not enough”.

Another student, 18-year-old Kortney Moore, relayed a similar account, telling the News Review that the shooter asked individuals to stand up and state their religion before he opened fire.

Chris Mintz was shot multiple times by a gunman at an Oregon community college Thursday, and now he’s being called a hero, after it emerged that Mintz ran at the attacker and tried to block the door to a classroom and protect his classmates.

“Gets shot three times”, his aunt said.

The killer, whose social media profiles featured content supporting the IRA, apparently demanded to know his victims’ religious beliefs before opening fire at the campus in Roseburg, Oregon.

“She said, ‘Hey, is everyone OK over there?’ And then as soon as she said that, multiple shots were fired”.

It has now emerged that his grandfather lives in Preston. The gunman killed nine people and critically injured seven others during his rampage.

Umpqua Community College alumna Donice Smith, left, is embraced after learning one of her former teachers was killed in Roseburg, Ore., October 1.

A man identifying himself as the gunman’s father Ian Mercer told reporters outside his home in Los Angeles on Thursday night, “It’s been a devastating day, devastating for me and my family”.

The weapons had been purchased legally over the past three years, a few by him, others by relatives, said Celinez Nunez, assistant field agent for the Seattle division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

In an interview with ABC News, the younger Mintz said: “I just hope that everyone else is OK”. Law enforcement sources said that Mercer’s connection to the college, where he wasn’t a student, remained unclear. “If they said “other” or didn’t answer, they were shot elsewhere in the body, usually the leg”.

He isn’t believed to have a criminal history.

Steven Fisher, who also lives nearby, described Mercer as “skittish”.

Army spokesman Lt. Col. Ben Garrett said Harper-Mercer was in the military for a little over a month at Ft. I continue to believe that those media and community members who publicise his name will only glorify his horrific actions.

After a 2006 incident in which one student was shot by another at Roseburg High School, local institutions – including UCC – hired security guards, according to the Eugene Register-Guard.

During a press conference Thursday, Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin refused to utter Mercer’s name. “In a situation like that, you knew he would be the one to respond”.