Community of Roseburg, Oregon remembers shooting victims with candlelight vigil

A vigil was held in Roseburg, Oregon on Thursday (October 1) evening after a gunman stalked onto a college campus in the town and opened fire, killing nine people and wounding seven before police shot him to death in the deadliest burst of U.S. gun violence this year.

 

The suspect, who witnesses say fired dozens of shots into a classroom full of screaming students, was slain in an exchange of gunfire with two police officers in Snyder Hall at Umpqua Community College, known locally as UCC, following the morning rampage.

 

He was not publicly identified by local authorities - the county sheriff vowed never to utter his name. But CBS, CNN, NBC and the New York Times named him as 26-year-old Chris Harper-Mercer, citing anonymous law enforcement sources.

 

Hundreds of community members gathered in a local park for a candlelight vigil, singing "Amazing Grace" and chanting "we are family, we are UCC."

 

After the official vigil was over, a small cluster of grieving community members, several of them in tears, gathered around a large "UCC" sign made of lit glass candles and whispered prayers and held hands, exchanging words of support.

 

Victoria Van Buren said one of her friends was shot.

 

"One of my very close family friends, actually I consider her my sister, she got shot in the stomach today. She's OK, though. She lost a kidney and she's going to be fine."

 

Mia Duran said one of her friends lost a finger in the shooting and another was in one of the classrooms when the shooting broke out.

 

"It was a very emotional day today," she said.

 

President Barack Obama, speaking just hours after the rampage, said the mass killing should move Americans to demand greater gun controls from elected officials.

 

Van Buren did not agree.

 

"If the United States is going to take out of this that we should have gun laws and guns should be taken away, in fact, I think that there should be more guns in the area and that everybody should be protected and know how to use them and protect themselves, because this could have very easily been avoided. Nobody, not this mass of people could have been, this wouldn't have been here today. And I do know how to shoot a gun myself, so as soon as I turn 21, I will be having my concealed weapons permit and I will be carrying it daily for this reason," she said.

 

Ken Shemel said it was too soon for talk of gun control and the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which protects ownership of firearms.

 

"You know, there's all this stuff in the news and with politics going on about the Second Amendment and gun control. It's, like, come on, guys, just give us a second to breathe, you know," he said.

 

The massacre in Roseburg, a former timber town on the western edge of the Cascades some 260 miles (418 km) south of Portland, was the latest in a flurry of deadly mass shootings at American college and public school campuses, movie theaters, military bases and churches in recent years.

 

The 10 people killed surpassed the death tolls from two previous mass shootings - a gun battle between rival motorcycle gangs in Waco, Texas, in May, and the rampage of a gunman at a black church in Charleston, South Carolina, each of which claimed nine lives - to mark the deadliest incident of gun violence in the United States this year.  — Reuters