Oregon Shooting

Oregon Shooting at Umpqua College Kills 10, Sheriff Says

A 26-year-old man opened fire on a community college campus here in a rampage that left 10 people dead and seven wounded and turned this rural stretch of southern Oregon into the latest American locale ravaged by a mass shooting.

Students described scenes of carnage concentrated in a public speaking class that was underway in a college humanities building, and people fleeing in panic from classrooms as they heard shots nearby.

The college, Umpqua Community College, went into lockdown, and the gunman died in an exchange of gunfire with police officers who responded, law enforcement officials said.

With anxious parents waiting at a fairground near the campus and the police going from classroom to classroom, the authorities’ reports of the death toll varied throughout the day. At a 5 p.m. news conference, John Hanlin, the sheriff of Douglas County, said that he believed there were 10 dead, calling the toll the “best, most accurate information we have at this time.” He declined to say whether the gunman was included in the death toll.

Law enforcement officials identified the gunman Thursday night as Chris Harper Mercer, and said he had three weapons, at least one of them a long gun and the other ones handguns. It was not clear whether he fired them all. The officials said the man lived in the Roseburg area.

They said one witness had told them that Mr. Mercer had asked about people’s religions before he began firing. “He appears to be an angry young man who was very filled with hate,” one law enforcement official said. Investigators are poring over what one official described as “hateful” writings by Mr. Mercer. The F.B.I. has dispatched dozens of agents to assist in the investigation.

Sheriff Hanlin said at a news conference that he would not speak the gunman’s name.

“Let me be very clear, I will not name the shooter,” he said. “I will not give him the credit he probably sought prior to this horrific and cowardly act.”

He also encouraged reporters “not to glorify and create sensationalism for him. He in no way deserves it.”

The massacre added the community college to a string of schools that have been left grieving after mass shootings, a list that runs from Columbine High School in 1999 to Virginia Tech in 2007 to Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., where 20 children were killed in 2012.

President Obama, in an impassioned appearance at the White House, said that grief was not enough, and he implored Americans, “whether they are Democrats or Republicans or independents,” to consider their representatives’ stance on gun control when they voted and to decide “whether this cause of continuing death for innocent people should be a relevant factor.”

State and local officials all expressed shock. Gov. Kate Brown said at a news conference that she felt “profound dismay and heartbreak.”

The first reports of shots came at 10:38 a.m. on what was the fourth day of the new session. Students said they took place in Classroom 15 in a building called Snyder that houses many English and writing classes.

Cassandra Welding, a 20-year-old junior, was in Classroom 16, next to the shooting, and heard several loud bursts, like balloons popping. There were about 20 people in the classroom. A middle-aged woman behind her rose to shut the classroom door and was struck in the stomach by several bullets.

Kortney Moore, 18, from Rogue River, told the Roseburg newspaper, The News-Review, that the gunman had asked people to stand up and state their religion and then started firing. She said she saw her teacher shot in the head, adding that she herself was on the floor with people who had been shot.

Federal law enforcement officials said they were examining an online conversation on 4chan, an anonymous message board, as well as other social media, trying to determine whether any of it was linked to the gunman. In that conversation, one writer said, “Don’t go to school tomorrow if you are in the Northwest.”

Roseburg, about 180 miles south of Portland, with a population of 22,000, is a part of the Pacific Northwest that in many ways has been left behind as the region has moved on toward an economy of technology and high wages. Once a major center for wood milling, it has struggled in recent decades as the timber harvests in the national forests that hug the community have declined.

Wine grape cultivation has helped some, but poverty and unemployment rates are high. In August, according to the most recent government figures, Douglas County had an unemployment rate of 8.1 percent, tied for the second-highest in the state. About 20 percent of residents in the city and county live below the federal poverty line.

The college, with about 3,000 students, reflects that struggle, with many of its students coming back to school to gain skills for a career change. The average student is 37, and popular courses of study include winemaking, nursing, welding and auto mechanics. “It’s a community college, so a lot of our friends and family attend this college,” Sheriff Hanlin said.