Florida shooting that left three dead was racially motivated, sheriff says

A Florida, sheriff says that a racially motivated shooter killed three people inside a Dollar General Store on Saturday before turning the gun on himself.

“Plainly put, this shooting was racially motivated and he hated black people,” Sheriff TK Waters said at a news conference in Jacksonville.

Earlier, Mayor Donna Deegan told WJXT “there are a number of fatalities” inside the store but did not give a precise number.

Numerous police officers were in the area near Edward Waters University, a small historically black university.

“This is unacceptable,” Ms Deegan told the station. “One shooting is too much but these mass shootings are really hard to take.”

Jacksonville City Council member Ju’Coby Pittman told the station the shooter is dead. She did not give details.

“My heart is heavy. I am tired of all of the shootings,” she said.

Edward Waters University students were being kept in their dorms, the school said in a statement. No students or faculty are believed involved, the school said.

The shooting happened five years to the day when a gunman opened fire during a video game tournament in Jacksonville, killing two people before fatally shooting himself.