There was a shooting in Jacksonville today at a Dollar General where a white man in his 20s gunned down three black customers and did it on the basis of their race. The gunman then committed suicide.

Governor DeSantis responded to the shooting, calling the shooter a scumbag and a coward:

 
Here’s the details of the shooting that we know thus far:

Three people were killed Saturday after a gunman opened fire and targeted Black people at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, Florida, officials said.

“This shooting was racially motivated and he hated Black people,” Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters said at a news conference.

Waters said the shooter, who he described as a White man in his 20s, shot and killed himself after the attack. The suspect left behind what the sheriff described as three manifestos outlining his “disgusting ideology of hate” and his motive in the attack.

All three victims were Black.

Waters said the shooter lived in Clay County, Florida, south of Jacksonville, with his parents, and told his father by text to “check his computer.” The father found documents described by Waters as manifestos and called authorities.

But Waters said by the time authorities were alerted about the manifestos, the gunman had already started the attack in the Dollar General.

The shooting started shortly after 1 p.m. ET, blocks away from Edward Waters University, a historically Black school where students living on campus were told to stay in their residence halls.

Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan said the gunman barricaded himself inside the store after the attack. It was not immediately clear if victims were shot inside or outside the store.

The sheriff said investigators believe the gunman acted alone and wore both a tactical vest and mask. He was armed with an AR-15 style rifle and a handgun.

Waters showed photos of the weapons, which showed swastikas were drawn on one of the guns with white paint.

“We have opened a federal civil rights investigation, and we will pursue this incident as a hate crime,” said Sherri Onks, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Jacksonville office.

This is absolutely horrific and believe me when I tell you this. He may have taken the coward’s way out to avoid consequences here. But he will absolutely be held accountable for his actions in the next life. It would have been better for him to suffer the consequences here and to repent than to suffer the eternal punishment he seems to have chosen.