All details are in dispute at the moment, as is always the case in mass shootings, but the situation is dire.
CNN BREAKING: Preliminary info: 10 deceased, 20 wounded at Umpqua Community College in Oregon -Oregon State Police
— Vaughn Sterling (@vplus) October 1, 2015
https://twitter.com/KATUNews/status/649650104492646400
KATU has live coverage here. The anchor claims, per the local fire department, that the shooter has been neutralized somehow but even that’s not confirmed. Stand by for many updates. Horribly, it looks like we have another Virginia Tech here.
Update: Even the police’s details are in dispute: Now Oregon state PD are saying seven to 10 are confirmed dead, not 15 as was alleged earlier.
Update: Just across at around 3:15 p.m. ET.
UPDATE: UCC shooter is no longer active. No confirmation on whether they are dead or alive. #LiveOnK2 #UCCShooting
— KATU News (@KATUNews) October 1, 2015
Meanwhile, the predictable battle over gun rights has already begun on Twitter. Worth noting: A new law in Oregon requiring background checks for all gun sales took effect in August.
Update: Is this a coincidence or something more?
https://twitter.com/robert_mariani/status/649665654220554240
Stephen Miller claims that posts like that are a regular feature on 4chan. Maybe it’s just a coincidence.
Update: Oregon police just confirmed at a press conference that the shooter is a man and is dead. No word on his identity or the number of dead and wounded, though. He was, apparently, 20 years old.
Update: The death toll stands at 13, per NBC News. The shooter apparently didn’t kill himself but was taken down by the police:
The gunman was killed in a firefight with Douglas County sheriff’s deputies, Sheriff John Hanlin said. State Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum told NBC News simply that the man had been “neutralized” at the scene near Roseburg, where the shootings were called in at 10:38 a.m. (1:38 p.m. ET).
No officers were injured, said Hanlin, who said: “It’s been a terrible day.”
Update: An ominous detail from Umpqua Community College’s local paper, the Roseburg News-Review:
Kortney Moore, 18, from Rogue River, was in her Writing 115 class in Snyder Hall when one shot came through a window. She saw her teacher get shot in the head. The shooter was inside at that point, and he told people to get on the ground. The shooter was asking people to stand up and state their religion and then started firing away, Moore said. Moore was lying there with people who had been shot.
Someone on Twitter is claiming that her grandmother was there and that the shooter was asking people specifically whether they were Christian, but there’s no telling yet if that’s true or just Internet fiction.
Update: A police source tells CNN that four guns have been recovered at the scene. Also this: “Investigators are also looking at social media postings they believe the shooter made, a source with knowledge of the investigation told CNN.” Is that a reference to the 4Chan thread noted above or something else?
Update: Another detail for the inevitable gun rights debate that’s coming: The Federalist notes that Umpqua CC prohibits the possession or use of firearms on campus and considers it a form of student misconduct, with expulsion a possible penalty, to violate that rule. The campus is a gun-free zone. Or at least it’s supposed to be.
Update: Here’s this evening’s Obama press conference reduced to one quote.
.@POTUS: "This is something we should politicize." pic.twitter.com/it5rnufSxP
— Fox News (@FoxNews) October 1, 2015
Update: A little good news on a terrible day — the local sheriff has revised the death toll down from 13 to 10.
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