Report: Oregon Shooter Had White Supremacist Leanings

A Myspace profile image from a profile that appears to belong to Chris Harper Mercer, the 26-year-old identified by news outlets as the gunman in the Umpqua Community College shooting.
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The 26-year-old gunman who massacred at least nine people Thursday at Oregon’s Umpqua Community College reportedly had white supremacist leanings.

The Los Angeles Times reported Friday, based on information from an anonymous federal law enforcement source familiar with the investigation, that the shooter was obsessed with guns and religion and had white supremacist leanings.

Douglas County, Oregon Sheriff John Hanlin said Thursday that he would not glorify the gunman by releasing his name and urged the media to follow his example. But the Times and other news outlets, including The Associated Press, have identified the gunman as 26-year-old Chris Harper Mercer based on information from anonymous federal law enforcement sources and government officials.

The gunman also reportedly used an email address that invoked a symbol with connections to neo-Nazis and white supremacist groups. The Guardian found via a public records search that the email address “ironcross45@gmail.com” was associated with a Chris Harper Mercer of Winchester, Oregon. The Anti-Defamation League notes that those groups adopted the Iron Cross, a German military medal, as a hate symbol by superimposing a swastika on the traditional medal.

The username on an online dating profile that appears to belong to the gunman is also “ironcross45.” Notably, that user lists his ethnicity as “mixed race.”

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  1. Notably, that user lists his ethnicity as “mixed race.”

    I think that's a disqualifying factor to join the Joseph Goebbels fan club.
  2. Avatar for mymy mymy says:

    He probably means he’s German and Swedish or some such pure Aryan combo…

  3. Sheriff Hanlin says he won’t speak his name so the shooter won’t get his 15 minutes, and MSM are buying into that.

    But let’s just call BS on that because he really doesn’t want to alienate the white supremacists in his county who share most of his conservative views.

  4. “Mixed race”. I saw that yesterday on some kind of profile page he had online. Never would have thought he was wrapped up in White Supremacist shit though. But now that I think about it, self-hatred is as good as any for the kind of melee and tragedy he brought about, including the eventual death by cop.

    This guy was a sociopath but the media will want to say he suffered from mental illness. That’s possible, but he’s no different than any other sociopathic, criminally-minded, Nazi-loving, White Supremacist-loving asshole that finds himself behind bars. Is it any wonder the rightwing nutjob of a Sheriff in that county doesn’t want to talk about the rightwing nutjob that killed all those people? I think not.

  5. Avatar for topcat topcat says:

    try telling that to people across Europe …your idea of white-eye won’t hold up well.

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