Posted on 10/01/2015 9:49:14 PM PDT by Red Steel
Chris Harper-Mercer, the man accused of opening fire at a rural Oregon community college Thursday, formerly lived in the South Bay and attended a school for teens with emotional disabilities.
Records show Harper-Mercer, 20, lived in a ground-floor apartment on Arlington Avenue at 230th Street in Torrance with his mother, Laurel Harper, from 2011 to 2013. The owner of the building said he did not know them and neighbors did not recall them.
But current residents, greeted by reporters knocking at their doors late Thursday, were shocked to learn that the man suspected of committing the nation’s latest mass shooting had lived in their building.
“It’s extremely surreal,” said resident Shannon Medrano. “I don’t remember him. If I could see a picture of his mom, maybe it could jog some memory. I wonder what his experience was like here. This is not a big building. I’m sure we crossed paths at some point.”
Lists of South Bay graduates from 2009 published in the Daily Breeze showed Harper-Mercer graduated from the Switzer Learning Center in Torrance with four other students. Switzer teaches students with learning disabilities and emotional issues.
A former behavioral aide at Switzer, who did not want her name used, said the majority of the students at the school are from foster, low-income and single-parent homes. Some of these students were expelled from other schools or had been in trouble with the law.
The school is divided among special needs students and those with behavioral problems.
Records showed Harper-Mercer and his mother moved to Winchester, Ore., in 2013. In addition to Torrance, Harper showed previous addresses in Lomita, Harbor Gateway and Lomita.
CBS News reported that Harper-Mercer’s stepsister said he was born in England and moved to the United States as a young boy. Harper-Mercer’s father, who lives in Tarzana, married her mother, and the stepsister said the last time she spoke with Harper-Mercer was a year ago.
In Torrance, Medrano said it was shocking to learn Harper-Mercer reportedly shot his victims after asking them if they were Christian.
“I wonder what happened in his life that brought him to that point,” Medrano said. “It’s heartbreaking.”
On a profile that appeared to belong to Harper-Mercer on the Spiritual Passions dating website, where he listed himself as Ironcross45, Harper-Mercer said he was “looking for someone who shares my beliefs, and is similar to me.”
He described himself as a straight college student, a “teetotaller,” a conservative Republican and into punk industrial rock music. He described his interests and hobbies as “Internet, killing zombies, movies, music, reading.”
“Socially, I am shy at first, but warm up quickly, better in small groups,” he wrote. “I’m looking for romance, soulmate, conversation ... the yin to my yang, dating, penpal, friends only, relationship, miss right.”
He described himself as “not religious” and listed his groups as “Doesn’t Like Organized Religion,’ “Left-hnd path,” “Magick and Occult,” and “Not Religious but Spiritual.”
Witnesses said the shooter at Umpqua Community College near Roseburg, Ore., asked his victims whether they were Christians. Those who said there were reportedly were shot in the head, while others were shot in the legs. At least 10 people were killed.
Remember the controversy over the documentary movie TITICUT FOLLIES?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titicut_Follies
He took 5 shots and he’s still kicking.
Savage read from this article and he’s talking about Chris Mintz.
My relative passed away of natural causes about a year and a half ago. It was classic bipolar and there would be long periods of normal behavior where you saw what a wonderful person they were. Medication helped keep the “episodesâ€, for lack of a better term, fewer and farther apart but it never stopped anything and we would know by a change in behavior and a refusal to take anymore Meds. that it was starting again. After about age 70, though, things seemed to get better. Strange, isn’t it? One major episode in the next 13 years on extremely low dose of medication because of age.
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