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.
Things that used to be called character flaws are now called emotional issues. Tired of people using their hurt feelings as an excuse to attack people.
Back in the “bad old days” he’d have been in an institution where he couldn’t hurt himself or others.
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.
OK, this boy was on Psych meds to allow him to not be in a lockup facility, this is the Mental Health disaster no one if talking about.
Have a friend whose stepson has Psychotic issues unless he takes his meds. He is on OR (Own recognizance - I.e. not in a facility. His behavior got so strange when he stopped taking them the Canadian Government refuses to let him back in
By and large Psych meds are devastating and detoxing near impossible. Lots of potential Zombies to do ones bidding
Watch and See...
Welcome to the World of the PC and Social agenda machines. Always got an excuse for these pieces of SH!T!
“The Left Hand Path” is a satanic cult.
This is not simply a ‘character flaw’. This is yet another example, IMHO, of the absolute inadequacy of our mental health institutions (of all kinds) in being able to recognize serious mental illness that is a threat. I am not blaming his mother, but I also believe that broken families almost always have some effect on the children. This is not an excuse in any way for what he did, but this is so tragic it goes way beyond just a character flaw.
I do understand what you mean, however, and when I looked at some of the social media ‘connections’ that one of his friends had posted, the lack of innocence and the ‘low life’ characteristics of these young lives was very disheartening and disturbing.
Short bus?
Conservative republican was created 7 hours ago.
Hard to say for sure whether he was taking meds that made him do this or whether he was not receiving any care at all.
I know nothing about this killer’s mother, but no matter how good a mother someone is, once the child is an adult, there is NOTHING a parent can do. Sure, call the authorities, maybe get a 72 hour hold. If the person hasn’t actually done anything he can’t be locked up.
There is a lot we could do better with our mentally ill and unfit. We could save lives. Gun control doesn’t do a damned thing. The evildoers don’t need to obey laws to get guns. They are going to die in a hail of cop bullets anyway; why should they read the rules about illegal guns?
But . . . but . . . but we have those Magick Pills that make them safe! /sarc
Where is this story coming from? It appears to me that people are confused because they don't know how to read the archive.org site. Archive.org first crawled the profile several hours ago and has crawled it seven times today. No one should interpret that to mean the profile was created today or that it was revised seven times today.
Article is good as far as it goes.
This one should never have been able to acquire firearms legally, so what is the story?
How hard would it be for someone with this background to be put on the no buy list?
It seems that early on after a shooting, information comes out that the shooter was likely on mind-altering meds. It’s really sick that nothing is being done that will end that revenue bonanza for pharmaceutical companies.
If he was on meds, how did he get a gun—beg, borrow or steal, or by legal means??
I too looked at the 2 pictures of his connections and then I looked at his connections connections and they looked like trashy misfits very odd pretty scary.
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