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.
No discernible mental illness, just an obvious lack of instilled character. No mention of a father that I’ve seen, yet.
Sorry, father mentioned, but not any part of his life.
BULLSH!T
You mean back in the bad old days when the mental health facilites were worse than prisons and people were jammed into over crowded facilites and covered in their own fecal matter? The bad old days when people were thrown into mental health facilities to be left and forgotten and there wasnt enough money to keep conditions at even a sanitary minimum. Do you have even the slightest clue as to why mental health facilties were closed nation wide? Have you watched the documentaries and learned the grisly and absolutely disgusting history of what the greatest generation and their parents did to people? Animals were treated with more dignity and respect.
Whos going to pay for all this mental health? The State did a horrible job of it to the point it was a crime against humanity. You cant have it all for nothing. The money has to come from somewhere. Unless you want to pay more in taxes, we are going to have to cut it from somewhere.
What also bothers me from the portion of the article you referred to is that schools today are putting the emotionally disturbed and those with learning disabilities together. Especially in a small district. I’ve seen the sweetest little children that have trouble in math or say dyslexia put into the same class as the children that lash out, threaten people, swear, punch, all lumped into a “Special Ed” classroom. It’s not right and young children are impressionable when they see the way others act and in some cases are in danger.
the guy looks like a hapa popolo to me .
like Obama - ha-sip ha-sip
"........The shooter's stepsister was shocked by the news.
'I don't know what to say. I'm shaking right now,' said Carmen Nesnick in an interview with NBC Los Angeles.
'He was a nice guy. He put everyone before himself. It doesn't sound right because he wanted everyone to be happy.'
She also said that she had not seen her stepbrother in a year, and that he was born in England before moving to the United States.
Ian Harper, the father of the gunman who is divorced from the young man's mother, told CBS Los Angeles; 'I am just as shocked as anybody at what happened today.'......" Source
Elsewhere on the account are images of masked gunmen and praise for the Irish Republican Army, the outlawed paramilitary group committed to overthrowing Northern Ireland and its links with Britain. Source
>> Back in the “bad old days” he’d have been in an institution where he couldn’t hurt himself or others. <<
But the ACLU did not want the loonies to be locked up cuz loonies have civil rights, too, and should be allowed to free range.
The relative described Mercer as “quiet.” She said that he joined the Army at one point but did not know any details or why he left." - Source
23 minutes ago:
Oregon Sheriff Won’t Name Campus Gunman
http://on.aol.com/video/oregon-sheriff-wont-name-campus-gunman-519124979
We had a member of the extended family that was often severely depressed, manic, suicidal, sometimes all three at once. The whole family would try to help the person, call the police when it got really bad— but if the person can hold it together when the police arrive and cover up that they are not a danger to themselves or others when the police are there, nothing is done. Even if they go to a mental health facility they are usually out in 2-3 days and they can’t make a person take any medication or go to any therapy. So you can threaten to kill yourself, be stuck in mental health for three days doing nothing to get better, and then walk out. Who knows what else the person is thinking? In the 1980’s this same individual would be taken in and told they couldn’t leave until they were better, not just not a threat. And if that meant medication and therapy you had to do it. We would have a healthy family member emerge from the hospital. I remember the doctor saying,when this relative was having another bought with mania, and I was just a teen, that he could no longer force medication or therapy, but with keeping this person in for a month or two they would be in a safe environment and generally come around to where they were ok with receiving treatment. Than all that ended and we would get this relative to the hospital but they would emerge 3 days later with the same scary look in their eyes. Nothing was different. It’s crushing trying to take care of a seriously mentally ill person. This relative always seemed like a threat to just themselves (suicide) and never was violent with others. But what if they were to became so? Mental health services have really gone downhill. And one last thing— when people say the meds cause things to get worse— I don’t know, maybe they can in some people. We saw improvement in my relative when we made sure they took what was prescribed everyday as prescribed. They were worse than worse if you couldn’t control it because they would take it one day, skip a few days, take more. I really saw some scary, crazy behavior when said person did this. I think 20 year olds are really susceptible to taking meds, skipping, than taking some more. I really think that’s how the newer meds make people really nuts. It’s in there system, out, back in Crazy levels up and down. It’s just my theory. They have some longer lasting schizophrenia meds that can be given by injection so the doctor knows you’re taking it. But I don’t know if that’s the answer. I do know guns don’t get mental illness and shoot people.
Gone down the memory hole already?
**Click** picture for source.
Didn’t realize this guy could have been Uturd’s son. When does the “White Lives Matter!” campaign begin?
“No discernible mental illness, just an obvious lack of instilled character. No mention of a father that I’ve seen, yet.”
Father was on 0500ET ABC radio news. Accented English, sounded like Caribbean.
Other than “ use of a gun”, the second highest correlating factor in all these mass shootings is divorced family/single parent.
Third highest correlation likely “meds” and fourth would be playing of first person shooter video games.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
