The Incident of Shooting and Massacre at Umpqua Community College Oregon where a gunman reportedly opened fire on campus killing at least 13 people and wounding 20 others, has left the entire US stunned. The gunman was in his 20s. He opened fire shortly after shortly after 10:30 a.m. local time (1730 GMT) before he was shot to death by law enforcement.
There were conflicting reports on the number of casualties and wounded in the rampage. The local sheriff confirmed ten were killed and seven injured after a gunman opened fire on the campus south of Portland.
Douglas County Commissioner Chris Boice said the shooting left about 30 casualties, but he could not immediately say how many of those people died and how many were injured.
Mercy Medical Center in Roseburg said on Facebook that the hospital had received nine patients from the shooting and had been advised that three more were en route.
A student Lacey Gregory says she and others were escorted to a safe zone by police. “He opened the door and said come out with your hands up… and our hands went over our heads as we walked out in a single file line.”
President Barack Obama weighed in from the White House, saying the U.S. is the only country on earth with mass shootings every couple of months. He was briefed on the shooting by Lisa Monaco, his homeland security adviser, a White House official said.
He angrily repeated that gun laws needed to be changed after the latest mass murder in Oregon and took aim at the powerful gun lobby for blocking reform.
“Somehow this has become routine. we’ve become numb to this,” Obama told reporters
Hillary Clinton, on the campaign trail in Massachusetts, condemned the shooting that left 13 dead at an Oregon community college on Thursday, calling for stronger gun control measures.
“It’s beyond my comprehension that we are seeing these mass murders happen again, and again, and again. As I have said, we’ve got to get the political will to do everything we can to keep people safe. I know there is a way to have sensible gun control measures that help prevent violence, prevent guns from getting into the wrong hands, and save lives,” Clinton said.
The FBI said agents were responding from offices in Medford, Eugene, Salem and Portland.
Reports say that agents from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were also en route to Roseburg, a city of about 20,000 people some 260 miles (418 km) south of Portland.
The shooting is the latest incident of gun violence in the United States, raising demands for more gun control and more effective treatment of the mentally ill. Recent episodes of gun violence include the massacre of nine people at a South Carolina church last spring and the killing of five U.S. servicemen in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
In 2012, seven students at the small Christian college Oikos University in Oakland, California, were shot dead by a former student, marking the deadliest outburst of violence at U.S. college since April 2007, when a student at Virginia Tech University killed 32 people and wounded 25 others before taking his own life.
The community college will be closed until Monday while the investigation proceeds.