This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

'It can change': Obama demands gun control action after Oregon shooting Read more

Details have begun to emerge of the terrifying experience of students and staff at the Umpqua community college, where 26-year-old Chris Harper Mercer shot and killed nine people and injured at least seven others.



Harper Mercer died in a shootout with police who responded to calls about an active shooter at 10.38am on Thursday.



Anastasia Boylan, 18, was in a class when Harper Mercer came in shooting, her father Stacey Boylan told CNN. He said his daughter, who was undergoing surgery for her injuries, survived by “playing dead”.



“[Harper Mercer] came in and there was gunfire immediately and he scattered the room. From what I understood what she said was he shot the professor point blank, one shot killed him.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Police search students outside Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, following a deadly shooting at the southwestern Oregon community college. Photograph: Sullivan/REX Shutterstock

“Others had been injured and then this man had enough time – I don’t know how much time elapsed – he was able to stand there and start asking people one by one what their religion was.

“‘Are you a Christian?’ he would ask them, and ‘if you are a Christian then stand up’ and they would stand up. He’d say ‘because you are a Christian you’re going to see God in about one second’ and then he shot and killed them. And he kept going down the line doing this to people.

“How much time do you need?

“She said he had a handgun. It wasn’t a big rifle or an assault rifle. This was a single handgun and he had enough ammunition and enough time to drop the magazine out of it, put another one in and continue his thing. How does he have that much time at a facility? I don’t understand that. How he could have that much time to kill that many people.”

Hannah Miles, a 19-year-old freshman, was in her writing class when her teacher got a call from security saying the school was in lockdown. She heard gunshots from a neighbouring classroom.



“There was a huge pop. It sounded like a ruler smacking against a chalkboard,” she told local news. “Everyone jumped and we didn’t know what was going on. Then there was another one.”

Miles said there were noises from the next room, “people shuffling, kind of talking” and the teacher went to the door and knocked on it, asking if everything was OK in there. There were more shots.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A woman holds her daughter during a vigil in Roseburg, Oregon for ten people killed and seven others wounded in a shooting at a community college. Photograph: Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images

“Then everything went quiet. The look on her face was horrifying, and she said we all needed to get out.”

Huddled together in the locked classroom, the students and teacher heard footsteps outside and a man’s voice call out to them, “Come on out, come on out,” Miles said. They remained quiet and did not open the door.

Police soon arrived, Miles said, and after students were convinced it was indeed officers, they opened the door.

“It was like a huge burden had been lifted,” she said. “A huge sigh of relief that we were going to be OK.”

A 20-year-old student from New Zealand was among those who fled the shooter, according to the NZ Herald.

Jaylen Gerrand had been at the Umpqua community college for two weeks on a basketball scholarship. Gerrand spoke to his New Zealand based coach, Jeff Green, the Herald reported.

Chris Harper Mercer: first details emerge of Oregon college killer Read more

“He was running alongside a guy and the guy was shot dead – the guy running next him,” Green told the Herald.

“He ran past three others that were shot dead, so it was horrifying, horrific.

“So he saw four people dead. He’s totally distressed, totally distressed. He just wants to come home right now. It’s a huge, huge tragedy.”

Kortney Moore, 18, said she was in a writing class when a shot came through the window and hit the teacher in the head.



The gunman then entered the Snyder Hall classroom and told people to get on the floor, she told the Roseburg News-Review newspaper. He told people to stand up and state their religion before opening fire.

Next door, students heard a loud thud and then a volley of gunfire, Brady Winder, 23, told the newspaper.



Students scrambled “like ants, people screaming, ‘Get out!’” Winder said. He said one woman swam across a creek to get away.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Police search students outside Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, following a deadly shooting at the southwestern Oregon community college. Photograph: Sullivan/REX Shutterstock

The gunfire sparked panic as students ran for safety and police and ambulances rushed to the scene.

Winder also posted on Facebook:

Hey everybody, I am safe. Currently on a bus with other students being transferred to the fairgrounds while they clear out the whole campus. I was in Snyder 14, opposite side of the wall where the shooting was. The short part is that we heard a bunch of gun shots and all bolted and scattered. I ran to the edge of the campus, down a hill and waited. From talking with a student in the classroom where it happened, almost every person in the room was shot by a man with 4 guns. I’m still shaken up and am having a hard time processing what I heard and what happened. I can’t wrap my mind around this. Please just pray for the families and parents of these students.

Lorie Andrews, who lives across the street from the campus, heard what sounded like fireworks and then saw police cruisers streaming in. She spoke with students as they left.



“One girl came out wrapped in a blanket with blood on her,” she said.

Some students were in tears. Police lined them up in a parking lot with their hands over their heads and searched them.