Dollar General shooter was ‘living in his room,' father says

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The 21-year-old who killed three people at a Dollar General in Jacksonville because of their race on Saturday, Aug. 26, had a record of mental and domestic instability, according to public records obtained in the case.

In a heavily redacted 911 call, the shooter’s father reports his son missing and describes himself as “upset.” The dispatcher tells the father to “take deep breaths” and asks if his son has done anything like this before. The shooter's father says he threatened to jump off a building in Jacksonville at age 15, but that lately, he never left the house.

“He flunked out of Flagler College, moved home about a couple years ago, um, had a job for a while at Home Depot and lost that job, and pretty much [has] been living in his room,” he said.

The father adds, "We do know that he's been receiving psychiatric help." He confirms his son was taking medication, but "it looks like he stopped."

The 911 call was placed at 1:17 p.m. on Saturday. According to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office’s official timeline of the incident, the mass shooting had already occurred.

Additional records obtained by First Coast News, details a domestic incident in 2016 in which the shooter’s father called 911, reporting his oldest son was “out of control.” The incident report says the two boys were fighting, with the shooter, then 14, being held in a headlock by his 20-year-old brother. The report says the boys' parents and the shooter left the house for a few hours, but when they returned, the older son continued “yelling and cussing” so, the father called the Clay County Sheriff's Office.

No arrests were made in the domestic incident and according to the report, “Neither party wanted to pursue charges.”

Records also include an incident the following year, when the shooter was 15, in which his parents reported him missing. A report from the Clay County Sheriff’s Office said, “The victim admitted to writing this suicide letter because he was not able to handle the stress any longer. He advised he was riding his bicycle towards Downtown Jacksonville and had a plan to climb the Bank of America tower and jump off of it.” He was later Baker Acted.

The three victims of the racially motivated mass shooting are 29-year-old Jerrald De'Shaun Gallion, 52-year-old Angela Michelle Carr and 19-year-old Anotl Joseph Laguerre Jr.

*First Coast News is no longer identifying the shooter by name.*