ROSEBURG, Ore.—The gunman in last week’s rampage at an Oregon community college was wounded in a shootout with police officers before he killed himself in the classroom where his victims lay dead and wounded, authorities said.
It was authorities’ most detailed account yet of the death of 26-year-old Christopher Harper-Mercer, who killed nine other people at Umpqua Community College. The victims included his classmates in a writing class and the instructor.
When two plainclothes detectives spotted Harper-Mercer in the doorway of a campus building, he fired at them, and the officers quickly returned fire. The killer then went back inside and shot himself in the classroom, Douglas County District Attorney Rick Wesenberg said at a news conference Wednesday.
The detectives arrived within minutes of the first reports of gunfire at Umpqua Community College.
Seconds later, the officers “both felt they had a good target,” Wesenberg said. Two of their bullets hit a wall. A third struck Harper-Mercer on the right side.
The wounded gunman “entered the classroom again, went to the front of the classroom and shot and killed himself,” Wesenberg said.
The attack in this rural timber town was the worst mass shooting in Oregon history. Nine others were wounded in the Oct. 1 attack.
