He's the sane one, gunman wrote

Killer in Oregon cast everyone else as crazy, official says

Dr. Christine Seals speaks during a news conference at Umpqua Community College Monday, Oct. 5, 2015, in Roseburg, Ore. The campus reopened on a limited basis for faculty and students for the first time since armed suspect Chris Harper-Mercer killed multiple people and wounded several others on Thursday before taking his own life at Snyder Hall.
Dr. Christine Seals speaks during a news conference at Umpqua Community College Monday, Oct. 5, 2015, in Roseburg, Ore. The campus reopened on a limited basis for faculty and students for the first time since armed suspect Chris Harper-Mercer killed multiple people and wounded several others on Thursday before taking his own life at Snyder Hall.

ROSEBURG, Ore. -- The gunman who killed nine people at an Oregon community college last week complained in the writings he left behind that everyone else was crazy and ranted about not having a girlfriend, a law enforcement official said.

The mother of shooter Christopher Harper-Mercer, 26, has told investigators that her son was struggling with some mental health problems, the official also said Monday. The official is familiar with the investigation but was not authorized to speak publicly because it is ongoing.

In writings that spanned a couple of pages, Harper-Mercer seemed to feel as if he was very rational while others around him were not, the official said.

He wrote something to the effect of: "Other people think I'm crazy, but I'm not. I'm the sane one," the official said.

Harper-Mercer killed nine people and wounded nine others, then killed himself after a shootout with police.

On Monday, some faculty and staff members and students returned to Umpqua Community College for the first time since the shooting, and President Barack Obama announced he will travel to Oregon to visit privately with victims' families.

Classes do not resume until next week, but some students came to the campus to pick up belongings they left behind when they fled the attack Thursday. Others met with professional groups to work through their trauma and grief.

Harper-Mercer's mother allowed her troubled son to have guns and acknowledged in online posts that he struggled with autism, but she didn't seem to know he was potentially violent.

The online writings by Laurel Harper date from a year ago to nine years ago and offer insight into Christopher Harper-Mercer's relationship with his mother.

The Associated Press didn't speak with Harper about the postings, but in them she offered an email address that is linked to her.

Harper and son shared an apartment outside Roseburg. Investigators have recovered 14 firearms -- six found at Umpqua Community College, where the killings occurred, and eight at the apartment. Neighbors of mother and son in California, where they lived before moving to Oregon in 2013, have said Harper-Mercer and his mother would go target shooting together.

Investigators say Harper-Mercer's mother has told them the son was struggling with some mental health problems.

In her online postings, Laurel Harper talked about her love of guns and her son's emotional troubles, but there are no hints of worry that he could become violent.

She posted several times that her son had Asperger's syndrome, a mild form of autism.

One posting reads: "He's no babbling idiot nor is his life worthless. He's very intelligent and is working on a career in filmmaking."

She wrote that she read aloud to her unborn son from Donald Trump's Art of The Deal.

Investigators have not yet said whether they suspect a motive in last Thursday's shooting, where Harper-Mercer killed eight students and a teacher before killing himself.

While living in California, Harper-Mercer graduated from a learning center for students with learning disabilities and emotional problems. His parents divorced when he was a teenager and he lived with his mother.

Harper-Mercer's father, Ian Mercer, still lives in California. Over the weekend he said he had no idea his son had any guns.

"How on earth could he compile 13 guns? How could that happen?" Ian Mercer told CNN on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Obama announced that he will visit Roseburg on Friday as he opens a four-day trip to the West Coast.

Obama has renewed his call for stricter gun laws after the shooting and has expressed exasperation at the frequency of mass shootings in the U.S.

Information for this report was contributed by Gosia Wozniacka, Alina Hartounian and P. Solomon Banda of the Associated Press.

A Section on 10/07/2015

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