The families of the racist shooting at a Dollar General in Jacksonville have opened up about each of the three Black victims whose lives were claimed by the white shooter who gunned them down.
Authorities identified each of the victims as 52-year-old Angela Michelle Carr, 19-year-old Anolt Joseph “A.J.” Laguerre Jr., and 29-year-old Jerrald De’Shaun Gallion.
Carr was an Uber driver, Laguerre had just recently graduated from high school and was a Dollar General employee, and Gallion was a customer who was a store customer and father of a 4-year-old daughter. Carr was dropping a passenger off at the store when 21-year-old Ryan Palmeter opened fire. Palmeter shot Laguerre as he was fleeing the store and shot Gallion when he was entering the store.
Each of their family members talked to NBC News about how “loving,” “caring,” and “dedicated” their loved ones were.
“She wasn’t meant to go that fast. She wasn’t even supposed to be there,” Carr’s daughter, 36-year-old Ashley Carr, said. “She was shot in her car. She never even had a chance. I hope her spirit is at rest.”
Laguerre’s father mourned the fact that his son had scarcely completed high school and was on the cusp of starting his adult life, yet that time was stolen from him. The 19-year-old had just started working at Dollar General to make a little money and was shot soon after he was hired.
“He hadn’t even lived his life yet and for somebody to take his life away, it’s outrageous … because you don’t like the color of his skin,” Laguerre Sr. said. “I should not have to bury my son. He’s too young for that. He’s just trying to live.”
Laguerre’s older brother, Josh Laguerre, said his younger brother “would give [you] the clothes off his back and the food off his plate. He was the baby, you know?”
The mother of Jerrald Gallion’s daughter characterized him as a dedicated father and loving parent taken too soon.
“He was my best friend. He was my daughter’s best friend. He got her every weekend. He was the best daddy ever,” Tyesha Jones said.
“We’re still trying to find the words to tell her that her daddy is gone. I don’t have the words to tell her, to break her heart,” Sabrina Rozier, Jones’ mother, said. “This man saw fit to break my granddaughter’s heart and take her daddy away.”
Since Sunday’s shooting, the city of Jacksonville is still reeling and questions are circulating about the shooter’s manifestos, which are still in police custody.
One of Palmeter’s journals which he directed his father to on the day of the shooting, was characterized as the “diary of a madman.” Authorities said it included “homicidal and suicidal” threats and his writings made it clear that he hated Black people.
Palmeter worked at a Dollar Tree store between October 2021 and July 2022. Before targeting the Dollar General, where he killed three people before turning the gun on himself, he had initially stopped at a nearby Family Dollar. However, the security presence there deterred him from taking action, according to the city sheriff.
