The Umpqua Community College gunman who killed nine people in Oregon Thursday reportedly asked his victims if they were Christians before shooting them.
A day later, stories of terror and heroism are being related in the media as the Roseburg, Oregon, community tries to deal with the shooting's deadly aftermath.
The suspect, who has been identified as 26-year-old Chris Harper Mercer, died at the scene.
The father of 18-year-old survivor Anastasia Boylan told CNN that his daughter said the shooter wanted to know his victims' religions.
Boylan was injured by a bullet that hit her in the back, her dad Stacy said.
The shooter reportedly ordered the students, who had dropped to the floor after he shot their professor, to stand up and then asked if they were Christians.
"And they would stand up and he said, 'Good, because you're a Christian, you're going to see God in just about one second,'" Stacy Boylan told CNN. "And then he shot and killed them."
Chris Mintz, a U.S. Army veteran, tried to talk the gunman down and then ran toward him as he heard
shots, family members told WFMY-TV. Mintz, 30, was shot seven times and is in stable condition and expected to recover, the station said, although other reports have indicated he was shot five times.
"The shooter was originally in the classroom next to his," Mintz's cousin, Ariana Earnhardt, told WFMY Thursday. "He heard the gunshots so he told the people in his classroom to just be calm. So he came and he met the shooter at the door. He was like you need to calm down. I guess he tried to talk to him and talk him out of it and he shot him."
Students have come forward to offer their stories about what it was like being trapped on campus during the shooting.
Kortney Moore, 18, told NR Today that she was in class when she heard gunshots and then witnessed her professor getting shot in the head. She confirmed the story that people were asked to state their religion before being shot.
Brady Winder, 23, told the newspaper that students were screaming at everyone to get out, and he saw a girl swimming across a nearby creek to get away from the campus.
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