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If we would have run out, we would have ran right into it, said Kaelynn Keelin, who saw a window get shot out and, along with other Made In Oregon co-workers, pulled customers into the store for shelter.


This could have been much, much worse, Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts said.


It was very apparent that he had a mission set forth to take the lives of people within that mall, said Roberts.


Every indication that we have is that he acted solely on his own in carrying out this heinous, horrible, tragic crime, said Sgt. Adam Phillips, Clackamas County Sheriff's Department.


Jake was never the violent type, Roberts ex-girlfriend, Hannah Patricia Sansburn, told ABC News. His main goal was to make you laugh, smile, make you feel comfortable. You can t reconcile the differences. I hate him for what he did, but I can t hate the person I knew because it was nothing like the person who would go into a mall and go on a rampage.

A friend of Roberts' mother read a statement on her behalf.

She has no understanding or explanation for her son's behavior, said Holly, a friend of Tami Roberts, the gunman's mother. She is extremely sad and wants everyone to know she is so sorry for what Jake did.


And then this happens. ... It makes me think, was he even planning on going to Hawaii? Sansburn said.



He was like a rapper. He would rap all the time, said Samantha Bennett, who said she went to middle school with Roberts but wasn t close to him until he moved in with a girlfriend across the hall from her at an apartment complex in summer 2011.


Roberts rented a basement room in a modest, single-story Portland home and hadn t lived there long, said a neighbor, Bobbi Bates. She said she saw him leave at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday wearing a dark jacket and jeans, carrying a guitar case.

Roberts had several fully loaded magazines when he arrived at the mall, the sheriff said. He parked his 1996 green Volkswagen Jetta in front of the second-floor entrance to Macy s and walked through the store into the mall and began firing randomly in the food court.




The rarest form of mass murder is the completely random shooting, Fox said. Those perpetrators tend to be younger (in their 20s). They are more likely to have profound mental health issues, as opposed to the older guy who is quite sane, knows exactly what he is doing, and just decides that life is miserable.

The random shooter, Fox said, feels the whole world is unfair, someone has to pay, and it doesn t matter who.

Amid Tuesday s gunfire, employees helped shoppers get into backrooms.

Basically, in a situation like this it s either stay right where you re at and lock yourself down, or get to the nearest exit, said Dennis Curtis, the mall s senior general manager.

We ve done drills with the sheriff s office, including one earlier this year, he said.




Families of the victims released brief statements through the sheriff s office.

Relatives of Yuille described her as everybody s friend and a caring person. Forsyth was a loving husband, business owner and a youth sports coach, his family said.


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