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ByJeffBarnard and Martha Mendoza The Associated Press ROSEBURG, ORE. The 26-year-old gunman who opened fire in a commu- nity college English class, killing nine, was an Army boot camp dropout who studied mass shooters be- fore becoming one himself. A day after the rampage in an Oregon timber town, authorities said Christo- pher Sean Harper-Mercer, who died during a shoot- out with police, wore a flak jacket and brought at least six guns and five am- munition magazines to the school. Investigators found another seven guns at the apartment he shared with his mother. The weapons had all been purchased legally over the past three years, some by him, others by relatives, said Celinez Nunez, assis- tant field agent for the Seat- tle division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Fire- arms. Those who knew the shooter described a deeply troubled loner. At a different apartment complex where Harper- Mercer and his mother lived in Southern Califor- nia, neighbors remembered a quiet and odd young man who rode a red bike every- where. Reina Webb, 19, said the man's mother was friendly and often chatted with neighbors, but Harper-Mer- cer kept to himself. She said she occasionally heard him having temper tantrums in his apartment. "He was kind of like a child so that's why his tan- trums would be like kind of weird. He's a grown man. He shouldn't be having a tantrum like a kid. That's why I thought there was something — something was up," she said. Harper-Mercer's social media profiles suggested he was fascinated by the Irish Republican Army, frus- trated by traditional orga- nized religion and that he tracked other mass shoot- ings. In one post, he ap- peared to urge readers to watch the online footage of Vester Flanagan shoot- ing two former colleagues live on TV in August in Vir- ginia, noting "the more peo- ple you kill, the more you're in the limelight." He may have even posted a warning. A message on 4chan — a forum where racist and misogynistic comments are frequent — warned of an impending attack, but it's unclear if it came from Harper-Mercer. "Some of you guys are alright. Don't go to school tomorrow if you are in the northwest," an anonymous poster wrote a day before the shootings. On Thursday morn- ing, he walked into Snyder Hall at Umpqua Commu- nity College and began fir- ing, shooting a teacher and students, many repeatedly. Survivors described a class- room of carnage, and one said he ordered students to state their religion before shooting them. Students in a classroom next door heard several shots, one right after the other, and their teacher told them to leave. "We began to run," stu- dent Hannah Miles said. "A lot of my classmates were going every which way. We started to run to the cen- ter of campus. And I turned around, and I saw students pouring out of the build- ing." An aunt of an Army vet- eran hit by several bullets said he tried to stop the gunman from entering the classroom. Wanda Mintz said her 30-year-old nephew, Chris Mintz, a student at the col- lege, fell to the floor and asked the shooter to stop. But, she said, he shot Mintz again and went inside. Portland Fire and Res- cue Lt. Rich Chatman, who is serving as a spokesman for the criminal investi- gation, said investigators were still processing the crime scene. "As you can imagine, there is a tremendous amount of information and evidence for them to sort through," he said. "We have a very large team of inves- tigators and forensic teams trying to process all of the information." Chatman said several hundred investigators are involved, ranging from federal agencies such as the FBI and ATF to state, county and city law enforce- ment. Several years ago, Harper-Mercer moved to Winchester, Oregon, from Torrance, California, with his mother, a nurse named Laurel Harper. His father, Ian Mercer, originally from the United Kingdom, told reporters outside his Tar- zana, California, home, "I'm just as shocked as anybody at what happened." In Washington, President Barack Obama lamented the government's inability to pass stricter gun laws even after attacks like the one in Oregon. TRAGEDY IN ROSEBURG Gunman was Army dropout who studied mass shooters MYSPACEPHOTO This undated photo from a MySpace page that appeared to belong to Chris Harper Mercer shows him holding a rifle. RICH PEDRONCELLI — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS The photos of three of the victims of the mass shooting at Umpqua Community College are displayed at a news conference on Friday in Roseburg, Ore. By Christopher S. Rugaber The Associated Press WASHINGTON A sagging global economy has finally caught up with the United States. Nervous employers pulled back on hiring in Au- gust and September as Chi- na's economy slowed, global markets sank and foreign- ers bought fewer U.S. goods. Friday's monthly jobs re- port from the government suggested that the U.S. economy, which has been outshining others around the world, may be weaken- ing. Lackluster growth over- seas has reduced exports of U.S. factory goods and cut into the overseas prof- its of large companies. Can- ada, the largest U.S. trad- ing partner, is in recession. China, the second-largest economy after the United States, is growing far more slowly. And emerging econ- omies, from Brazil to Tur- key, are straining to grow at all. A result is that econo- mists now expect the Fed- eral Reserve to delay a long- awaited increase in interest rates, possibly until next year. Employers added just 142,000 jobs in Septem- ber, and the government sharply lowered its estimate of gains in July and Au- gust by a combined 59,000. Monthly job growth aver- aged a mediocre 167,000 in the July-September quarter, down from 231,000 in the April-June period. The unemployment rate remained a low 5.1 percent, but only because many Americans have stopped looking for work and are no longer counted as un- employed. The proportion of adults who either have a job or are looking for one is at a 38-year low. U.S. stock prices have tumbled as fears of a global slowdown have in- tensified. Volatile financial markets can make busi- nesses too anxious to ex- pand and hire. "We're back to a period of what I call corporate cau- tion," says Nariman Beh- ravesh, chief economist at IHS. "It's wait and see. If things stabilize, we could see hiring come back." On Friday, the Dow Jones industrial average fell about 200 points soon after the jobs report was issued be- fore recovering to close up 200. The yield on the 10- year Treasury note dipped below 2 percent, a sign that investors anticipate slug- gish growth and low infla- tion. Over the past year, the dollar has risen about 15 percent against overseas currencies, making U.S. goods costlier overseas and imports cheaper. GROWTH SLOWS Ailing global economy weighs on jobs By Lolita C. Baldor and Robert Burns The Associated Press WASHINGTON President Barack Obama on Friday vehementlyrejectedRussia's military actions in Syria as self-defeatinganddismissed the idea that Moscow was strengthening its hand in the region. He vowed not to let the conflict become a U.S.-Russia "proxy war." At a White House news conference, Obama pledged to stay the course with his strategy of sup- porting moderate rebels who oppose Syrian Presi- dent Bashar Assad, but he dodged questions about whether the U.S. would protect them if they came under Russian attack. Russia's dramatic entry into the Syrian civil war, after a year of airstrikes by the U.S. and its coali- tion partners, has raised the specter of dangerous confrontations in the skies over Syria. And it prompted a question at the news con- ference as to whether Putin was outfoxing the U.S. at a time when the American- led military campaign in Syria has failed to weaken the Islamic State. "This is not a smart stra- tegicmoveonRussia'spart," Obama said, referring to Putin's decision to "double down" on his support for Assad by stationing war- planes, air defenses, tanks and troops in Syria. Mos- cow says it is targeting Is- lamic State forces and fight- ing terrorism, but U.S. lead- ers are skeptical of that and Obama said the Russian president has overplayed his hand. "It's only strengthening ISIL, and that's not good for anybody," Obama con- tended. He said he hoped Putin would come to real- ize that allying Russia with Iran to try to keep Assad in power "is just going to get them stuck in a quagmire, and it won't work. And they will be there for a while if they don't take a different course." Obama said Putin has stepped deeper into a con- flict that cannot be solved by military power alone, and that his approach is misguided in not distin- guishing between Syrian rebels who want Assad ousted and those who are terrorists. "From their perspective they're all terrorists, and that's a recipe for disaster," Obama said in his most ex- tensive comments on the topic since Russia began its airstrikes on Monday. Evoking the Cold War era of U.S. and Soviet forces working behind the scenes to prop up client states, Obama added, "We're not going to make Syria into a proxy war between the United States and Russia." US-RUSSIA Obama: Putin is wrong on Syria Advertisement IfthiswasyourService Directory ad customers would be reading it right now!! Suzy 530-737-5056 Gayla 530-737-5044 For more information Landscape/Fence Steve's Tractor &LandscapeService •FenceBuilding•Landscaping • Trenching • Rototilling • Disking • Mowing • Ridging • Post Hole Digging • Blade Work • Sprinkler Installation • Concrete Work Cont. 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