For the Jacksonville Shooter, Dollar General Was an Easy Target
Dollar General workers have long raised the alarm about their vulnerability to violence due to understaffing and lack of security. They were tragically proven correct in Jacksonville when a white man murdered three black people at a Dollar General.
Pedestrians walk past a Dollar General store where three people were shot and killed the day before on August 27, 2023 in Jacksonville, Florida. (Sean Rayford / Getty Images)
On Saturday, August 27, a twenty-one-year-old white man drove from his parents’ home in Clay County, Florida, to a Family Dollar in Jacksonville, Florida. According to Jacksonville sheriff T. K. Waters, the man had worked at a Dollar Tree, a dollar-store chain that shares an owner with Family Dollar, from October 2021 to July 2022.
Security footage from the Family Dollar shows the man walking into the store, then leaving with a small bag. But after he reached his car, said Waters, a security guard pulled into the parking lot, and the shooter drove away.
The man then stopped into the parking lot of Edward Waters University, a historically black college. When security began to approach his vehicle, he sped off.
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