Mass Shootings, Starring white People

Authorities said that when McRae was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, he had a “3-page document expressing his reasons for the attack and a number of additional locations in Lansing and Holt, Mich.; Ewing Township and Franklin Park, NJ; and Colorado Springs, Colo., which had ‘hurted’ (sic) him and, therefore, were deserving of attack.” Agents believe he had “personal grievances” with people at those locations.



McRae lived with his father, who is cooperating with the investigation, the FBI reported.



Investigators said the suspect’s writings confirmed he “was often alone.” The briefing said the gunman viewed himself as “a loner” and an “outcast” who was “never noticed or accepted by others.”

Anthony McRae was charged in June 2019 with illegally carrying a concealed handgun without a permit, but later had those charges dismissed by the office of Ingham County prosecutor Carol Siemon (D.). Her office instead let McRae plead guilty to a lesser misdemeanor gun charge, and he served a little more than a year on probation, which ended May 2021. He initially faced up to five years in prison for the felony charge, the Detroit News reported.



Siemon retired from the prosecutor’s office at the start of this year after facing criticism from judges and law enforcement officials for her soft-on-crime policies. The same year that McRae was released, ​​Ingham County sheriff Scott Wriggelsworth pushed East Lansing’s city council "to reconsider her internal felony firearm charging policy," which he said "does not hold people properly criminally accountable, and increases the likelihood of additional gun violence."



Siemon made it her office’s official policy in August 2021 to drop mandatory prison sentences for felony firearms charges. She said the sentencing enhancement led to "dramatic racial inequity" and was "not in any way linked to the goal that we share of keeping the public safe."