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MSU shooter was God fearing mama’s boy who quit job to play video games

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Anthony McRae MSU shooting suspect
Anthony McRae MSU gunman was mama's boy who turned evil when she died. Pictured, Lansing, Michigan shooter and his mom, Linda.
Anthony McRae MSU shooting suspect
Anthony McRae MSU gunman was mama’s boy who turned evil when she died. Pictured, Lansing, Michigan shooter and his mom, Linda.

Anthony McRae, Lansing, Michigan State University gunman was God fearing mama’s boy who quit job to play video games, with the son turning ‘evil and bitter’ during the passing of time according to the shooter’s father. 

The father of MSU shooting suspect, Anthony McRae, 43 says his son turned ‘evil and bitter’ after his mother died from a stroke in 2020 whereupon he quit his warehouse job to stay at home and play video games

McRae, 43, killed himself following a four shooting rampage, Monday night after murdering three students on the MSU campus. He injured another five. 

During a press conference, police reiterated the gunman having no apparent connection to the university, with police yet to discern a motive for the ‘heinous’ attack. It remained unclear how McRae, who lived in nearby Lansing, came to specifically target the school.

His father Michael McRae, 66, speaking to the press, described McRae as a ‘mama’s boy’ who turned ‘evil and mean’ after his mother Linda died suddenly three years ago. The pair lived together in McRae’s family home, that is around five miles from the MSU campus. 

‘He was a mama’s boy. He loved his mom. They were tight. His mom was like his sister. Everything happened so fast,’ he told NBC News

Why did a ‘God fearing, warehouse worker’ target college students? MSU shooting victims identified

“Talk to daddy. Let me know if something is on your mind’ 

McRae was found with a note in his pocket indicating a threat to two public schools in Ewing, New Jersey, which he was previously affiliated with, according to New Jersey police.

The schools were closed for the balance of the day on Tuesday ‘out of an abundance of caution’.  

Said the father, ‘He was grieving his mom. He wouldn’t let it go. He got bitter, bitter and bitter. 

‘His mom died, and he just started getting evil and mean. He didn’t care about anything anymore.’ 

The father said he encouraged his son to confide in him, referring to himself as ‘daddy’. 

Added the father, ‘I said, “Talk to daddy. Let me know if something is on your mind. If you need help, I’ll get you help.

‘He said, “I’m OK, dad, I don’t need help.”

Anthony McRae MSU shooting suspect
Pictured, Anthony McRae MSU shooting suspect father, Michael McRae and the Lansing, Michigan family home.

Warehouse worker practised shooting in the backyard

McRae’s father says he told him he ‘got rid’ of his gun, but neighbors complained about him shooting in the backyard. 

‘I said, “I hope you got rid of that gun, man.” And he said, “Yeah, I got rid of it. I got rid it.” He didn’t.’ 

Neighbors say he practiced shooting in the backyard. 

‘He was firing a firearm out of the back door of the house into the yard. We’re right in the city.

‘You shouldn’t be firing a firearm in the middle of the city,’ Megan Bender, 34, told NBC. 

McRae’s co-workers from the warehouse where he loaded refrigerators onto trucks say he was God-fearing and trying to ‘turn his life around’. 

‘He was trying to turn his life around… before giving up’ 

‘I do remember him saying that God saved him from the life he had. I don’t remember what he dealt with back in the day,’ Bender said. 

‘But he definitely was trying to turn his life around at the time, and this definitely is weird,’ Gregory DeMyers told The Daily Beast

DeMyers said McRae joined his congregation around 2000, and was a gregarious and inquisitive person who often seemed ‘confounded at certain things we would talk about.’

‘He would give a look, like, ‘Huh?’ I had to break stuff down to him.’

The two often carpooled together, and DeMyers insisted there was nothing about McRae he would have considered a red flag.

Anthony moved with his parents to Lansing 20 years ago, when he was 23, when his father transferred with General Motors. 

‘This just don’t seem real, that he would be able to do anything like this,’ he said.

McRae killed himself before police got to him, having murdered three MSU students in two different locations on campus and injuring five others. 

Monday’s mass shooting marked the 67th mass shooting year to date according to The National Gun Violence Archive (GVA), a database which is updated every day to track the number of gun-related deaths in injuries across America.

The GVA defines a mass shooting as a gun-related incident in which four or more people are shot or killed, not including the shooter – though if the shooter dies, this is added to the death toll.

The archive tallied 104 people having been killed as a result of mass shootings year to date, compared with 762 for the whole of 2022. Only 45 days of 2023 have passed.

On current trend, the US is set to have its deadliest year for mass shootings ever.

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