AFP/Roseburg, Oregon
US President Barack Obama met in Oregon on Friday with relatives of victims of a deadly rampage at a community college, as shootings on two more school campuses left two people dead and four wounded.
Hundreds gathered outside the gate to the local airport to greet Obama, where he earned a mixed reception.
While one sign said “Welcome to Roseburg,” others read “Obama is Wrong” and “Nothing Trumps Our Liberty” - clear signs that the president’s visit to the rural, conservative community is not appreciated by all.
Obama delivered an impassioned plea for stricter gun controls after last week’s shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, in which a 26-year-old gunman shot dead nine people and then committed suicide.
“I’ve obviously got strong feelings about this,” he said during his hour-long meeting with families at Roseburg High School, attended by Oregon Governor Kate Brown, who previously updated the president on efforts to support them.
“We’re going to have to come together as a country, but today is about the families,” Obama said.
But the father of one girl who was shot in the back and survived by playing dead accused the president of politicising the tragedy, and said earlier this week that he had declined an invitation to meet him.
“On principle, I find that I am in disagreement with his policies on gun control, and therefore, we (the family) will not be attending the visit,” Stacy Boylan told Fox News.
The publisher of the local paper, David Jaques, has also denounced the visit, saying Obama was not “welcome here to grandstand for political purposes.”
The city of Roseburg had issued a statement prior to the visit saying such comments did not represent the community as a whole, and that the president would receive a warm welcome.
After meeting with families who lost loved ones, Obama thanked a group of first responders for their service and met with Umpqua Community College leaders to express his condolences.
The October 1 shooting in Roseburg has revived the thorny debate on gun control in America - and two more deadly incidents on Friday were sure to fuel the discussion.
In Arizona, one person was killed and three others suffered multiple gunshot wounds at Northern Arizona University in the city of Flagstaff before the gunman was captured.
The first emergency calls came through to police at 1:20am, when most NAU students would have been in bed.
“Two of our student groups got into a confrontation. The confrontation turned physical and one of our students shot the other students. Four of our students were shot,” said NAU police chief Gregory Fowler.
The alleged shooter, named by police as 18-year-old freshman Steven Jones, was taken into custody and charged. All the victims were male students.
In Houston, one person was killed and another wounded in a shooting at a campus apartment complex at Texas Southern University, police said, adding that one possible suspect had been detained.
Houston police said the incident “does not involve an active shooter,” but the university nonetheless placed the campus on lockdown and cancelled classes for the rest of the day.
