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ROSEBURG, Ore. (AP) —
The gunman who killed nine people at an Oregon community college last week complained in writings he left behind that everyone else was crazy and ranted about not having a girlfriend, a law enforcement official said.
The mother of shooter Christopher Harper-Mercer, 26, has told investigators that he was struggling with some mental health issues, the official also said Monday. The official is familiar with the investigation but was not authorized to speak publicly because it is ongoing.
In the writings that spanned a couple of pages, Harper-Mercer seemed to feel like he was very rational while others around him were not, the official said.
He wrote something to the effect of: "Other people think I'm crazy, but I'm not. I'm the sane one," the official said.
Harper-Mercer killed nine people and wounded nine others, then killed himself after a shootout with police.
On Monday, some faculty, staff and students returned to Umpqua Community College for the first time since the shooting, while President Barack Obama announced he will travel to Oregon to visit privately with victims' families.
Classes do not resume until next week, but some students came to the campus to pick up belongings they left behind when they fled the attack Thursday. Others met with professional groups to work through their trauma and grief.
A memorial was growing on the driveway leading to Snyder Hall, where Harper-Mercer opened fire.
"It was hard not to focus on Snyder Hall," student Joel Mitchell said. "When we got back, I think a lot of people were probably ... looking at it, checking it out, seeing what it looked like."
A group of eight held hands and bowed their heads in prayer in front of the building. Elsewhere, clusters of people chatted at picnic tables.
In a courtyard near the center of campus, a therapy dog sat on a blanket with its handler. A woman, crouched down, wiped away a tear.
School officials designated an outdoor amphitheater as a makeshift memorial, open only to staff and students for now. Flowers and balloons were positioned on tables, and markers were available for people to write messages on a banner that says, "UCC Strong."
"I needed to be here," student Madysen Sanchez said. "I needed to come and see my friends, make sure they're OK."
At least one student injured in the shooting was among those who returned Monday, college President Rita Cavin said. She did not identify the student.
Chaplains who had been on campus said they were both helping with and participating in the healing process.
"I'm going through the grieving process myself because this has touched everyone in the community," chaplain Russell Wilson said. "If you don't know someone that goes here, you know someone that knows someone."
Meanwhile, Obama announced that he will visit Roseburg on Friday as he opens a four-day trip to the West Coast. No additional details about his visit were immediately available.
Obama has renewed his call for stricter gun laws following the shooting and has expressed exasperation at the frequency of mass shootings in the U.S.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) —
Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation Monday making California the fifth state in the nation to recognize a right to die for terminally ill patients, saying the emotionally charged bill forced him to consider "what I would want in the face of my own death."
Brown, a lifelong Catholic and former Jesuit seminarian, said he acted after discussing the issue with many people, including a Catholic bishop and two of his own doctors.
"I do not know what I would do if I were dying in prolonged and excruciating pain. I am certain, however, that it would be a comfort to be able to consider the options afforded by this bill," the governor wrote in a signing statement that accompanied his signature.
The governor said he would not deny those comforts to others.
The statement was Brown's first comment on the bill, which will allow terminally ill patients to legally end their lives using doctor-prescribed drugs. The measure applies only to mentally sound people and not those who are depressed or impaired.
State lawmakers passed the bill last month. A previous version failed earlier this year despite the highly publicized case of Brittany Maynard, a 29-year-old California woman with brain cancer who moved to Oregon to end her life.
The measure was brought back as part of a special session intended to address funding shortfalls for Medi-Cal, the state's health insurance program for the poor.
Maynard's family attended the legislative debate in California throughout the year. Her mother, Debbie Ziegler, testified in committee hearings and carried a large picture of her daughter.
In a video recorded days before Maynard took life-ending drugs, she told California lawmakers that the terminally ill should not have to "leave their home and community for peace of mind, to escape suffering and to plan for a gentle death."
Religious groups, including the Catholic church, and advocates for people with disabilities opposed the measure, saying it legalizes premature suicide puts terminally ill patients at risk for coerced death.
The bill includes requirements that patients be physically capable of taking the medication themselves, that two doctors approve it, that the patients submit several written requests and that there be two witnesses, one of whom is not a family member.
At least two dozen states introduced right-to-die legislation this year, though the measures stalled elsewhere. Doctors in Oregon, Washington, Vermont and Montana already can prescribe life-ending drugs.
WASHINGTON (AP) —
A college degree practically stamped Andres Aguirre's ticket to the middle class. Yet at age 40, he's still paying the price of admission.
After a decade of repayments, Aguirre still diverts $512 a month to loans and owes $20,000.
The expense requires his family to rent an apartment in Campbell, California, because buying a home in a decent school district would cost too much. His daughter has excelled in high school, but Aguirre has urged her to attend community college to avoid the debt that ensnared him.
"I didn't get the warmest reception on that," said Aguirre, a health care manager. "But she understands the choice."
America's crushing surge of student debt, now at $1.2 trillion, has bred a disturbing new phenomenon: School loans that span multiple generations within families. Weighed down by their own loans, many parents lack the means to fund their children's educations without sinking even deeper into debt.
Data analyzed exclusively by The Associated Press, along with surveys about families and rising student debt loads, show that:
— School loans increasingly belong to Americans over 40. This group accounts for 35 percent of education debt, up from 25 percent in 2004, according to the New York Federal Reserve. Contributing to this surge: Longer repayment schedules, more midcareer workers returning to school and additional borrowing for children's education.
— Generation X adults — those from 35 to 50 years old — owe about as much as people fresh out of college do. Student loan balances average $20,000 for Generation X. Millennials, who are 34 and younger, have roughly the same average debt, according to a report by Pew Charitable Trusts.
— Gen-X parents who carry student debt and have teenage children have struggled to save for their children's educations. The average they have in college savings plans is just $4,000, compared with a $20,000 average for teenagers' parents who aren't still repaying their own school loans, Pew found. A result is that many of their children will need to borrow heavily for college, thereby perpetuating a cycle of family debt.
— Student debt is surpassing groceries as a primary expense, with the gap widening most for younger families. The average college-educated head of household under 40 owes $404 a month in student debt payments, according to an AP analysis of Fed data. That's slightly more than what the government says the average college-educated family spends at the supermarket.
The multigenerational debt cycle reflects a rush to pursue college as a path to middle class security. Roughly 25 years ago, federal policies began encouraging borrowing on a mass scale to cover soaring college costs. Policymakers figured borrowers could afford the debt because college degrees would all but guarantee comfortable incomes.
The reality played out somewhat differently.
Roughly 6 million Gen-X households still owe student debt. Some, like Aguirre, are forgoing home ownership. Others have moved to remote stretches of the country to qualify for loan forgiveness programs. At no point before, experts say, has such a large share of the U.S. population begun their careers indebted.
— DIFFERENT PATHS
Nathan Anderson received his first student loan in 1991. His time at Johns Hopkins University overlapped with the start of the lending boom: The government was raising borrowing limits, introducing unsubsidized Stafford loans and incentivizing private lenders.
Majoring in psychology, Anderson hoped to become a child psychologist. But after suffering a shoulder injury while playing soccer, he found relief only from an acupuncturist. The treatment led him to study Chinese medicine and become a licensed acupuncturist himself in 2004. He had already racked up $45,000 in college debt; acupuncture school required more.
Now 42 with a blended family of five, he runs an acupuncture clinic in Tucson, Arizona, with his wife, Julie, also an acupuncturist. Combined, their monthly student loans bills approach $1,700.
"More than we spend on groceries and kind of like having a second mortgage," Anderson said.
The student lending boom never fully appreciated how many students might switch major or careers, nor that incomes would stagnate as debt levels rose.
— NO CHOICE BUT DEBT
Part of the problem is that job opportunities can require workers to return to school and borrow at a time in life when savings traditionally became a priority.
In Kansas, the Bigler family lives in the remote town of Ashland as part of a government-backed program to forgive the debt for the father, Jonathan, 54, who in a mid-career switch became a physician assistant.
With a population of 853, Ashland is 50 miles from the nearest Wal-Mart and an hour from hamburgers at the closest Sonic Drive-In. Including the college debts for their three daughters, ages 22 to 27, the Biglers write checks totaling $2,531 each month to repay student debts.
The family is on track to be debt-free when Jonathan turns 72.