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Unarmed Army Vet Chris Mintz Shot Multiple Times After Confronting Ore. Shooter

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As shots rang out during a mass shooting on Thursday at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon that left 9 victims dead and 7 injured, 30-year-old Army veteran Chris Mintz sprang to action.

“He ran to the library and pulled the alarms and he was telling people to run, grabbing people, telling them, ‘You just have to go.’ He actually ran back towards the building where the shooting was and he ran back into the building,” said student Hannah Miles according to ABC News.

Once inside, Mintz reportedly charged headlong into danger unarmed and physically blocked the door of a classroom full of students as the gunman, identified as 26-year-old Chris Harper Mercer, attempted to enter. Mintz’s family says that, as he blocked the door, he tried to talk the shooter out of continuing the killings.

Mintz was then shot multiple times. Conflicting reports suggest that he might have been struck by either 5 or 7 rounds. Between shots, Mintz reportedly pleaded that it was his son’s sixth birthday but the shooter continued firing mercilessly. In the above-embedded WNCT-TV 9 video, his family members give a detailed account of those tragic moments.

[RELATED: Oregon Shooting Suspect Identified; Obama Calls for Increased Gun Control]

However, Mintz, a physically imposing combat veteran and cage fighter who hails originally from Randleman, North Carolina, is currently alive and conscious at a local hospital and is expected to survive his injuries, which NBC News notes include shots to the hand, abdomen and back, as well as two broken legs.

Mintz’s cousin Ariana Earnhardt told MyFox8, “His vital signs are OK. He’s going to have to learn to walk again but he walked away with his life and that’s more than so many other people did.”

A GoFundMe page dedicated to helping Mintz deal with medical bills associated with his recovery has been launched by a family member.

According to The Daily Beast, prior to being injured in the shooting, Mintz had been working at the local YMCA and was pursuing a fitness training certification at Umpqua Community College.

Lying in his hospital bed on Friday morning, Mintz told ABC News, “I just hope that everyone else is OK.”

Mintz has been widely described as a hero on social media in the wake of the tragedy, with many commenters, including Twitter users under the hashtags #RememberTheHero and #ForgetTheShooter, calling for the wounded veteran’s name to be given more attention than that of the reportedly fame-obsessed mass killer with whom he coincidentally shares a first name.

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Oregon Shooting Suspect Identified; Obama Calls for Increased Gun Control

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Following a reported deadly mass shooting on Thursday at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, the suspect has been identified and President Obama has begun to call for more gun control.

The suspect has been identified as 26-year-old Chris Harper Mercer. Police reported that at least nine people were killed and seven others wounded before the suspect was killed in a shootout with police. Three pistols and an AR-style rifle were reportedly discovered at the scene.

The New York Times described Mercer as a “recluse” and a “withdrawn young man” who lived with this mother. Rosario Espinoza, a former neighbor, told the Times that Mercer’s mother would often complain that Espinoza’s children were playing too loudly and bothering her son.

Another neighbor, Julia Winstead, told the Times that at one point Mercer’s mother went around the neighborhood with a petition asking the landlord to exterminate cockroaches in her apartment because they bothered her son.

“She said, ‘My son is dealing with some mental issues, and the roaches are really irritating him,’” Winstead said. “She said they were going to go stay in a motel. Until that time, I didn’t know she had a son.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvEGFjWfHAE

Hours after the shooting, President Obama held a press conference where he said that he believes gun violence is “something we should politicize.” 

“We are not the only country on Earth that has people with mental illnesses who want to do harm to other people,” Obama said. “We are the only country on Earth that sees these kinds of mass shootings every few months.”

Obama went on to criticize opponents of gun control, and said that “what has become routine is the response of those who oppose any kind of common sense gun legislation.”

“Each time this happens I’m going to bring this up,” Obama said. “Each time this happens I am going to say we can actually do something about it.”

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At Least 13 Dead, 20 Injured in Shooting at Oregon Community College

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UPDATE: Oct. 1, 2015, 6 p.m. Eastern – The local sheriff in Roseburg, Oregon, said that the suspected gunman, a 20-year-old male, was killed during a shootout with police.

UPDATE: 4 p.m. Eastern – Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenbaum said that 13 people are dead and up to 20 others wounded from a shooting at Umpqua Community College Thursday morning. Rosenbaum confirmed that the shooter is dead.

3:50 p.m. Eastern – At least seven people are dead and 20 injured from a shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon on Thursday morning.

KATU-TV reported that local officials confirmed that the shooter “has been ‘neutralized’ and is now in custody,” after shots were fired at Snyder Hall around 10:40 a.m. and multiple patients were found in multiple classrooms.

ATF agents are currently on the scene, and canine teams will be brought in to search for explosives, fire arms casings and ammunition, a spokesman told CNN.

The Associated Press reported that Umpqua Community College college is about 180 miles south of Portland, and has about 3,000 students.

The identity of the shooter has not yet been released.