Oregon Shooting Survivors Give Details, Nation Reacts

Social media is full of debate over gun control in the wake of the mass killing at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon.

However, Pastor and author T.D. Jakes tweeted, "We continue to pray for those families and friends who have lost loved ones in Oregon."

Searching for "#prayforOregon" will show prayer after prayer for the victims and their families. Many people commented on social media about the importance of honoring the victims for their bravery before the gunman. Others talked about how they admired many of the victims for not denying their faith in front of the gunman.

Meanwhile, survivors and their families tell more about what happend at UCC that day when Christopher Sean Harper-Mercer went to campus with a flap jacket full of guns and ammunition.

One survivor told reporters Harper-Mercer, opened fire after telling them to crawl across the classroom floor. He then shot one girl after saying he would spare her if she begged for her life that according to relatives of students in the classroom.
 
Harper-Mercer spared a student and gave the "lucky one" something to deliver to authorities, according to the mother of a student who witnessed Thursday's rampage.

An unidentified source with local authorties says they do have a manifesto from Harper-Mercer but the Douglas County Sheriff's office won't confirm it.

Several students who were in the classroom and survived confirmed to their families that Harper-Mercer did give an envelope to someone and call them the "lucky one."

Officers say the gunman killed himself as officers arrived at the scene.
 
Pastor Randy Scroggins, whose 18-year-old daughter Lacey escaped without physical injuries, said she told him that the gunman called to a student, saying: "'Don't worry, you're the one who is going to survive.'"
 
Harper-Mercer then told the student that inside the shooter's backpack was "all the information that you'll need, give it to the police," Scroggins said, citing the account by his daughter.
 
Lacey Scroggins also spoke about students being ordered to crawl to the middle of the room before being shot.

Scroggins said his daughter survived because she was lying on the floor and partially covered by the body and blood of a fellow student. The gunman thought Lacey Scroggins was dead as well, stepped over her and shot someone else.
 
Randy Scroggins received a phone call from that student's mother while speaking with The Associated Press.
 
"He saved my girl. I will forever call your son my hero," he said of 20-year-old Treven Anspach. He told the man's mother he would mention her son during his Sunday church service and ask for prayers. "I'm so sorry for your loss."
 
Janet Willis said her granddaughter Anastasia Boylan was wounded in the Thursday attack and pretended to be dead as Harper-Mercer kept firing, killing eight students and a teacher.
 
Willis said she visited her 18-year-old granddaughter in a hospital in Eugene, where the sobbing Boylan told her: "'Grandma, he killed my teacher!'"
 
Boylan also said the shooter told one student in the writing class to stand in a corner, handed him a package and told him to deliver it to authorities, Willis said.
 
The law enforcement officer who confirmed the manifesto existed said it was left at the scene of the shooting but didn't say how investigators got it.

Boylan, a freshman at Umpqua Community College, also told her grandmother the gunman asked students about their faith.
 
"If they said they were Christian, he shot them in the head," Willis said, citing the account given by her granddaughter.
 
However, conflicting reports emerged about Harper-Mercer's words as he shot his victims.
 
Stephanie Salas, the mother of Rand McGowan, another student who survived, said she was told by her son that the shooter asked victims whether they were religious but did not specifically target Christians.
 
Salas said it was like telling the victims "you're going to be meeting your maker."
 
Salas said the gunman told victims "'this won't hurt very long'" before shooting them.
 
Law enforcement officials have not given details about what happened in the classroom. However they released a timeline that shows police arrived at the scene six minutes after the first 911 call and exchanged gunfire with the shooter two minutes later.
 
Harper-Mercer was enrolled in the class, but officials have not disclosed a possible motive for the killings. In a statement released by authorities, his family said they were "shocked and deeply saddened" by the slayings.
 
The dead ranged in age from 18 to 67 in the attack in Roseburg, a rural timber town about 180 miles south of Portland.
 
Oregon's top federal prosecutor said the shooter used a handgun when he opened fire.
 
Several years ago, Harper-Mercer moved to Oregon from Torrance, California, with his mother Laurel Harper.
 
Harper-Mercer's social media profiles suggested he was fascinated by the Irish Republican Army and frustrated by traditional organized religion.
 
Scroggins said he was grateful his daughter survived Harper-Mercer's attack.
 
"There's been a lot of emotion," he said. "But others don't get their children back."
 
Sources: Associated Press, AP Writers Gosia Wozniacka, Jonathan J. Cooper, Rachel La Corte, Rebecca Boone and Tami Abdollah, Twitter, CBN News