WARNING: This story discusses shooting and violence.

The Jacksonville, Florida, sheriff says that a racially motivated shooter fatally shot three people inside a Dollar General Store on Saturday before killing himself.

“Plainly put, this shooting was racially motivated and he hated Black people,” Sheriff T.K. Waters said at a news conference.

Multiple people were fatally shot on Saturday inside a Dollar General store, Jackonville’s mayor Donna Deegan said. A city council member added that the shooter was dead.

Deegan told a local TV station there were “a number of fatalities” inside the store but didn’t give a precise number. Police officers were in the area near Edward Waters University, a small, historically Black university.

“This is unacceptable,” Deegan told the station. “One shooting is too much, but these mass shootings are really hard to take.”

Jacksonville City Council member Ju’Coby Pittman told the station the shooter was dead. She did not give details.

“My heart is heavy. I am tired of all of the shootings,” she said.

Edward Waters students were being kept in their dorms, the university said in a statement. No students or faculty were believed to be involved, it said.

Penny Jones told the Associated Press that she worked at the store until a few months ago. She lives a few blocks away in the predominantly Black neighbourhood.

“I’m just waiting to hear about my [former] co-workers,” she said. Jones added that she was “feeling awkward, scared”.

“I don’t want to leave my house. I’m thinking, do I want to go back to the store? Is this going to start happening more frequently? I don’t know what the cause of it is. I’m confused,” she said.

The shooting happened five years to the day when a gunman opened fire during a video game tournament in Jacksonville, killing two people before fatally shooting himself.