Donald Ray Surrett Jr Bio – Donald Ray Surrett Jr Wiki
One of the two victims of Sunday’s deadly shooting inside an Oregon supermarket is being hailed a hero as new details emerge about the violence.
AGE:
Donald Ray Surrett Jr is 66 years old.
DETAIL OF INCIDENCE:
Police said that Safeway employee Donald Ray Surrett Jr., 66, attacked the gunman, who was carrying an AR-15-style rifle and a shotgun, with a produce knife in an attempt to disarm him, reported KREM-TV. The gunman, identified by police as 20-year-old Ethan Blair Miller, fatally shot himself in the back of the Bend, Ore., store, police have said.
A second victim, Glen Edward Bennett, 84, was shot and killed at the front of the store.
Both victims have GoFundMe pages to help aid with funeral expenses.
In a touching tribute to Surrett Jr., Surrett’s sister-in-law, Jerilynn Morra, wrote, “Don was a veteran and his instincts kicked in trying to save others. He was shot and killed trying to subdue the young gunman.”
Bennett’s GoFundMe page states he was a veteran who’d been a medic in the Korean war.
“Glenn was such a kind, generous, and well-spoken man,” a relative who identified herself as Deidre C. wrote on the page.
Just after 7 p.m. on Sunday, the gunman was first spotted at a shopping center in Bend. He fired shots in a Costco parking lot near the entrance of a Big Lots store. No one was injured at either location.
Shortly afterward, the gunman entered a Safeway grocery store and opened fire, killing Surrett Jr. and Bennett and injuring one more individual. When officers arrived at the scene, they found the gunman already dead. According to CNN, police found an AR-15-style rifle and a shotgun close to the shooter’s body.
Officers did not fire their weapons at the scene.
When the shooting started, shoppers began running for the exit.
Molly Taroli, 40, told the Bend Bulletin that she saw the shooter “spraying shots,” down every grocery store aisle. She pulled a handgun from her purse as her husband ran out the front door to grab his gun. Taroli ran out the back door.
The shooting shocked and outraged Oregon’s elected officials.
“America cannot just shrug its shoulders at another mass shooting with loved ones grieving the loss of family and friends,” Senator Ron Wyden tweeted. “I’m willing to work with anybody who’s sick and tired of mass shootings to find solutions that put an end to this gun violence madness once and for all.”