Police have confirmed more details of the Plymouth shooting
A three-year-old girl has been confirmed as one of five people killed in the Plymouth shooting spree.
The other victims of Jake Davison’s rampage in the Keyham area of the city on Thursday – including survivors – ranged in age between 33 and 66.
The girl, and a 43-year-old man related to her, were murdered by Davison, 22, after he had earlier killed a woman at an address on Biddick Drive where he began his six-murder shooting spree while armed with a pump-action gun.
That woman was known to Davison, Devon and Cornwall Police Chief Constable Shaun Sawyer confirmed during a press conference on Friday, adding that it was “domestically-related”. He would not say if the pair were related.
The shooting spree, which is not being treated as terror-related, then, “spilled out into the street”.
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Davison then killed two women, aged 51 and 66, and a 59-year-old man before turning the gun on himself.
Two other people – a 33-year-old man and 53-year-old woman – survived with “significant” injuries and continue to receive treatment. Davison shot at them after killing the girl and her relative.
Police arrived a short time later, taking six minutes to get to the scene after receiving multiple calls at 6.11pm.
Sharon, who did not wish to give her full name, described the events as “horrendous and sad”, telling the BBC: “Firstly, there was shouting, followed by gunshots – three possibly four to begin with.”
She continued: “This was when the shooter kicked in the door of a house and randomly started shooting. He ran from the house shooting as he ran and proceeded to shoot at a few people in the linear park up from the drive.”
Sawyer said Davison had a gun license in 2020 and that a motive had not yet been established. It was not known if Davison had any mental health issues, but police have said the attack was not terror-related.
In his last video uploaded to YouTube, Davison talked about being a “terminator”, according to reports
Davison, an apprentice crane operator, described himself on his YouTube channel as an ‘incel’ and made references to the fatalist ‘blackpill’ philosophy to which the radical fringe group subscribes, the Telegraph reported, noting also that he appeared to have an obsession with guns.
In his final video post, on July 28, the newspaper said that Davison spent 11-minutes talking about how his life had hit a dead end and his struggles with attracting women and weight loss. The video blog ended with Davison saying he likes to think “I’m a Terminator”.
“The whole premise of the Terminator movies is that you know everything is rigged against you, there’s no hope for humanity, you know, we’re on the brink of extinction, these machines are unstoppable killing machines that can’t be beaten, can’t be outsmarted, but yet humanity still tries to fight to the end,” Davison said in the video.
“I know it’s a movie, but, you know, I like to think sometimes I’m a Terminator or something and despite reaching almost total system failure, he keeps trying to accomplish his mission.”
Davison’s YouTube account has since been deleted. A spokesperson for the platform told JOE on Friday: “Our hearts go out to those affected by this terrible incident. We have strict policies to ensure our platform is not used to incite violence. In addition, we also have long-standing policies that prohibit those responsible for attacks like these from having a YouTube channel and have since terminated their channel from our platform.”
