The man shot himself, citing two individuals familiar with the matter. They also said that cops are now combing posts Spencer is believed to have made on internet forum 4Chan, including one said to have been posted four minutes after Friday’s shooting.
That message reads: ‘Dear God please forgive me.’
Another one sent six minutes later said: ‘They’re in the wrong part of the building right now searching XD,’ with the ‘XD’ symbol designed to look like a laughing face when viewed from the side.
One final message posted six minutes after that read: ‘Waiting for police to watch up with me.’ The Post also reported that a Wikipedia user’s page for Spencer described him as an ‘AR-15 aficionado’.
The Metropolitan Police Department posted photos of the stockpile of firearms found in Spencer’s apartment.
Washington police Chief Robert J. Contee III said that his officers found six firearms, including long guns, hand guns and ammunition, as well as a tripod used to mount rifles in the apartment where Spencer was found dead. Contee said that police believe the weapons were obtained legally based on preliminary information.
Contee said Spencer had a ‘sniper-like setup’ in the a fifth-floor apartment overlooking the scene and Edmund Burke School, an independent grade 6-12 school in the area.
He evoked the infamous Beltway Sniper attacks of 2002 that killed 10 people in the area: ‘It appears this person was shooting randomly at anyone who was out there. There could have been a lot of damage done, and lives lost.’
Contee added he’s still trying to figure out a motive and does not know that Spencer specifically targeted the school but declared the community safe.