A woman and her daughter were driving southeast of Salt Lake City, UT, when she noticed Memorez Rackley with two boys walking after Brookwood Elementary ended its school day on Tuesday. She picked up all three to drive them out of the area. Along came 32-year-old Jeremy Patterson in a car that he used to ram the vehicle transporting Rackley, age 39, and her sons. The woman’s vehicle came to a complete stop in the roadway.
Patterson got out of his car and opened fire. He shot and killed Rackley. He also gunned down her six-year-old son. Rackley’s 9-year-old son was also shot and was hospitalized.
He is in critical but stable condition. Police said the Samaritan (police have not identified) survived but her daughter, age 8, was injured and is hospitalized in stable condition.
Killer shot himself and died
Patterson self-inflicted a bullet and died, according to Jason Nielsen, a police sergeant, Sandy, UT. Patterson and Rackley had been in a relationship but he was not the father of her two sons.
After getting a 911 call about a domestic disturbance yesterday afternoon, police went to the area, a middle-class suburb in Salt Lake City, according to Nielsen.
When police arrived, the sergeant said, they discovered Patterson, Rackley, and her son who were all dead. Yesterday, police investigators were working to confirm information about the connection between the people involved.
Authorities don’t know what precipitated the dispute. The man’s motive for the brazen shooting is being investigated, Utah authorities said earlier today.
Lockdown imposed at nearby elementary school
The Salt Lake City suburb where the shooting happened is a half-mile from Brookwood Elementary School. School had just let out for the day.
Some students, though, were outside talking with teachers and on the playground when the school received notice of the shooting. Students and staff hustled inside. The school was on lockdown for roughly an hour, according to Jeff Haney, Canyons School District spokesman.
As some parents arrived to pick up their children, they realized what was going on, gathered their children in their cars or took them to nearby homes.
Haney said it is uncertain if the shooting was witnessed or the gunshots were heard by any children still at the school. The school district didn’t state whether any of the children injured or killed in the shooting attend Brookwood.
Colby Corbett, a resident of Sandy, UT, was waiting at home in his backyard for his 8-year-old son, Anthony, to return from school. That’s when he said he heard 20 to 30 shots within a few second span. He thought it was a gun battle and started panicking.
When his son arrived at the home, from the opposite direction of the shots, Corbett said he felt relief. His son thought the shots were fireworks. The gunshot didn’t worry Anthony.
A 14-year-old male, Ridge Workman, said he also heard gunshots and he, too, thought the sound was fireworks.
He lives nearby to where the shooting happened – several hundred yards from his home. He went outside and saw a bullet-riddled car in the street. The car windows were smashed and there was blood.
Jane Hunt, a teacher at the school, said there was only a handful of children at the school while it was on lockdown. She didn’t see or hear anything.
Police have not identified Rackley’s sons, the Samaritan driver, or her daughter.
