One Year Later: Newly released documents detail months long investigation following Jacksonville Landing mass shooting

Jacksonville, FL — It’s been a whole year since a 24-year-old shooter took the lives of two people and injured 11 people during a gaming tournament at the Jacksonville Landing.

Newly released documents by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office details not only the accounts of witnesses and victims but also reveal the months of follow-up detective work as police try to figure out what led the 24-year-old to pull the trigger.

WOKV dug through more than 100 pages of documents on the investigation provided by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.

In the documents, police talk with one witness who admitted they didn’t think the shooting was Katz’s recent loss in the tournament which eliminated him. The witness who spoke with JSO says they had beaten Katz in the tournament, and if the shooting was a result of the loss then that person would have been shot. JSO notes the witness was not shot or targeted.

In another statement, officers spoke with another witness who claimed to know Katz for years from the Madden gaming community. This person told police he thought Katz had targeted Elijah Clayton, who was one of the two men who died. According to the documents, the person told police Clayton had picked on Katz who he labeled as “socially awkward.”

Beyond different accounts of what happened during the shooting and who saw what, there were other storylines tucked away in the documents.

One Supplement Incident Report shows a pair of men thought of a plan once Katz started shooting to keep a bathroom door block with their bodies to prevent Katz from storming in. The witness also said he and one of the E.A Sports employee talked about what they were going to do in the situation and even discussed rushing the shooter in the event he did approach the bathroom where the group was hiding.