From [HERE] and [HERE] Authorities are investigating a Massachusetts shooting that left two Black people dead as a hate crime after investigators found "some troubling white supremacist rhetoric" in the gunman's handwriting, officials said Sunday.

Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins, who identified the suspected gunman as 28-year-old Nathan Allen, said during a press conference on Sunday that investigators found "antisemitic and racist statements against Black individuals."

"There was hate in this man's heart," she told reporters Monday.

Allen was killed by police officers on Saturday afternoon shortly after stealing a plumber's truck, crashing it into a house and shooting two Black bystanders multiple times in Winthrop, just outside Boston, according to Winthrop Police Chief Terence Delehanty.

The slain bystanders, who were both Black, were identified as David Green, 58, a retired Massachusetts State Police officer; and Ramona Cooper, 60, an Air Force veteran who still worked with the military, according to Rollins. Allen shot Green four times in the head and three in the torso, and Cooper three times in the back.

"He walked by several people that were not Black and they are alive. They were not harmed," she said. “They are alive and these two visible people of color are not."

The dramatic scene unfolded in the quiet Massachusetts suburb of just more than 18,000, about six miles east of Boston. Now, authorities are investigating the killings as hate crimes, citing a preliminary investigation that found “troubling white supremacy rhetoric” by Allen, who wrote of the “superiority of the white race” and drew swastikas, Rollins said in a statement Sunday.

The incident comes as acts of violence fueled by hate and white supremacy are on the rise in the United States. Since 2015, there have been 267 plots or attacks by right-wing extremists and 91 fatalities, according to an analysis by The Washington Post. In March, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray acknowledged a rising tide of domestic terrorism and called it a “top concern.”

At about 2:40 p.m. Saturday, police responded to the intersection of Shirley and Cross streets after a man, later identified as Allen, allegedly stole a box truck owned by a plumbing company and then crashed into a residence near the intersection, police said. A witness told NECN he looked out his window and saw a man emerge from the truck disoriented and shoeless. He then saw the man run down the street, he said, before hearing gunshots.

“He started jogging, then I heard the boom boom boom boom. I looked down and the next thing I saw is the body in the middle of the street,” Robert Harrington, a witness, told NECN.

Nick Tsiotos, the friend whom Green had visited before the incident, said he believed the former state trooper rushed out to the scene of the crash and tried to help, WCVB reported. It’s unclear whether Green knew Allen was armed or whether he tried to intervene. He was nevertheless “shot in the head, neck, and torso repeatedly,” Rollins said.

There was little indication in Allen’s public life that he would be accused of carrying out such a rampage. He had a license to carry a firearm, was married, had a PhD and no criminal record, according to Rollins. For a time, he attended the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, where he met his wife, according to a Globe article published last August about Allen’s marriage plans during the pandemic.

One of Allen’s neighbors said he offered to help her multiracial son, who had a sensory-processing disorder, the Globe reported on Sunday. She said Allen would sit outside the building and write as though he was “taking notes” and that he received a lot of packages.

Allen was “so nice,” the neighbor told the Globe, “but there was something a little off about him.”