Interviews spread across hundreds of pages of police reports that followed the deadly shooting at a Bend Safeway this summer detail the shock that washed over the gunman’s family and friends in the days that followed.

A cache of investigatory documents released by the Bend Police Department on Thursday outlines the scope of the department’s investigation into what led up to Aug. 28, when Ethan Miller entered the grocery store, killed Glen Bennett and Donald Surrett Jr. in the store and took his own life as police arrived.

Beyond the horrific details of store customers hiding in a walk-in deli cooler and employees arming themselves with wine bottles, notes taken by investigators show who the shooter left behind in his own life: Family members who knew he had some anger problems but “believed (he) had that all figured out” and a group of friends who bonded over their shared interests in guns.

“(One friend) explained that what (the shooter) had done completely betrayed their trust and expectation,” an officer wrote in one report.

In most of the interviews, people who had known the shooter expressed shock at what he had done. Some remembered him as willing to “fight for anyone at anytime,” while others said he would threaten people when provoked. Some remembered him as having bullied others at school, while some remembered him having been the victim of bullying.

The Bulletin is not identifying the individuals quoted by police to protect their privacy and also is minimizing use of the shooter’s name in line with journalistic best practice.

One of the reports details the moment a friend of the shooter’s approached police officers on the scene and expressed concern that the shooter had locked himself in his apartment after sending the friend a text that “was the equivalent to a suicide note.”

The friend didn’t know at the time that the shooter was dead in the Safeway nearby.

“(The friend) told me he wanted to kick (the shooter’s) door in to make sure he was safe, but wanted to talk to an officer first,” an officer wrote in the report.

The friend went on to describe to the officer the guns that the shooter owned.

Hours earlier, the shooter’s mother had seen him for the last time. She described to an officer how the shooter spoke to his little brother shortly before the shooting, asking to have their apartment to himself because a girl was coming over.

“While the little brother was walking back to a friend’s house from getting food, he heard the gunshots,” an officer wrote, summarizing an interview with the shooter’s family. “They couldn’t believe what had happened and are grieving as well.”

The police reports leave many questions about the shooting unanswered. Most of all: Why did it all happen?

Sheila Miller, a spokesperson for the police department unrelated to the shooter, said the three-month investigation did not establish a clear motive behind why the gunman opened fire on Safeway. She acknowledged that among the most concrete evidence of his motive was a hate-filled manifesto the shooter appeared to have posted online prior to the shooting.

The department was primarily focused on the facts of what happened that night and whether anybody else needed to be held accountable, Sheila Miller said.

“Our role is to investigate what happened and who is responsible and try to ensure justice as best we can,” Sheila Miller told The Bulletin. “Why the suspect chose to shoot people in the grocery store, we may never know. We may never know what was going through his mind.”

In other reports, officers describe conversations with the shooter’s friends about their shared interests in guns. A group of them would go shooting at Mayfield Pond, but most of them hadn’t seen the shooter in several months.

Even though they liked to shoot together, the friends expressed disbelief at what the shooter had done.

One told officers, “his group did not like these events because they ruined the gun community,” an apparent reference to the impact of mass shootings on debates about gun regulation.