A Walmart employee in Chesapeake, Virginia, killed six people before turning the gun on himself.
Summary
A Walmart employee in Chesapeake, Virginia killed six people on Tuesday before turning the gun on himself.
- The shooting appears to have primarily taken place inside the store, although one body was found outside according to police. The incident appears to have stopped before police arrived on the scene.
- The Tuesday night shooting disrupted a bustling store as customers prepared for the Thanksgiving holiday. At least four people were hospitalized after the incident.
- Mayor Rick West said in a statement he was “devastated by the senseless act of violence” against his “tightknit community” and was grateful for the “quick actions” of first responders.
- The shooting is the second mass killing in less than a week after five Americans were shot and killed in a Colorado gay nightclub on Saturday.
- Chesapeake is Virginia’s second largest city and lies along the Atlantic coast in the southeast portion of the state near Norfolk and Virginia Beach.
- The Chesapeake shooting is the first mass shooting in a Walmart since the 2019 El Paso shooting that left 22 people dead.
- USA Today reported the first 911 call came in to Chesapeake police at 10:12 pm on Tuesday. Officers had arrived on the scene, entered the store, and began providing life-saving measures by 10:16 pm.
- NBC News pointed out that police have yet to identify the shooter publicly or notify his relatives. All police have said is that he was a “disgruntled employee” and died from a suspected self-inflicted gunshot wound.
- “Our hearts are just completely broken this morning yet again in the Commonwealth of Virginia,” said Gov. Glenn Youngkin per CNN. Youngkin continued, “We have had two horrific acts of violence in the commonwealth of Virginia in two weeks and that absolutely brings with it a sense of anger, a sense of fear, a sense of deep deep grief,” referring to the killings of three University of Virginia students on November 13.
- The Daily Wire referred to the shooting as a “breakroom bloodbath,” citing reports that the shooter was a store manager and some of the dead were apparently store employees, although that has not yet been confirmed by police.
- Breitbart News reported the shooter, believed to be the store manager, used a pistol in the deadly rampage. Breitbart noted Walmart banned shoppers from openly carrying handguns in 2019.
- A video emerged of a store employee accusing the store manager of carrying out the attack, according to Fox News. Kevin Harper, a Walmart employee who was able to escape, said “we lost a few of our associates” after the manager “started capping people up” in the break room.
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© Dominic Moore, 2022
