By ALEX BRANDON
CHESAPEAKE, Va. (AP) — A Walmart supervisor opened fireplace on fellow workers within the break room of a Virginia retailer, killing six folks within the nation’s second high-profile mass taking pictures in 4 days, police and a witness stated Wednesday.
The gunman, who apparently shot himself, was useless when police discovered him, Chesapeake Police Chief Mark G. Solesky stated. There was no clear motive for the taking pictures, which additionally put 4 folks within the hospital.
The shop was busy simply earlier than the assault Tuesday night time with folks stocking up forward of the Thanksgiving vacation, a client informed an area TV station.
Worker Briana Tyler stated employees had gathered within the retailer’s break room as they usually did forward of their shifts.
“I appeared up, and my supervisor simply opened the door and he simply opened fireplace,” she informed ABC’s “Good Morning America,” including that “a number of folks” dropped to the ground.
“He didn’t say a phrase, he didn’t say something in any respect,” she stated.
Solesky confirmed that the shooter, who used a pistol, was a Walmart worker however didn’t give his title as a result of his household had not been notified. The police chief couldn’t verify whether or not the victims had been all workers.
Worker Jessie Wilczewski informed Norfolk tv station WAVY that she hid beneath the desk and the shooter checked out her along with his gun pointed at her, informed her to go dwelling and he or she left.
“It didn’t even look actual till you may really feel the … ‘pow-pow-pow,’ you possibly can really feel it,” Wilczewski stated. “I couldn’t hear it at first as a result of I suppose it was so loud, I may really feel it.”
Gov. Glenn Youngkin tweeted Wednesday morning that he was involved with regulation enforcement officers and stated he would make sources obtainable because the investigation strikes ahead.
“Our hearts break with the group of Chesapeake this morning,” Youngkin wrote. “Heinous acts of violence haven’t any place in our communities.”
It was the second time in slightly greater than every week that Virginia has skilled a serious taking pictures. Three College of Virginia soccer gamers had been fatally shot on a constitution bus as they returned to campus from a area journey on Nov. 13. Two different college students had been injured within the taking pictures.
“I’m devastated by the mindless act of violence that befell late final night time in our metropolis,” Mayor Rick W. West stated in a press release posted on the town’s Twitter account Wednesday. “Chesapeake is a tight-knit group, and we’re all shaken by this information.”
A database run by The Related Press, USA At present and Northeastern College that tracks each mass killing in America going again to 2006 exhibits this 12 months has been particularly violent.
The U.S. has now had 40 mass killings up to now this 12 months, in contrast with 45 for all of 2019. The database defines a mass killing as not less than 4 folks killed, not together with the killer.
The assault on the Walmart got here three days after an individual opened fireplace at a homosexual nightclub in Colorado, killing 5 folks and wounding 17. Earlier within the 12 months, the nation was shaken by the deaths of 21 when a gunman stormed an elementary faculty in Uvalde, Texas.
Tuesday night time’s taking pictures additionally introduced again recollections of one other at a Walmart in 2019, when a gunmanwhotargeted Mexicans opened fireplace at a retailer in El Paso, Texas, and killed 22 folks.
A 911 name concerning the taking pictures in Chesapeake, which is Virginia’s second-largest metropolis and lies subsequent to the seaside communities of Norfolk and Virginia Seashore, got here in simply after 10 p.m. The shop was open on the time, however Solesky didn’t know what number of customers had been inside or whether or not the gunman was working.
Requested whether or not there was a safety guard current, the police chief stated he didn’t know.
Joetta Jeffery informed CNN that she acquired textual content messages from her mom who was inside the shop when the pictures had been fired. Her mom, Betsy Umphlett, was not injured.
“I’m crying, I’m shaking,” Jeffery stated. “I had simply talked to her about shopping for turkeys for Thanksgiving, then this textual content got here in.”
One man was seen wailing at a hospital after studying that his brother was useless, and others shrieked as they left a convention middle arrange as a household reunification middle, The Virginian-Pilot reported.
Camille Buggs, a former Walmart worker, informed the paper she went to the convention middle in search of details about her former co-workers.
“You all the time say you don’t assume it will occur in your city, in your neighborhood, in your retailer — in your favourite retailer and that’s the factor that has me shocked,” stated Buggs, 58, of Chesapeake.
Walmart tweeted early Wednesday that it was “shocked at this tragic occasion.”
Sen. Mark Warner stated in a tweet that he was “sickened by reviews of yet one more mass taking pictures, this time at a Walmart in Chesapeake.”
State Sen. Louise Lucas echoed Warner’s sentiment, tweeting that she was “completely heartbroken that America’s newest mass taking pictures befell in a Walmart in my district.”