By ALEX BRANDON
CHESAPEAKE, Va. (AP) — A Walmart supervisor opened hearth on fellow workers gathered within the break room of a Virginia retailer, a witness stated Wednesday. Six folks died within the nation’s second high-profile mass capturing in a handful of days.
The gunman, who apparently killed himself, was lifeless when police discovered him, stated Chesapeake Police Chief Mark G. Solesky stated. There was no clear motive for the capturing, which additionally left 4 folks within the hospital.
The retailer was busy simply earlier than the assault Tuesday night time with folks stocking up forward of the Thanksgiving vacation, a client advised an area TV station.
Employee Briana Tyler stated that staff had gathered within the retailer’s break room as they sometimes did forward of their shifts.
“I looked up, and my manager just opened the door and he just opened fire,” she advised ABC’s “Good Morning America,” including that “multiple people” dropped to the ground.
“He didn’t say a word, he didn’t say anything at all,” she stated.
Solesky confirmed the shooter, who used a pistol, was a Walmart worker however didn’t give his title as a result of his household has not been notified. He couldn’t verify whether or not the victims have been all workers.
“I am devastated by the senseless act of violence that took place late last night in our city,” Mayor Rick W. West stated in an announcement posted on the town’s Twitter account Wednesday. “Chesapeake is a tightknit community and we are all shaken by this news.”
A database run by The Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University that tracks each mass killing in America going again to 2006 reveals this yr has been particularly unhealthy. The U.S. has now had 40 mass killings to this point this yr, second to the 45 that occurred for all of 2019. The database defines a mass killing as at the very least 4 folks killed, not together with the killer.
The assault on the Walmart got here three days after an individual opened hearth at a homosexual nightclub in Colorado, killing 5 folks and wounding 17. Earlier within the yr, the nation was shaken by the deaths of 21 when a gunman stormed an elementary college in Uvalde, Texas.
Tuesday’s capturing additionally introduced again reminiscences of one other at a Walmart in 2019, when a gunman police say was concentrating on Mexicans opened hearth at a retailer in El Paso, Texas, and killed 22 folks.
A 911 name in regards to the capturing in Chesapeake, which is Virginia’s second-largest metropolis and lies subsequent to the seaside communities of Norfolk and Virginia Beach, got here in simply after 10 p.m. The retailer was open on the time, however Solesky didn’t know what number of consumers have been inside or whether or not the gunman was working.
Asked whether or not there was a safety guard current, the police chief stated he didn’t know.
Joetta Jeffery advised CNN that she acquired textual content messages from her mom who was inside the shop when the photographs have been fired. Her mom, Betsy Umphlett, was not injured.
“I’m crying, I’m shaking,” Jeffery stated. “I had just talked to her about buying turkeys for Thanksgiving, then this text came in.”
One man was seen wailing at a hospital after studying that his brother was lifeless, and others shrieked as they left a convention heart arrange as a household reunification heart, The Virginian-Pilot reported.
Camille Buggs, a former Walmart worker, advised the paper she went to the convention heart in search of details about her former coworkers.
“You always say you don’t think it would happen in your town, in your neighborhood, in your store — in your favorite store and that’s the thing that has me shocked,” stated Buggs, 58, of Chesapeake.
Walmart tweeted early Wednesday that it was “shocked at this tragic event.”
U.S. Sen. Mark Warner stated in a tweet that he was “sickened by reports of yet another mass shooting, this time at a Walmart in Chesapeake.”
State Sen. Louise Lucas echoed Warner’s sentiment, tweeting that she was “absolutely heartbroken that America’s latest mass shooting took place in a Walmart in my district.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com”