By ALEX BRANDON and BEN FINLEY
CHESAPEAKE, Va. (AP) — A Walmart supervisor pulled out a handgun earlier than a routine worker assembly and started firing wildly across the break room of a Virginia retailer, killing six folks within the nation’s second high-profile mass capturing in 4 days, police and witnesses mentioned Wednesday.
The gunman, who police consider shot himself, was useless when officers arrived. Police mentioned they have been attempting to find out the motive for the capturing, and one worker described watching “bodies drop” because the assailant fired haphazardly, with out saying a phrase.
“He was just shooting all throughout the room. It didn’t matter who he hit. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t look at anybody in any specific type of way,” mentioned Briana Tyler, a Walmart worker.
Six folks have been wounded within the capturing, which occurred simply after 10 p.m. Tuesday, when the shop was busy with folks stocking up forward of the Thanksgiving vacation. Police mentioned they consider about 50 folks have been within the retailer on the time. It was not instantly clear whether or not clients have been among the many victims.
The gunman was recognized as Andre Bing, 31, an in a single day staff chief who had been a Walmart worker since 2010. Police mentioned he had one handgun and a number of other magazines of ammunition.
Tyler mentioned the in a single day stocking staff of 15 to twenty folks had simply gathered within the break room to go over the morning plan. She mentioned the assembly was about to begin, and one staff chief mentioned: “All right guys, we have a light night ahead of us.” Then Bing rotated and opened hearth on the workers.
At first, Tyler doubted whether or not the capturing was actual, considering that it was an energetic shooter drill.
“It was all happening so fast,” she mentioned, including: “It is by the grace of God that a bullet missed me. I saw the smoke leaving the gun, and I literally watched bodies drop. It was crazy.”
Police mentioned three of the useless, together with Bing, have been discovered within the break room. One of the slain victims was discovered close to the entrance of the shop. Three others have been taken to hospitals the place they died.
Tyler, who began working at Walmart two months in the past and had labored with Bing only a night time earlier, mentioned she by no means had a destructive encounter with him, however others advised her he was “the manager to look out for.” She mentioned Bing had a historical past of writing folks up for no cause.
“He just liked to pick, honestly. I think he just looked for little things … because he had the authority. That’s just the type of person that he was. That’s what a lot of people said about him,” she mentioned.
Employee Jessie Wilczewski advised Norfolk tv station WAVY that she hid below the desk, and Bing regarded and pointed his gun at her. He advised her to go dwelling, and he or she left.
The assault was the second time in slightly greater than per week that Virginia has skilled a serious capturing. Three University of Virginia soccer gamers have been fatally shot on a constitution bus as they returned to campus from a subject journey on Nov. 13. Two different college students have been wounded.
The assault on the Walmart got here three days after an individual opened hearth at a homosexual nightclub in Colorado Springs, killing 5 folks and wounding 17. Last spring, the nation was shaken by the deaths of 21 when a gunman stormed an elementary college in Uvalde, Texas.
Tuesday night time’s capturing additionally introduced again recollections of one other assault at a Walmart in 2019, when a gunman who focused Mexicans opened hearth at a retailer in El Paso, Texas, and killed 22 folks.
A database run by The Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University that tracks each mass killing in America going again to 2006 reveals that the U.S. has now had 40 mass killings up to now in 2022. That compares with 45 for all of 2019, the very best yr within the database, which defines a mass killing as at the least 4 folks killed, not together with the killer.
According to the database, greater than 1 / 4 of the mass killings have occurred since Oct. 21, spanning eight states and claiming 51 lives. Nine of these 11 incidents have been shootings.
Notably, the database doesn’t embrace the current capturing on the University of Virginia as a result of that assault didn’t meet the brink of 4 useless, not together with the shooter.
President Joe Biden tweeted that he and the primary girl have been grieving for the victims’ households. “We mourn for those who will have empty seats at their Thanksgiving table because of these tragic events – we must take greater action.”
Kimberly Shupe, mom of Walmart worker Jalon Jones, advised reporters her 24-year-old son was shot within the again. She mentioned he was in good situation and speaking Wednesday, after initially being positioned on a ventilator.
Shupe mentioned she realized of the capturing from a pal, who went to a household reunification heart to search out out Jones’ whereabouts.
“If he’s not answering his phone, he’s not answering text messages and there’s a shooting at his job, you just kind of put two and two together,” Shupe mentioned. “It was shock at first, but ultimately, I just kept thinking, he’s going to be all right.”
Walmart mentioned in a press release that it was working with regulation enforcement and “focused on doing everything we can to support our associates and their families.”
In the aftermath of the El Paso capturing, the corporate decided in September 2019 to discontinue gross sales of sure sorts of ammunition and requested that clients now not overtly carry firearms in shops.
It stopped promoting handgun ammunition in addition to short-barrel rifle ammunition, such because the .223 caliber and 5.56 caliber utilized in navy model weapons.
The firm stopped promoting handguns within the mid-Nineteen Nineties in each state however Alaska, the place gross sales continued till 2019. The adjustments marked an entire exit from that enterprise and allowed Walmart to concentrate on searching rifles and associated ammunition solely.
Many of its shops are in rural areas the place hunters rely on Walmart to get their gear.
Tyler’s grandfather, Richard Tate, mentioned he dropped his granddaughter off for her 10 p.m. shift, then parked the automotive and went in to purchase some dish cleaning soap.
When he first heard the pictures, he thought it might be balloons popping. But he quickly noticed different clients and staff fleeing, and he ran too.
Tate reached his automotive and referred to as his granddaughter.
“I could tell that she was upset,” he mentioned. “But I could also tell that she was alive.”
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Contributing to this report have been Associated Press writers Denise Lavoie in Chesapeake; Michael Kunzelman and Sarah Brumfield in Silver Spring, Maryland; Matthew Barakat in Falls Church, Virginia; Hannah Schoenbaum in Raleigh, North Carolina; Anne D’Innocenzio and Alexandra Olson in New York; information researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York; and video journalist Nathan Ellgren in Chesapeake.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”