By ALEX BRANDON
CHESAPEAKE, Va. (AP) — A Walmart supervisor opened hearth on fellow staff within the break room of a Virginia retailer, killing six folks within the nation’s second high-profile mass capturing in 4 days, police and a witness stated Wednesday.
The gunman, who apparently shot himself, was lifeless when police discovered him, Chesapeake Police Chief Mark G. Solesky stated. There was no clear motive for the capturing, which additionally put 4 folks within the hospital.
The retailer was busy simply earlier than the assault Tuesday night time as folks stocked up forward of the Thanksgiving vacation, a client instructed a neighborhood TV station.
Employee Briana Tyler stated employees had gathered within the 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 instructed 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 that the shooter, who used a pistol, was a Walmart worker however didn’t give his identify as a result of his household had not been notified. The police chief couldn’t verify whether or not the victims had been all staff.
Employee Jessie Wilczewski instructed Norfolk tv station WAVY that she hid below the desk and the shooter checked out her together with his gun pointed at her, instructed her to go dwelling and he or she left.
“It didn’t even look real until you could feel the … ‘pow-pow-pow,’ you can feel it,” Wilczewski stated. “I couldn’t hear it at first because I guess it was so loud, I could feel it.”
Gov. Glenn Youngkin tweeted that he was in touch with legislation enforcement officers in Chesapeake, Virginia’s second-largest metropolis, which lies subsequent to the seaside communities of Norfolk and Virginia Beach.
“Our hearts break with the community of Chesapeake this morning,” Youngkin wrote. “Heinous acts of violence have no place in our communities.”
It was the second time in a bit of greater than per week that Virginia has skilled a significant capturing. Three University 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 wounded.
“I am devastated by the senseless act of violence that took place late last night in our city,” Mayor Rick W. West stated in a press release posted on town’s Twitter account Wednesday. “Chesapeake is a tight-knit 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 12 months has been particularly violent.
The U.S. has now had 40 mass killings to date in 2022, in contrast with 45 for all of 2019. The database defines a mass killing as no less than 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. Last spring, the nation was shaken by the deaths of 21 when a gunman stormed an elementary faculty in Uvalde, Texas.
Tuesday night time’s capturing additionally introduced again reminiscences of one other at a Walmart in 2019, when a gunmanwhotargeted Mexicans opened hearth at a retailer in El Paso, Texas, and killed 22 folks.
A 911 name concerning the capturing got here in simply after 10 p.m. Solesky didn’t know what number of customers had been inside, whether or not the gunman was working or whether or not a safety guard was current.
Joetta Jeffery instructed CNN that she acquired textual content messages from her mom who was inside the shop when the photographs had 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 middle arrange as a household reunification middle, The Virginian-Pilot reported.
Camille Buggs, a former Walmart worker, instructed the newspaper she went to the convention middle searching for details about her former co-workers.
“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,” Buggs stated.
Walmart tweeted early Wednesday that it was “shocked at this tragic event.”
In the aftermath of the El Paso capturing, Walmart decided in September 2019 to discontinue gross sales of sure sorts of ammunition and requested that prospects not brazenly carry firearms in its 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 type weapons. Walmart additionally discontinued handgun gross sales in Alaska.
The firm had stopped promoting handguns within the mid-Nineteen Nineties in each state however Alaska. The newest transfer marked its full exit from that enterprise and allowed it to deal with searching rifles and associated ammunition solely.
Many of its shops are in rural areas the place hunters rely on Walmart to get their tools.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”