(MENAFN- Trend News Agency) A manager at a Walmart Inc store in Virginia opened fire on
fellow employees in a break room, killing six before turning the
gun on himself, eyewitnesses said on Wednesday after the country's
latest mass shooting, trend reports citing al
arabiya .
The gunman, identified as Andre Bing, 31, of Chesapeake,
Virginia, said nothing as he began firing on workers gathered late
on Tuesday ahead of their overnight shift, according to two
employees who were in the break room.
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“I just watched 3 of my coworkers/friends be killed in front of
me,” Donya Prioleau wrote in a Facebook post.
“Andre killed them in cold blood ... I cannot unsee what
happened in that break room.”
At least four others were wounded in the attack, which took
place while about 50 people were inside the store.
Chesapeake police identified the dead as Brian Pendleton, 38,
Kellie Pyle, 52, Lorenzo Gamble, 43, and Randy Blevins, 70, all
from Chesapeake, and Tyneka Johnson, 38, of neighboring Portsmouth.
A 16-year-old boy from Chesapeake, whose name was withheld because
he was a minor, was also killed.
Authorities say they were still investigating what may have
motivated Bing, who came armed with a single handgun and multiple
magazines of ammunition. The city said its SWAT team had executed a
search warrant at his house.
“Detectives are working to learn more about the shooter's
background and what may have motivated the shooting,” the city said
in a statement.
Another Walmart employee, Briana Tyler, told ABC's“Good Morning
America”:“I looked up and my manager just opened the door and he
just opened fire.”
Several co-workers of Bing told CNN he had exhibited strange and
sometimes threatening behavior in the past. He also made paranoid
comments, expressing concerns the government was monitoring him,
according to CNN's interviews.
'Yet another…'
Coming on the heels of the killing of five people at a Colorado
Springs LGBTQ nightclub on Saturday, the latest massacre prompted a
renewed round of condemnations by public officials and calls by
activists for tighter gun control.
US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called the shooting“yet
another horrific and senseless act of violence,” noting a shooting
earlier this month that killed three University of Virginia
students.
“There are now even more tables across the country that will
have empty seats this Thanksgiving,” Biden said in a statement.
Bing worked for the company since 2010, most recently as an
overnight team leader at the cavernous Walmart Supercenter just off
Battlefield Boulevard in Chesapeake, a city of about 250,000
residents just south of Norfolk.
Jessie Wilczewski told WAVY-TV she hid under a table and the
shooter pointed the gun at her and told her to go home.
“It didn't even look real until you could feel the pow-pow-pow.
You can feel it,” the store employee said.“I couldn't hear it at
first because I guess it was so loud. I could feel it.”
Tuesday's bloodshed marked the latest spasm of gun violence in
the United States, where an average of two mass shootings - defined
as an incident killing or injuring four or more people - occur
every day, according to GunViolenceArchive.org.
Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, who was already facing
stepped-up calls for policies to address gun violence after the
University of Virginia killings, ordered flags at local, state and
federal buildings to be flown at half-staff.
Kimberly Shupe told WAVY-TV that her son Jalon Jones, 24, was
stable after being shot in his ear and back. He told her that
during the nightly meeting his manager was acting“strange” and
“then started shooting,” she told the news station.
Dr. Jessica Burgess, a surgeon who treated victims at a Norfolk
hospital, said she had contacted a colleague in Colorado Springs
just two days prior to offer support.
“So it's very disheartening that I'm now in the same position
with my colleagues from across the country checking in on me and my
team,” Burgess said.“Sometimes there is only so much we can do
when the injuries have already been done.”
This was not the first mass shooting at a Walmart, which has
thousands of stores across the country.
In August 2019, 23 people were killed at a Walmart in El Paso,
Texas, near the US-Mexico border in an act described as domestic
terrorism by law enforcement. It was also the deadliest attack on
the Hispanic community in the United States in modern times.
Walmart enacted new restrictions on gun and ammunition sales
following that 2019 shooting, as it had during prior shootings at
its stores.
“The devastating news of last night's shooting at our
Chesapeake, VA store at the hands of one of our associates has hit
our Walmart family hard,” Walmart Chief Executive Doug McMillon
wrote in a LinkedIn post on Wednesday.