A Walmart manager opened fire in the break room, killing 6 | National

CHESAPEAKE, Va. (AP) — A Walmart manager opened fire on co-workers in a store break room in Virginia, killing six people in the nation’s second high-profile mass shooting in four days, police and a witness said Wednesday.

The gunman, who apparently shot himself, was dead when police found him, Chesapeake Police Chief Mark G. Salesky said. There were no clear motives for the shooting, due to which four people ended up in the hospital.

The store was busy just before the attack Tuesday night as people stocked up ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday, a shopper said local TV channel.

Employee Brianna Tyler said workers gathered in the break room as usual before their shifts.

“I looked up and my manager just opened the door and he just opened fire,” she told ABC’s “Good Morning America,” adding that “several people” fell to the floor.

“He didn’t say a word, he didn’t say anything at all,” she said.

Saleski confirmed that the person who fired the gun was a Walmart employee, but did not release his name because his family had not been notified. The police chief could not confirm whether all the victims were employees.

Employee Jessie Wilczewski told Norfolk TV station WAVY that she hid under a table and the gunman looked at her with a gun pointed at her, told her to go home and she left.

“It didn’t even seem real until you felt it … ‘pow-pow-pow,’ you can feel it,” Wilczewski said. I could feel it.”

Gov. Glenn Youngkin tweeted that he was in contact with law enforcement officials in Chesapeake, Virginia’s second-largest city, which is adjacent to the seaside communities of Norfolk and Virginia Beach.

“Our hearts go out to the Chesapeake community this morning,” Youngkin wrote. “Heinous acts of violence have no place in our communities.”

It was the second mass shooting in Virginia in just over a week. Three University of Virginia football players were fatally shot on a charter bus as they returned to campus from a Nov. 13 field trip. Two other students were injured.

“I am devastated by the senseless act of violence that occurred late last night in our city,” Mayor Rick W. West said in a statement posted on the city’s Twitter account Wednesday. “Chesapeake is a close-knit community and we are all shocked by this news.”

Database maintained by The Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University tracks every mass murder in America, going back to 2006, that year’s shows were particularly brutal.

The U.S. currently has 40 mass murders in 2022, compared to 45 for all of 2019. The database identifies a mass killing of at least four people, excluding the killer.

The Walmart attack came three days after the man opened fire at a gay nightclub in Colorado, killing five people and injuring 17. Last spring, the country was rocked 21 people were killed when a gunman stormed an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.

Tuesday night’s shooting also brought to mind another shooting at Walmart in 2019, when armed manWorld Health Organizationtargeting Mexicans opened fire at a convenience store in El Paso, Texas, killing 22 people.

The 911 call about the shooting came in just after 10 p.m. Saleski did not know how many customers were inside, whether the intruder was working or whether a security guard was present.

Joetta Jeffrey said CNN that she received text messages from her mother, who was inside the store when the shots rang out. Her mother, Betsy Umphlett, was not injured.

“I’m crying, I’m shaking,” Jeffrey said. “I was just talking to her about buying turkeys for Thanksgiving and then I got this message.”

One man was seen crying at the hospital after learning his brother had died, while others screamed as they left a conference center set up as a family reunification centre. The Virginian-Pilot reports.

Camilla Buggs, a former Walmart employee, told the newspaper that she went to the convention center looking for information about her former co-workers.

“You always say you don’t think this would happen in your town, your neighborhood, your store — your favorite store, and that’s what shocks me,” Bugs said.

Walmart tweeted early Wednesday that it was “shocked by this tragic event.”

After the El Paso shooting in September 2019, Walmart decided to stop selling certain types of ammunition and asked customers to no longer carry firearms in its stores.

It stopped selling handgun ammunition as well as short-barreled rifle ammunition, such as the .223 and 5.56 calibers used in military-style weapons. Walmart has also stopped selling handguns in Alaska.

In the mid-1990s, the company stopped selling handguns in all states except Alaska. The last step marked her complete exit from this business and allowed her to focus only on hunting rifles and ammunition for them.

Many of its stores are in rural areas where hunters depend on Walmart to get their gear.