Walmart employee shoots co-workers in break room; 6 dead | National

CHESAPEAKE, Va. (AP) — A Walmart manager opened fire on co-workers gathered in the break room of the Virginia store, a witness said Wednesday. Six people were killed in the country’s second high-profile mass killing in days.

The gunman also killed himself, Chesapeake Police Chief Mark G. Salesky said. There was no clear motive for the shooting, which also left four people in the hospital.

The store was busy just before the shooting Tuesday night, with people stocking up ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday, a shopper said local TV channel.

Employee Briana Tyler told ABC’s “Good Morning America” ​​that workers gathered in the store’s break room as part of a normal pre-shift routine.

“I looked up and my supervisor just opened the door and he just opened fire,” she said, adding that “several people” fell to the floor.

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

The attacker’s house was searched. Saleski confirmed he is a Walmart employee but did not release his name because his family had not been notified.

“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 showings were particularly bad. The U.S. currently has 40 mass murders this year, second only to the 45 that occurred in all of 2019. The database defines mass murder as the 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. Earlier this year, the country was rocked 21 people were killed when a gunman stormed an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.

Tuesday’s shooting also brought to mind another shooting at Walmart in 2019, when armed man the police say was aimed at Mexicans opened fire at a convenience store in El Paso, Texas, killing 22 people.

The shooting appeared to have stopped when police arrived at the Chesapeake store, Officer Leo Kasinski said. The city is the second largest in Virginia and is close to the seaside communities of Norfolk and Virginia Beach.

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,” said Buggs, 58, of Chesapeake.

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

U.S. Sen. Mark Warner tweeted that he was “saddened by reports of yet another mass shooting, this time at a Walmart in Chesapeake.”

State Sen. Louise Lucas echoed Warner’s sentiments, tweeting that she was “absolutely devastated that the latest mass shooting in America happened at a Walmart in my neighborhood.”

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