In the midst of the holiday shopping, a Walmart manager opened fire on fellow employees in the break room. The Virginia store manager killed six people in the country’s second high-profile mass shooting in four days.
The gunman apparently shot himself because he was dead when officers found him. There was no clear motive for the shooting. Currently, four of the Walmart employee victims are in the hospital.
PICTURED: Walmart manager, 31, who shot six co-workers dead in 'planned' break-room massacre – as Virginia cops find 'death list' of names next to his bodyhttps://t.co/j4VxnOGnEM pic.twitter.com/RbvLntV5DD
— Jack Posobiec ?? (@JackPosobiec) November 23, 2022
Walmart officials have identified the gunman as Andre Bing. They confirmed that Bing was a team leader and had been with Walmart since 2010.
Employee Briana Tyler explained that it was a busy time for the staff who was preparing for the holiday shopping. She said the overnight stocking team, which included about 15 or 20 people, had just gotten together in the break room. It was a team meeting put together to go over the morning plan. Tyler described the scene as the team sat down she looked up, and her manager turned around and opened fire on the staff.
“It is by the grace of God that a bullet missed me,” Tyler said. “I saw the smoke leaving the gun, and I literally watched bodies drop. It was crazy.”
The whole situation was surreal. “It was all happening so fast. I thought it was like a test type of thing. Like, if you do have an active shooter, this is how you respond.”
?#BREAKING: A Walmart manager has shot multiple employees ⁰
?#Chesapeake l #VA ⁰
Police are to responding to multiple fatalities and injuries inside a Walmart superstore in VA with officials saying the Manager at Walmart Started to open fire shooting Multiple employees inside pic.twitter.com/JgnCleOvz3— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) November 23, 2022
Tyler said the assailant did not aim at anyone specific.
“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.”
Chesapeake Police Chief Mark G. Solesky confirmed that the shooter was a Walmart employee. However, at the time the Police Chief did not give his name because his family had not been notified yet.
Walmart shooting witness recounts to @ABCNewsLive the terror as her manager opened fire.
"Reach out to the ones you love…because at the end of the day, you genuinely never know when you will look your child or your mother in their eyes again." https://t.co/Plc2noXTKH pic.twitter.com/5Az83MfWj6
— ABC News (@ABC) November 23, 2022
Another employee Jessie Wilczewski told local Norfolk television station WAVY that she hid under the table. She remembers the shooter looking at her with his gun pointed at her. He told her to go home, and she ran for her life.
“It didn’t even look real until you could feel the … ‘pow-pow-pow,’ you can feel it,” Wilczewski said. “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 contact with law enforcement officials in Chesapeake, Virginia. The states second-largest city, which lies next 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.”