Follow our latest updates of the Walmart shooting in Virginia.
A gunman fatally shot six people and wounded several others inside a Walmart in Chesapeake, Va., on Tuesday night, the authorities said.
The gunman was found dead at the store, apparently of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Chief Mark Solesky of the Chesapeake Police Department said during a news conference on Wednesday. Walmart said the gunman was an overnight team manager at the store.
Here’s what we know — and don’t know — about the attack.
The shooting happened during a busy holiday week.
Officers from the Chesapeake Police Department responded to a report of a shooting inside the Walmart at about 10:12 p.m. on Tuesday, two days before Thanksgiving, said Leo Kosinski, a department spokesman.
Earlier in the evening, the store seemed particularly busy, Terri Brown, who left the store about 8:30 p.m., told a local television station. Because of the Thanksgiving holiday crowd, she had to park far from the store, she said, and saw long lines at checkout counters.
The authorities later estimated that about 50 people were in the store when the shooting began. One customer, Jeromy Basham, said he was looking for Thanksgiving tablecloths and disposable cutlery for an office potluck when heard what sounded liked several loud claps.
Then, he said, he heard people yelling, “It’s a gun, get out.”
The gunman was an employee.
Walmart identified the gunman in a statement on Wednesday as Andre Bing, 31, an overnight team lead who had worked at the store since 2010. The police, who confirmed his identity, said he used a pistol to carry out the shooting just after 10 p.m., about an hour before the store was scheduled to close for customers.
Some of his co-workers described him as an off-putting manager who feared government surveillance.
A store worker, Donya Prioleau, told The New York Times that she was in the break room when the shooting occurred and said the victims were fellow employees.
“I just watched three of my friends killed in front of me,” she said in a text message.
Local hospitals said they had treated several people who were injured in the shooting, including two who remained in critical condition. Three of the six slain victims died at hospitals, according to officials.
A motive for the shooting was unclear.
The Chesapeake police said that investigators were “actively working to learn more about the suspect’s background and what may have motivated” the gunman.
Shaundrayia Reese, 27, who worked on the store’s overnight crew from roughly 2015 to 2018, said Mr. Bing could be temperamental and sometimes showed a “nasty attitude,” leading to complaints from his subordinates.
The shooting added to a grim toll in November.
The attack in Virginia happened three days after a gunman killed five people in an L.G.B.T.Q. club in Colorado Springs.
A week earlier in Charlottesville, Va., a former football player shot and killed three members of the University of Virginia football team in a garage.