A Walmart manager pulled out a handgun before a routine employee meeting and began firing wildly around the break room of a Virginia store, killing six people in the nation’s second high-profile mass shooting in four days, police and witnesses said on Wednesday.
The gunman was dead when officers arrived late on Tuesday at the store in Chesapeake, Virginia’s second-largest city.
Authorities said he apparently shot himself.
Photo: AFP
Police were trying to determine a motive. One employee described watching “bodies drop” as the assailant fired haphazardly, without saying a word.
“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,” said Briana Tyler, a Walmart employee.
Six people were wounded in the shooting, which happened just after 10pm, as shoppers were stocking up ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday.
Photo: REUTERS
Police said they believe about 50 people were in the store at the time.
The alleged gunman was identified as Andre Bing, 31, an overnight team leader who had been a Walmart employee since 2010.
Police said he had one handgun and several magazines of ammunition.
Tyler said the overnight stocking team of 15 to 20 people had just gathered in the break room to go over the morning plan.
She said the meeting was about to start, and one team leader said: “All right guys, we have a light night ahead of us.”
Then Bing turned around and opened fire on the staff.
At first, Tyler doubted the shooting was real, thinking that it was an active shooter drill.
“It was all happening so fast,” she said. “It is by the grace of God that a bullet missed me. I saw the smoke leaving the gun, and I literally watched bodies drop. It was crazy.”
Police said three of the dead, including Bing, were found in the break room, while one of the slain victims was found near the front of the store.
Three others were taken to hospitals where they died, police said.
Tyler, who started working at Walmart two months ago and had worked with Bing just a night earlier, said she never had a negative encounter with him, but others told her he was “the manager to look out for.”
She said Bing had a history of writing people up for no reason.
“He just liked to pick, honestly. I think he just looked for little things ... because he had the authority. That’s just the type of person that he was. That’s what a lot of people said about him,” she said.
Employee Jessie Wilczewski told Norfolk television station WAVY that she hid under the table, and Bing looked and pointed his gun at her.
He told her to go home, and she left.
Police said the dead included a 16-year-old boy whose name was being withheld because of his age. The other victims were identified as Brian Pendleton, 38; Kellie Pyle, 52; Lorenzo Gamble, 43; and Randy Blevins, 70, who were all from Chesapeake; and Tyneka Johnson, 22, of nearby Portsmouth.
It was not immediately clear whether they were workers or shoppers.
Pyle was a “lovely, generous and kind person,” Gwendolyn Bowe Baker Spencer said, adding that her son and Pyle had plans to marry next year.
Pyle had adult children in Kentucky who will be traveling to Virginia, Spencer said.
“We love her,” Spencer said. “She was an awesome, kind individual.”
CHAGOS ISLANDS: Recently elected Mauritian Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam told lawmakers that the contents of negotiations are ‘unknown’ to the government Mauritius’ new prime minister ordered an independent review of a deal with the UK involving a strategically important US-UK military base in the Indian Ocean, placing the agreement under fresh scrutiny. Under a pact signed last month, the UK ceded sovereignty of the Chagos archipelago to Mauritius, while retaining control of Diego Garcia — the island where the base is situated. The deal was signed by then-Mauritian prime minister Pravind Jugnauth and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Oct. 3 — a month before elections in Mauritius in which Navin Ramgoolam became premier. “I have asked for an independent review of the
France on Friday showed off to the world the gleaming restored interior of Notre-Dame cathedral, a week before the 850-year-old medieval edifice reopens following painstaking restoration after the devastating 2019 fire. French President Emmanuel Macron conducted an inspection of the restoration, broadcast live on television, saying workers had done the “impossible” by healing a “national wound” after the fire on April 19, 2019. While every effort has been made to remain faithful to the original look of the cathedral, an international team of designers and architects have created a luminous space that has an immediate impact on the visitor. The floor shimmers and
THIRD IN A ROW? An expert said if the report of a probe into the defense official is true, people would naturally ask if it would erode morale in the military Chinese Minister of National Defense Dong Jun (董軍) has been placed under investigation for corruption, a report said yesterday, the latest official implicated in a crackdown on graft in the country’s military. Citing current and former US officials familiar with the situation, British newspaper the Financial Times said that the investigation into Dong was part of a broader probe into military corruption. Neither the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs nor the Chinese embassy in Washington replied to a request for confirmation yesterday. If confirmed, Dong would be the third Chinese defense minister in a row to fall under investigation for corruption. A former navy
‘VIOLATIONS OF DISCIPLINE’: Miao Hua has come up through the political department in the military and he was already fairly senior before Xi Jinping came to power in 2012 A member of China’s powerful Central Military Commission has been suspended and put under investigation, the Chinese Ministry of National Defense said on Thursday. Miao Hua (苗華) was director of the political work department on the commission, which oversees the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the world’s largest standing military. He was one of five members of the commission in addition to its leader, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Ministry spokesman Colonel Wu Qian (吳謙) said Miao is under investigation for “serious violations of discipline,” which usually alludes to corruption. It is the third recent major shakeup for China’s defense establishment. China in June
RSS