Chesapeake, Virginia — The Walmart supervisor who shot and killed six co-workers in Virginia appeared to focus on folks and fired at some victims after they had been already hit and seemed to be lifeless, stated a witness who was current when the taking pictures began. Jessica Wilczewski stated employees had been gathered in a retailer break room to start their in a single day shift late Tuesday when group chief Andre Bing entered and opened hearth with a handgun. While one other witness has described Bing as taking pictures wildly, Wilczewski stated she noticed him goal sure folks.
“The way he was acting — he was going hunting,” Wilczewski advised The Associated Press on Thursday. “The way he was looking at people’s faces and the way he did what he did, he was picking people out.”
She stated she noticed him shoot at individuals who had been already on the bottom.
“What I do know is that he made sure who he wanted dead, was dead,” she stated. “He went back and shot dead bodies that were already dead. To make sure.”
Wilczewski stated she had solely labored on the retailer for 5 days and did not know with whom Bing bought alongside or had issues. She stated being a brand new worker might have been the rationale she was spared.
She stated that after the taking pictures began, a co-worker sitting subsequent to her pulled her underneath the desk to cover. She stated that at one level, Bing advised her to get out from underneath the desk. But when he noticed who she was, he advised her, “Jessie, go home.” She stated she slowly bought up after which ran out of the shop.
Police are attempting to find out a motive, whereas former coworkers are struggling to make sense of the rampage in Chesapeake, a metropolis of about 250,000 folks close to Virginia’s coast.
CBS News correspondent Jeff Pegues reported Thursday that the gunman’s final couple weeks on the job might present some perception as to why he lashed out, as a number of reviews have stated his cellphone incorporates notes by which he complained about his job, and his coworkers.
Some of those that labored with Bing, 31, stated he had a repute for being an aggressive, if not hostile, supervisor, who as soon as admitted to having “anger issues.” But he additionally may make folks chuckle and appeared to be coping with the standard stresses at work that many individuals endure.
“I don’t think he had many people to fall back on in his personal life,” stated Nathan Sinclair, who labored on the Walmart for practically a yr earlier than leaving earlier this month.
Alex Brandon/AP
During chats amongst coworkers, “We would be like ‘work is consuming my life.’ And (Bing) would be like, ‘Yeah, I don’t have a social life anyway,'” Sinclair recalled Thursday.
Sinclair stated he and Bing didn’t get alongside. Bing was identified for being “verbally hostile” to staff and wasn’t significantly well-liked, Sinclair stated. But there have been instances when Bing was made enjoyable of and never essentially handled pretty.
“There’s no telling what he could have been thinking. … You never know if somebody really doesn’t have any kind of support group,” Sinclair stated.
On stability, Bing appeared fairly regular to Janice Strausburg, who knew him from working at Walmart for 13 years earlier than leaving in June.
Bing might be “grumpy” however is also “placid,” she stated. He made folks chuckle and advised Strausburg he appreciated dance. When she invited him to church, he declined however talked about that his mom had been a preacher.
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Strausburg thought Bing’s grumpiness was because of the stresses that include any job. He additionally as soon as advised her that he had “had anger issues” and complained he was going to “get the managers in trouble.”
She by no means anticipated this.
“I think he had mental issues,” Strausburg stated Thursday. “What else could it be?”
Tuesday evening’s violence in Chesapeake was the nation’s second high-profile mass taking pictures in 4 days. Bing was lifeless when officers reached the shop within the state’s second-largest metropolis. Authorities stated he apparently shot himself.
Police have recognized the victims as: Fernando Chavez-Barron, 16; Brian Pendleton, 38; Kellie Pyle, 52; Lorenzo Gamble, 43; and Randy Blevins, 70, who had been all from Chesapeake; and Tyneka Johnson, 22, of close by Portsmouth. Police initially withheld Chavez-Barron’s identify due to his age and launched it Friday morning.
Chesapeake Police Department/AP
A Walmart spokesperson confirmed in an e mail that the entire victims labored for the corporate.
A vigil to honor the victims shall be held at 6 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 28, in accordance with the City of Chesapeake’s Twitter account.
Krystal Kawabata, a spokesperson for the FBI’s discipline workplace in Norfolk, Virginia, confirmed the company is aiding police with the investigation however directed all inquiries to the Chesapeake Police Department, the lead investigative company.
Another Walmart worker, Briana Tyler, has stated Bing appeared to fireplace at random.
“He was just shooting all throughout the room. It didn’t matter who he hit,” Tyler advised the AP Wednesday.
Six folks additionally had been wounded within the taking pictures, which occurred simply after 10 p.m. as buyers had been stocking up forward of the Thanksgiving vacation. Police stated they consider about 50 folks had been within the retailer on the time.
Bing was recognized as an in a single day group chief who had been a Walmart worker since 2010. Police stated he had one handgun and a number of other magazines of ammunition.
Tyler stated the in a single day stocking group of 15 to twenty folks had simply gathered within the break room to go over the morning plan. Another group chief had begun talking when Bing entered the room and opened hearth, Tyler and Wiczewski stated.
Tyler, who began working at Walmart two months in the past and had labored with Bing only a evening earlier, stated she by no means had a unfavorable encounter with him, however others advised her he was “the manager to look out for.” She stated Bing had a historical past of writing up folks for no purpose.
The assault was the second main taking pictures in Virginia this month. Three University of Virginia soccer gamers had been fatally shot on a bus Nov. 13 as they returned from a discipline journey. Two different college students had been wounded.
The Walmart taking pictures additionally comes days after an individual opened hearth at a homosexual nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado — killing 5 and wounding 17. Tuesday evening’s taking pictures introduced again reminiscences of one other assault at a Walmart in 2019, when a gunman killed 23 at a retailer in El Paso, Texas.
Mike Caudill/The Washington Post/Getty
Wilczewski stated she tried however couldn’t convey herself to go to a memorial within the retailer’s car parking zone Wednesday.
“I wrote a letter and I wanted to put it out there,” she stated. “I wrote to the ones I watched die. And I said that I’m sorry I wasn’t louder. I’m sorry you couldn’t feel my touch. But you weren’t alone.”
According to knowledge compiled by the Gun Violence Archive, there have been greater than 600 mass shootings within the United States this yr, together with at the very least 36 incidents with 4 or extra fatalities.
A criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston, Alan Fox, who has compiled knowledge on shootings within the U.S. for many years, reported the identical determine, which he stated had made 2022 a document yr for such assaults even previous to the incident on the Walmart in Chesapeake.
“I’ve been studying mass killings for over 40 years and I am quite confident that there has never been a year where we’ve had so many,” stated Fox in an article printed Monday by Northeastern, within the wake of the Colorado taking pictures.