A man described as a disgruntled former employee of a Virginia television station shot and killed two of the station's journalists Wednesday morning, recording the act on video himself as the journalists were broadcasting live and then posting the video online.
The filmed shooting marked a horrific turn in the national intersection of video and violence. What appeared to be the gunman's own 56-second video, briefly posted online, showed him deliberately waiting until the journalists were on air before raising a handgun and firing at point-blank range. He appeared to take particular aim at the reporter, Alison Parker.
The video was posted on social media accounts, since suspended, identified as belonging to Bryce Williams. Both the police and the station, WDBJ, identified the gunman as Bryce Williams, who had been a reporter at the station, and whose real name is Vester Lee Flanagan.
The Virginia State Police said Williams had shot himself after a chase. Williams' Twitter account, which has been shut down, said, "I filmed the shooting see Facebook," and mentioned grievances against the two journalists. WDBJ confirmed that Parker (24) and Adam Ward, a 27-year-old cameraman, had been killed. The Twitter account of Williams, who is black, referred to a complaint he had filed against the station with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, claiming to have been subjected to racist comments in the workplace.
Jeffrey A Marks, president and general manager of the station, confirmed that the complaint had been filed but said it was dismissed as baseless. Of the racist comments, “none of them could be corroborated by anyone,” he said. “We think they were fabricated.”
He described Williams as someone prone to angry outbursts without much provocation. “Eventually, after many incidents of his anger coming to the fore, we dismissed him,” he said. “He did not take that well, and we had to call the police to escort him from the building.”
Discussing Parker and Ward on the air, Marks said, “I cannot tell you how much they were loved.”
Both victims were romantically involved with other members of the station’s staff, he said. “We have other members of the team here today, holding back tears, frankly,” he said.
Live interview Parker and Ward were covering a story for WDBJ at Bridgewater Plaza, a shopping and recreational sports plaza on the shore of Smith Mountain Lake, in the Blue Ridge Mountains. They were interviewing a local chamber of commerce official, Vicki Gardner, at 6:46am when the shooting began.
The station’s own disturbing video of the shooting shows Parker and Gardner talking. As shots ring out, Parker screams and jumps backward, and amid jumbled images, the camera falls to the floor. Eight shots can be heard before the camera cuts back to the stunned anchor at the station, Kimberly McBroom.
According to The Roanoke Times, Gardner, executive director of the Smith Mountain Lake Regional Chamber of Commerce, was shot in the back and was in surgery. Law enforcement officials confirmed that three people were shot, but did not name them.
“We heard screaming, and then we heard nothing, and the camera fell,” Marks said. “We are choosing not to run the video of that right now because, frankly, we don’t need to see it again, and our staff doesn’t need to see it again.”
He said, “How can this individual have robbed these families, the families of Alison and Adam, of their lives and their happiness and their love, for whatever reason?”
According to his LinkedIn page, Williams was a multimedia journalist at WDBJ but left the station in February 2013 after less than a year. He previously worked at television stations across the South, including in Greenville, North Carolina; Savannah, Georgia; and Tallahassee, Florida. His online profile said he had earned a bachelor’s degree from San Francisco State University.
Chris Hurst, a WDBJ anchor, said on Twitter that he and Parker had been dating and wanted to get married. “She was the most radiant woman I ever met,” Hurst wrote. “And for some reason she loved me back. She loved her family, her parents and her brother.”
Hurst said that Ward, who was engaged, and Parker had worked together regularly. According to a biography of Parker on the WDBJ website, she grew up near Martinsville, Virginia, and had worked as an intern at the television station. A 2012 graduate of James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, she was a news editor at the college paper and later worked at WCTI NewsChannel 12 in its Jacksonville, North Carolina, bureau.
Ward graduated from Salem High School and Virginia Tech. Ward’s Facebook page is full of ebullient pictures of himself and his fiance, Melissa Ott, on vacation in Las Vegas and, most recently this summer, Atlantic City.
"This is a horrific day for our family and the community we serve," the station's chief meteorologist, Brent Watts, said on Twitter. – New York Times