CNN –
After an ordinary workday turned deadly at a Walmart in Chesapeake, Virginia, survivors and investigators are spending the Thanksgiving holiday questioning the motive of an employee who opened fire on co-workers, killing six before fatally shooting the gun turned on itself.
Employees were preparing for a night shift Tuesday when a manager opened fire with a pistol in the break room just after 10 pm, officials said.
Authorities identified the people killed as Randy Blevins, 70, Lorenzo Gamble, 43, Tyneka Johnson, 22, Brian Pendleton, 38, Kellie Pyle, 52, and a 16-year-old boy, who is not being named because he is a minor .
Two people injured in the shooting remained in critical condition at Thanksgiving Hospital, and one injured victim was released Wednesday, a Sentara Norfolk General Hospital spokeswoman said.
“I know this community, and I know it well. And I know that we will come together and lend a helping hand to the families of the victims,” Chesapeake Mayor Rick West said in a video message Wednesday.
The shooting, yet another example of how horrific gun violence upends American life in the most conventional settings, has left many grieving the loss of loved ones and survivors traumatized by what they witnessed. As the long journey of processing those emotions begins, questions remain about what could have led to the murders.
Donya Prioleau was in the employee break room when the shooter began shooting at co-workers, she said.
“We don’t know what did this to him,” Prioleau said. “None of us can understand why it happened.”
The gunman was identified as Andre Bing, who worked as a “team leader” for the night. The 31-year-old had worked for Walmart since 2010, the company said. Authorities have said that he had one semi-automatic pistol and several ammunition magazines.
Bing shot three of Prioleau’s friends “before I left. Half of us didn’t believe it was real until some of us saw all the blood on the floor,” she said.
Two murdered victims and the shooter were found in the break room, another victim was found at the front of the store, and three others died at the hospital, said Chesapeake city officials. Officials were still trying to determine the exact number of injuries, as some people took themselves to hospitals.
The mayor plans to hold a vigil Monday night in City Park, according to a tweet from the city.
“Today we are only focused on those injured by Tuesday’s tragic event, but the police investigation is continuing and we expect to have additional information available tomorrow,” officials said in a Thursday tweet.
A motive for the shooting remained unclear Thursday, Chesapeake Police Chief Mark Solesky said.
This week’s violence was at least the third mass shooting in Virginia this month, according to the Gun Violence Archive, and comes against a backdrop of grief that many Americans across the country are enduring this Thanksgiving as loved ones were lost or injured in shootings. .
Just 170 miles west of Chesapeake, a 22-year-old student at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville allegedly opened fire on fellow students November 13, killing three of them on a bus returning to campus from a field trip to Washington, DC.
Over the weekend, a 22-year-old shot and killed five people at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colo., and injured 19 others, authorities said. And six months ago Thursday, a gunman in Uvalde, Texas, killed 19 students and two teachers, a tragedy in which victims are still searching for answers.
“How do you celebrate when you’re devastated. How do you give thanks when you have nothing left to give. How can you fake it and smile when you wake up,” Brett Cross wrote Thursday about his cousin, Uziyah Garcia, who was killed was in Uvalde.
Overall, the US has suffered more than 600 mass shootings so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Both the nonprofit and CNN define mass shootings as those in which four or more people are shot, not including the attacker.
Speaking of the epidemic, Arizona’s former US Rep. Gabby Giffords, who was seriously injured in a 2011 mass shooting, tweeted a Thanksgiving Eve plea for reforms: “We cannot continue to be the nation of gun violence and mass shootings. We cannot live like this. We must act.”
In Chesapeake, the horror began less than an hour before the store was to close after a busy holiday day.
Jessie Wilczewski, who was recently hired, told CNN she was in the break room in a regularly scheduled meeting when she saw the shooter in the doorway pointing a gun.
At first she didn’t think what she saw was real, but then she felt her chest pound and her ears ring as a stream of gunshots erupted, she said. At first it “didn’t register as real,” she said, until the sound of the gunshots echoed through her chest.
Wilczewski hid under a table as the gunman walked down a nearby hallway. She could see some of her colleagues on the floor or lying in chairs – all silent and some probably dead, she said. She stayed because she didn’t want to let them.
“I could walk out the door … and I stayed. I stayed so they wouldn’t be alone in their final moments,” Wilczewski said in a message to the families of two victims.
When the shooter returned to the break room, Wilczewski said, he told her to get out from under the table and go home.
“I had to touch the door that was covered (in blood),” she said. “I just remember grabbing my bag and thinking, ‘If he’s going to shoot me in the back — well, he’s going to have to try really hard because I’m running,’ and I booked it. … and I didn’t stop until I got to my car and then I had a meltdown.”
Briana Tyler, also a newly hired employee, had just started her shift when the gunfire broke out.
“All of a sudden you just hear pa pa pa pa pa pa,” Tyler told CNN, adding that she saw bullets flying just inches from her face. “It wasn’t a break between them to where you could really try to process it.”
The shooter had a “blank star on his face” as he looked around the room and fired at people, Tyler said.
“There were people who just dropped to the floor,” she said. “Everybody was screaming, gasping, and yeah, he just left after that and just kept going through the store and just kept shooting.”
The shooter displayed some disturbing behavior in the past, other employees said.
Shaundrayia Reese, who worked with the shooter from 2015 to 2018, described him as a loner.
“He always said the government was watching him. He didn’t like social media and he kept black tape on his phone camera. Everyone always thought there was something wrong with him,” Reese said.
Joshua Johnson, a former maintenance worker at the store, said the shooter had made ominous threats if he ever lost his job.
“He said if he ever got fired from his job, he would get revenge and people would remember who he was,” Johnson said.
Hear Walmart employee who witnessed shooting describe manager’s reputation
Neither Johnson nor Reese reported concerns about Bing to management, they said.
In a statement, Walmart said it was working with local law enforcement in the investigation.
“We feel tragedies like this personally and deeply. But this one is especially painful because we’ve learned the gunman was a Walmart employee,” Walmart US President and CEO John Furner said in a statement. “The entire Walmart family is heartbroken. Our hearts and prayers are with those affected.”