Ben Finley and Matthew Barakat, Associated Press Published Friday, November 25, 2022 1:30 PM EST Last Updated Friday, November 25, 2022 3:33 PM EST
CHESAPEAKE, Va. (AP) – The Walmart manager who fatally shot six co-workers at a Virginia store bought the gun just hours before the killings and left a note on his phone accusing co-workers of taunting him, authorities said Friday.
“I’m sorry everyone, but I didn’t plan this, I promise it just fell into place, like I was being led by Satan,” Andre Bing wrote in a note left on his phone, the Chesapeake Police Department said Friday.
Police said the 9mm handgun used in Tuesday night’s shooting was legally purchased that morning and that Bing has no criminal record. They released a copy of the memo found on his phone, which appeared to redact the names of specific people he mentioned.
It’s not clear when the note was written, but in it Bing claims he was harassed and says he was pushed to the brink by the feeling his phone had been hacked.
He wrote, “My only wish would be to start over and have my parents pay more attention to my social deficits.” Bing died at the scene of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Co-workers of Bing’s who survived the shooting said he was difficult and known for his hostility toward employees. One survivor said Bing appeared to target people and shot at some victims after they had already been hit.
Jessica Wilczewski said workers were gathered in the store’s break room to begin their night shift late Tuesday when Bing, a team leader, walked in and opened fire. While another witness described Bing as shooting wildly, Wilczewski said she observed him targeting certain people.
“The way he was acting — he was going hunting,” Wilczewski told The Associated Press on Thursday. “The way he looked at people’s faces and the way he did what he did, he picked people up.”
She said she watched him shoot at people who were already on the ground.
“What I do know is that he made sure that whoever he wanted dead was dead,” she said. “He came back and shot bodies that were already dead. Make sure.”
Wilczewski said she had only worked at the store for five days and didn’t know who Bing was getting along with or had problems with. She said that being a new employee may be why she was spared.
She said that after she started shooting, a colleague who was sitting next to her pulled her under the table to hide. She said at one point Bing told her to get out from under the table. But when he saw who she was, he said to her, “Jesse, go home.” She said she slowly got up and then ran out of the store.
Former colleagues and residents of Chesapeake, a city of about 250,000 near the Virginia coast, are struggling to make sense of the rampage.
Bing’s obituary at times stretches to 11 paragraphs, with references to unconventional cancer treatments and songwriting. He says people are unfairly comparing him to serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer and wrote: “I would never kill anyone who walked into my home.”
And he longs for a woman, but says he doesn’t deserve her.
Some who worked with Bing, 31, said he had a reputation as an aggressive, if not hostile, leader who once admitted to having “anger issues.” But he could also make people laugh and seemed to cope with the typical job stress that many people endure.
“I don’t think he had a lot of people to rely on in his personal life,” said Nathan Sinclair, who worked at Walmart for nearly a year before leaving earlier this month.
During chats between coworkers, “We’d 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 said he and Bing don’t get along. Bing was known for being “verbally hostile” to employees and was not well liked. But Sinclair also said there were times when Bing was mocked and not necessarily treated fairly.
Police have identified the victims as Brian Pendleton, 38; Kelly Pyle, 52; Lorenzo Gamble, 43; Randy Blevins, 70, and Fernando Chavez-Barron, 16, who were from Chesapeake; and Tyneka Johnson, 22, from nearby Portsmouth. Chavez-Barron’s name was announced Friday; it had been previously held due to its age.
A Walmart spokesperson confirmed in an email that all of the victims worked for the company.
Two other people who were shot remain hospitalized, police said Friday. One is still in critical condition and the other is improving.
Another Walmart employee, Briana Tyler, said Bing appeared to be triggered randomly.
“He was just shooting all over the room. It didn’t matter who he hit,” Tyler told the AP on Wednesday.
Six people were also injured in the shooting, which happened just after 10 p.m. as shoppers stocked up ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday. Police said they believe about 50 people were in the store at the time.
Bing was identified as an overnight crew leader who had been a Walmart employee since 2010. Police said he had one handgun and several magazines of ammunition.
Tyler said the overnight loading team of 15 to 20 people had just gathered in the break room to go over the morning’s plan. Another team leader had started talking when Bing entered the room and opened fire, Tyler and Wiczewski said.
Tyler, who started working at Walmart two months ago and had worked with Bing just one night earlier, said she’s never had a negative encounter with him, but others have told her he’s “the manager to have cares”. She said Bing has a history of writing people for no reason.
The attack is the second major shooting in Virginia this month. Three University of Virginia football players were fatally shot on a bus on Nov. 13 while returning from a field trip. Two other students were injured.
The Walmart shooting also comes days after a man opened fire at a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colo., killing five and wounding 17. Tuesday night’s shooting brought back memories of another Walmart attack in 2019, when a gunman killed 23 inside a store in El Paso, Texas.
Also Friday, a man suffered injuries that are not considered life-threatening after he was shot at a Walmart in Lumberton, North Carolina, police said. Investigators are describing it as an isolated altercation between two people who knew each other.
Wilczewski, who survived Tuesday’s shooting in Virginia, said she tried but couldn’t bring herself to visit a memorial in the store’s parking lot Wednesday.
“I wrote a letter and I wanted to put it out there,” she said. “I wrote to those I watched die. And I said I was sorry I wasn’t louder. I’m sorry she didn’t feel my touch. But you were not alone.”
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Barakat reported from Falls Church, Virginia. Associated Press writers Denise Lavoie in Chesapeake and news researchers Rhonda Schaffner and Randy Hershaft in New York contributed to this report.
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