Updated Wednesday at 5:40 a.m.
CHESAPEAKE, Va. — A shooter opened fire in a Walmart in Virginia late Tuesday, leaving six people dead, police said, in the second high-profile mass killing in a handful of days. The assailant is also dead.
The store in Chesapeake is now safe and will likely be closed for several days during the investigation, Officer Leo Kosinski said in the early hours of Wednesday.
The shooting came three days after a person opened fire at a gay nightclub in Colorado, killing five people and wounding 17. Earlier in the year, the country was shaken by the deaths of 21 when a gunman stormed an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
Tuesday’s shooting also brought back memories of another at a Walmart in 2019, when a gunman police say was targeting Mexicans opened fire at a store in El Paso and killed 22 people.
Earlier, Kosinski said he couldn’t say how the gunman died but that he didn’t believe police fired shots.
The shooting had apparently stopped when police arrived at the store in Chesapeake, which is Virginia’s second-largest city and lies next to the seaside communities of Norfolk and Virginia Beach.
Mike Kafka, a spokesman for Sentara Healthcare, said in a text message that five patients from the Walmart were being treated at Norfolk General Hospital. Their conditions weren’t immediately available.
Walmart tweeted early Wednesday that it was “shocked at this tragic event.”
U.S. Sen. Mark Warner said in a tweet that he was “sickened by reports of yet another mass shooting, this time at a Walmart in Chesapeake.”
State Sen. Louise Lucas echoed Warner’s sentiment, tweeting that she was “absolutely heartbroken that America’s latest mass shooting took place in a Walmart in my district.”
Updated Wednesday at 12:40 a.m.
Chesapeake Police spokesperson Leo Kosinski said there were “multiple fatalities and multiple injured persons.” https://t.co/gTBy3FS2bN
— WHRO Public Media (@WHRO) November 23, 2022
Updated Wednesday at 12:02 a.m.
CHESAPEAKE, Va. — Multiple people are dead and others are wounded after a shooting at a Virginia Walmart on Tuesday night, police said.
Officers responded to a report of a shooting at the Walmart on Sam’s Circle around 10:15 p.m. and as soon as they arrived they found evidence of a shooting, Chesapeake police spokesman Leo Kosinski said in a briefing.
Over 35 to 40 minutes, officers found multiple dead people and injured people in the store and put rescue and tactical teams together to go inside and provide life-saving measures, he said.
Police believe there was one shooter, who is dead, he said. They believe that the shooting had stopped when police arrived, Kosinski said. He did not have a number of dead, but said it was “less than 10, right now.”
The Virginia shooting comes three days after a gunman opened fire at a gay nightclub in Colorado, killing five people and wounding 17. That shooter was arrested after patrons at the club tackled him and beat him. The shootings come in a year when the country was shaken by the deaths of 21 in a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
Tuesday’s shooting also brought back memories of another shooting at a Walmart in 2019, when a gunman police say was targeting Mexicans opened fire at a store in El Paso and killed 22 people. Walmart didn’t have a security guard on duty that day.
Chesapeake police tweeted that a family reunification site has been set up at the Chesapeake Conference Center. This site is only for immediate family members or the emergency contact of those who may have been in the building, the tweet said.
Chesapeake is about 7 miles (11 kilometers) south of Norfolk.
Updated Tuesday at 11:55 p.m.
CHESAPEAKE, Va. — Virginia police said multiple people are dead and others are wounded after a shooting at a Virginia Walmart on Tuesday night.
Chesapeake police spokesman MPO Leo Kosinski said in a briefing that officers responded to a report of a shooting at the Walmart on Sam’s Circle around 10:15 p.m. and as soon as they arrived they found evidence of a shooting.
Police believe there was one shooter, who is dead, Kosinski said he did not have a number of dead, but said it was “less than 10, right now.”
This is a developing story, which will be updated as we learn new information.