Employee kills six people in Walmart store shooting in Virginia

Chesapeake police said several people were killed and multiple injured in a shooting at a Walmart store in the city

Six people were killed and others were injured in a shooting in the US at a Walmart in Chesapeake, Virginia, police have said.

Police have said that the gunman was a manager of the store who open fired on fellow employees while they were in the break room.

The gunman, who has been identified as Andre Bing by Walmart, apparently shot himself and was dead when police found him, Chesapeake Police Chief Mark G Solesky said.

Bing was a member of the store's overnight team. There was no clear motive for the shooting, which also put four people in the hospital.

Officers responded to a report of a shooting at the Walmart on Sam’s Circle at around 10.15pm local time on Tuesday night and as soon as they arrived they found evidence of a shooting, Chesapeake Officer Leo Kosinski said. 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 to tend to victims.

A Walmart spokesperson said: "While details of the tragic incident in our Chesapeake, Virginia store are still emerging, authorities have confirmed multiple fatalities.

"We are focused on doing everything we can to support our associates and their families at this time.

"The alleged shooter has been identified as Andre Bing. We can confirm that he was a Walmart associate. Andre’s position with the company was overnight team lead and he’s been employed with us since 2010. We are thankful for the local first responders and will continue to work with local law enforcement as they continue their investigation."

Investigators think the suspect began shooting at other staff members in a break room, a law enforcement source told CNN.

The source also told CNN it is believed the suspect at some point turned the gun on themselves.

“We’re just a couple hours past the initial incident, so everything is very fluid, very new right now,” Mr Kosinski said.

He said "many" police officers and members of the fire department responded to the incident by using a "tactical entrance and movement in the building".

Mike Kafka, a spokesman for Sentara Healthcare, said that five patients from the Walmart are being treated at Norfolk General Hospital. Their conditions were not immediately known.

Joetta Jeffery told CNN her mother, Betsy Umphlett, sent her texts from inside the store during the shooting, telling her that someone had opened fire. “I’m crying, I’m shaking,” Ms Jeffery told CNN, adding that her mother is not injured and they have since been reunited.

“I had just talked to her about buying turkeys for Thanksgiving, then this text came in.”

Democratic Virginia state Senator L. Louise Lucas said that she was "absolutely heartbroken" over the shooting.

Chesapeake city officials have asked members of the public to stay away from the store during the investigation.

The Virginia shooting comes just three days after a person opened fire at a LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado, killing five people and injuring 17 others.

Tuesday’s shooting also brought back memories of another shooting at a Walmart in 2019, when a gunman police say was targeting Mexican people opened fire at a store in El Paso and killed 22 people.

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