Shooter of fatal on-air shooting claims he was discriminated against

Tragedy has struck a news station in Virginia in what might have been racially motivated by an upset former employee.

News Station Shooting

General manager of WDBJ-TV Jeffrey A. Marks confirmed 24-year-old reporter Alison Parker and 27-year-old cameraman Adam Ward were killed shortly after 6:45 a.m. on Wednesday during a live report.

Parker was interviewing a woman at the Bridgewater Plaza in Moneta, Va when gunfire erupted. The woman has been identified as Vicki Gardner, head of the Smith Mountain Lake Regional Chamber of Commerce. Gardner reportedly suffered a gunshot wound to the back and is in surgery.

Shooter

According to Franklin County Sheriff Department spokesperson Phillip Young, the suspected shooter has been identified as Vester Lee Flanagan II, 41, of Roanoke. Flanagan worked for WDBJ as Bryce Williams, his on-air name.

Flanagan shot self near mile marker 17 on I-66 Faquier County, around 11:25 a.m. Wednesday, says law enforcement. He died later at a hospital.

Source : Twitter

Williams claims in a series of tweets posted after the shooting that the cameraman got him fired after reporting him to Human Resources. He also accuses Parker of making racist comments. The gunman posted an eerie video on his Facebook page showing him stalking the victims up to the moment when he pulls the trigger. Due to sensitivity of this case, we will not post that picture or the video of the shooting.

In one tweet, Flanagan says “I filmed the shooting see Facebook.” That Facebook account as well as his Twitter have been taken down.

Flanagan spent several years in news going from station to station. According to his Linkedin profile, the San Francisco State University graduate began his career as a weekend news writer at KPIX in 1993. Throughout the years he worked as a reporter in Texas, Georgia, Florida and North Carolina before ending up in Virginia.

Vester, who was recently fired from WDBJ, also sued his former employer, WTWC NBC 40 in Tallahassee, Florida after a less than peaceful parting. Falnangan, citing racial discrimination, claimed his supervisor referred to him as a monkey and said “blacks were lazy.”