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

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A tragedy hit a Virginia news station, driven by what investigators say may have been a racially motivated attack by a disgruntled former employee.

News Station Shooting

WDBJ‑TV General Manager Jeffrey A. Marks confirmed that 24‑year‑old reporter Alison Parker and 27‑year‑old cameraman Adam Ward died shortly after 6:45 a.m. Wednesday, shot during a live report.

Parker was interviewing a woman at the Bridgewater Plaza in Moneta, Va when gunfire erupted. Officials identified the woman 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.” Facebook removed that account, and Twitter took his profile down as well.

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, recently fired from WDBJ, also sued his former employer, WTWC‑NBC 40 in Tallahassee, after what he described as a turbulent split.

Falnangan, citing racial discrimination, claimed his supervisor referred to him as a monkey and said “blacks were lazy.”