Murder, Live: The Virginia shooting

Patricia Evangelista

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Murder, Live: The Virginia shooting

AFP

Vester Lee Flanagan, who used the on-air name Bryce Williams, left a tweet on his account before it was taken down. 'I filmed the shooting see Facebook.'

 

 

MANILA, Philippines – The man now known as Vester Lee Flanagan frames his shot from about 10 feet away. The image swings from floor to ceiling, then focuses on the 3 people standing on the balcony over Bridgewater Plaza: a young reporter holding a microphone, a middle-aged woman in a white suit coat, and a young man with a large camera propped on his shoulder.

The woman in the white coat, closest to the railing, is enthusiastic, gesturing with her hands as the female reporter nods in assent. The frame moves as Flanagan walks forward. His camera jerks, blurs, focuses again. None of the 3 notice Flanagan, not even when he stations himself behind the man with the camera.

The reporter asks a question. The frame turns in her direction.

A gun appears to the right of the frame. 

Broadcast live

At a little past 6:45 in the morning of Wednesday, August 26, WDBJ-7, “Your Hometown News Leader,” broadcasts a live interview with 61-year-old Vicki Gardner, executive director of the Smith Mountain Lake Regional Chamber of Commerce.

Twenty-four-year-old Alison Parker, a pretty blonde in a red skirt and black boat-neck shirt, stands on the wood-floor balcony, smiling cheerfully while holding the microphone to Gardner.

The camera pans over Bridgewater Plaza, while Gardner continues to extol the tourism potential of the 50-year-old man-made lake.

“We want to provide better experience, we’re saying tourism. We want people to come here and say, ‘That was –‘”

A gunshot rings out. Parker turns and screams. Gardner jerks to the side.

The gunshots keep coming, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

On televisions across Roanoke, bleary-eyed residents watch tangle of shoes and legs as the camera plunges to the ground, swings left, then goes still on a blurred image of a man with a gun dressed in black. 

The feed is cut. A startled anchor sits at the WDBJ-7 studio.

“Okay. Not sure what happened there. We will of course let you know as soon as we find out what those sounds were from.”

‘I filmed the shooting’

Stills from the last video Ward would ever shoot streaked across social media. 

WDBJ announced Parker and Ward were dead, and that Gardner was in the hospital for surgery. 

“Our hearts are broken,” said Jeffrey A. Marks, WDBJ‘s general manager, during a broadcast after the shooting. (READ: ‘We were very much in love. We wanted to get married‘)

Flanagan, at that point “the shooter,” was as yet unidentified.

At 10:24 am, 4 hours after the shooting, Virginia governor Ted McAuliffe announced police were in pursuit of the gunman, whom police believed to be “a disgruntled employee of the station.”

Tweets began appearing on the Twitter page of one Bryce Williams, a former WDBJ employee who was fired two years before. Flanagan used the alias as his on-screen name. 

The entries came one after the other, submitted within a 7-minute window a little more than an hour after the shooting.

Flanagan accused Parker of making “racist comments,” reported that an “EEOC report” was filed, and then expressed indignation, “They hired her after that???” 

His last message was curt. 

“I filmed the shooting see Facebook.”

Flanagan’s footage resembles a first-person role playing game, with the gun at the edge of the camera spitting fire at Parker, Parker turning to run at the third shot, the frame swinging wildly before going black.

It was live play-by-play coverage, described by New York Times columnist Farhad Manjoo as “a frightful twist in an age of online sharing and ubiquitous video documentation.”

Both accounts were taken down by Facebook and Twitter.

The chase

A press release from Franklin County Sheriff’s Office said that Williams fled the scene before police arrived. “Information gathered at the crime scene and in interviews shortly afterward lead investigators to identify Flanagan as a suspect.”

According to WDBJ, Vester Flanagan, who used the on-air name Bryce Williams, “worked at WDBJ7 for less than a year. He started at WDBJ7 on March 29, 2012. His employment was terminated on February 1, 2013.

A little before 11:30, nearly 5 hours after the shooting, police attempted to stop Flanagan on Interstate 66 in Fauquier County. 

The driver of the Sonic, Flanagan, refused to stop and sped away from the trooper,” said the Sheriff’s Office. “It was only a minute or two later that the Sonic ran off I-66 and into the median. When Trooper Neff approached the vehicle, she found Flanagan suffering from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Flanagan was flown from the scene to Inova Fairfax Hospital.”

Bryce Williams, born Vester Flanagan, “died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at a Fairfax hospital around 1:30 p.m. Wednesday.”

‘I’m going to make a big stink’

Flanagan, a former reporter, still has his video reel online, dated 2013.

In the video montage, the tall, heavyset reporter is competent and personable, seen reporting on local events – local crime, floods, road accidents as well as youth groups playing drums and a feature on the world’s largest sandwich. 

The New York Times described Vester Flanagan’s history with WDBJ as “turbulent,” based on documents Flanagan filed in a civil court case against the station, shortly after his firing. 

The documents describe a number of heated confrontations, confrontations with photographers as well as letters from the station’s executive reprimanding Flanagan for actions that “resulted in one or more of your co-workers feeling threatened or uncomfortable.” A number of memos are included, along with one detailing “recent examples of lack of thorough reporting, poor on-air performance or time management issues.” The article reported that Flanagan’s tenure ended with policemen escorting him off the WDBJ premises after his firing. 

“You better call police because I’m going to make a big stink. This is not right,” he was quoted as saying. 

Mr. Ward, a cameraman with WDBJ who was killed on Wednesday, recorded the dismissal, and records showed that Mr. Flanagan briefly turned his attention toward Mr. Ward on the day of his firing and told him to “lose your big gut.”

Mr. Flanagan later sued the station for, among other complaints, retaliation, wrongful termination and racial discrimination.

In May 2014, Mr. Flanagan wrote to a judge in Roanoke and said that his experiences at the station were “nothing short of vile, disgusting and inexcusable,” and he demanded that a jury of African-American women hear a civil lawsuit against the station.

The case was dismissed in 2014.

‘Fucked in the head’

Just 2 hours after the shooting in Bridgewater Plaza, ABC news recieved a 23-page fax from a man claiming to be Bryce Willams. 

“A little after 10 a.m.,” wrote ABC, “he called again, and introduced himself as Bryce, but also said his legal name was Vester Lee Flanagan, and that he shot two people this morning. While on the phone, he said authorities are ‘after me,’ and ‘all over the place.’ He hung up. In the fax, Flanagan rationalized the shooting by saying it was a response to the recent shooting in Charleston.” 

“What sent me over the top,” ABS quoted Flanagan, “was the church shooting. And my hollow point bullets have the victims’ initials on them.” (READ: Suspect caught in US black church ‘hate crime’ rampage)

Flanagan described racism in the news station, as well as added claims of sexual harrassment, bullying, and the smug announcement he “made thousands” as an escort. He said he was given a hard time because he was a gay black man, called the news manager “a micromanaging tyrant,” added that “the photogs were out to get me,” and said the Charleston shooting was his “tipping point.”

He said he “tried to pull myself up by the bootstraps” but the damage had been done.

“When someone gets to this point, there is nothing that can be said or done to change their sadness to happiness. It does not work that way. Meds? Nah. It’s too much.”

“Yeah,” he writes in his manifesto. “I’m all fucked up in the head.” – with reports from Agence France-Presse / Rappler.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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