Vester Lee Flanagan, a former TV reporter who recorded himself fatally shooting a reporter and videographer during a live broadcast in Virginia on Wednesday morning, was disgruntled over perceived racial discrimination and purportedly said he was pushed to act out because of a mass shooting this summer that targeted black congregants at a church in Charleston, South Carolina.
Flanagan, 40, who fatally shot himself while being chased by police, had been fired by Roanoke’s WDBJ-TV a year after being hired in 2012. The station had documented a number of complaints against him, including heated confrontations with co-workers and a lack of professionalism, according to court documents obtained by The Washington Times.
At his termination meeting in February 2013, he told supervisors that “firing him would lead to negative consequences,” according to personnel files that were included as part of a lawsuit Flanagan brought against the station last year.
The records indicate that police had to forcibly remove Flanagan from the TV station and that he flipped off photographer Adam Ward, who was recording the incident inside the newsroom. He fatally shot Mr. Ward, 27, and reporter Alison Parker, 24, during the station’s live morning broadcast.
The lawsuit against WDBJ-TV, which claimed racial discrimination and unpaid overtime, was ultimately dismissed.
The complaints mirrored accusations in a letter faxed Wednesday to ABC News. The writer claimed to be Flanagan, and the letter was titled “Suicide Note for Friends and Family.”
SEE ALSO: Flanagan says God told him to kill Parker and Ward as payback for Charleston
In the letter, the writer expressed admiration for the killers in the mass shootings at Virginia Tech and Columbine High School, but said the shooting at a Charleston church this summer was the final straw and prompted the purchase of a gun two days later.
“The church shooting was the tipping point but my anger has been building steadily. I’ve been a human powder keg for a while just waiting to go BOOM!!!!” read the letter to ABC News.
Throughout the 23-page letter, the writer complained of suffering racial discrimination, sexual harassment and bullying as a gay black man, ABC News reported.
The fatal ambush quickly reverberated online, with a second video of the incident apparently made by the gunman surfacing on the Twitter account of a Bryce Williams. Flanagan used “Bryce Williams” as his professional, on-air name.
The high-profile nature of the shooting prompted lawmakers to highlight a need for stricter gun control laws, although the circumstances under which the gunman obtained the firearm were not known.
“It goes back [to] what I’ve talked about for a long time: There are too many guns in the hands of people who should not have guns,” Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe said in an interview on WTOP. “This is why I’ve long advocated for background checks.”
SEE ALSO: Alison Parker, Adam Ward of WDBJ-TV shot and killed during live news report in Virginia
Hours after the shooting deaths, the White House called on Congress to approve gun control legislation, but it did not address the emerging racial nature of the attack as it did in the wake of the mass shooting that killed nine in a Charleston church in June.
“This is another example of gun violence that is becoming all too common in communities large and small across the United States,” said White House press secretary Josh Earnest.
He said there are “some common-sense things that only Congress can do that would have a tangible impact” in reducing gun violence without infringing on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans. Mr. Earnest didn’t specify particular legislation.
Wednesday’s shooting dominated the news cycle for much of the day, in part because of the rarity of an attack by a disgruntled journalist and the graphic videos that captured the incident.
“It happens in other businesses where a disgruntled employee comes back and shoots. I don’t think it has ever happened before on live television,” said Fred Brown, an instructor of media ethics at the University of Denver.
The desire to gain fame from a mass shooting is common among those who carry out such acts, said psychologist Joel Dvoskin, who has counseled corporations on how to prevent workplace violence.
“It’s very common that the people who commit mass homicides that one of their motivations seems to be fame, even if they are going to die,” Mr. Dvoskin said. “This guy was in the business of television and seems to have figured out a way to do this that would get the most publicity.”
Within hours of the shooting, a video of the incident from the perspective of Flanagan was posted on the Twitter account @bryce_williams7. Messages also posted to the account singled out the two reporters who were killed.
“Alison made racist comments / EEOC report filed / They hired her after that???” read a succession of three tweets blaming Ms. Parker.
The messages also went on to blame the videographer, saying, “Adam went to hr on me after working with me one time!!!”
The short clip kept Ms. Parker and Mr. Ward within the frame as the shooter slowly approached them. A handgun then appeared in the frame. On the live TV news segment, several loud bangs are heard, followed by screams. The Twitter account was suspended shortly afterward, and the video posted to YouTube was taken down.
The shooting occurred during a live broadcast from Bridgewater Plaza on Smith Mountain Lake water park in Moneta, Virginia. Ms. Parker was interviewing Vicki Gardner, executive director of the Smith Mountain Lake Regional Chamber of Commerce. Ms. Gardner was injured in the shooting but was in stable condition late Wednesday.
Hours after the killings, Flanagan’s vehicle was spotted by a Virginia State Police trooper who began a pursuit. As he fled the trooper, Flanagan shot and mortally wounded himself, said Franklin County Sheriff W.Q. “Bill” Overton Jr. He was flown to a Fairfax County hospital but later pronounced dead.
Sheriff Overton declined to discuss the motive in the shooting but said it was “obvious this gentleman was disturbed in some way at the way things had transpired in his life.”
Flanagan worked in television for more than a decade and had several run-ins with co-workers and superiors before losing his job in 2013. A lawsuit filed by Flanagan in 2001 against station WTWC-TV in Tallahassee, Florida, where he also had worked expressed similar themes. In his complaint, Flanagan said a producer called him a “monkey” and that co-workers stated that the newscaster got his job because he is black. The lawsuit was later settled.
Throughout the day, colleagues paid tribute to the two slain journalists by sharing personal stories and highlighting news clips they had produced.
“They would brighten up a room every morning,” said WDBJ-TV anchor Kimberly McBroom. “Every morning we’re all sleepy, but they would come in like gangbusters. Alison would come in, just kind of bouncing, happy to start her day.”
Ms. Parker grew up in Martinsville, attended Patrick Henry Community College and graduated from James Madison University in 2012. Mr. Ward graduated from Salem High School and Virginia Tech.
Mr. Ward was engaged to be married to a WDBJ producer who was in the control room watching the broadcast when the shooting took place, WDBJ-TV General Manager Jeff Marks told CNN. Mr. Ward was planning to get out of the media business soon.
Ms. Parker was dating WDBJ anchor Chris Hurst. He tweeted a photo of himself and Ms. Parker shortly after the shooting with the caption, “We didn’t share this publicly, but @AParkerWDBJ7 and I were very much in love. We just moved in together. I am numb.”
In a statement to the Martinsville Bulletin, Ms. Parker’s father said his family was numb and devastated.
“Alison was our bright, shining light, and it was cruelly extinguished by yet another crazy person with a gun,” Andy Parker told the newspaper. “Not hearing her voice again crushes my soul. Our family can only take solace in the fact that although her life was brief, she was so happy with it. She lived it to the fullest and her spirit will always be with us.”
• Dave Boyer contributed to this report.
• Andrea Noble can be reached at anoble@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.