Six people were killed when a shooter opened fire inside a Walmart in Virginia late on Tuesday, according to police. This was the nation’s second prominent mass killing in a short period of time. The attacker is also deceased.
Officer Leo Kosinski announced in the early hours of Wednesday that the store in Chesapeake is now secure and will probably be closed for several days while the investigation is ongoing.
Who the shooter was and what their intentions may have been were both unknown.
Mayor Rick W. West made the statement in a tweet that was shared on the city’s Twitter account. “I am devastated by the senseless act of violence that took place late last night in our city,” he said. We in the close-knit community of Chesapeake are all shocked by the news.
This year has been particularly horrible, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press, USA Today, and Northeastern University that monitors every mass murder in America dating back to 2006. With 40 mass murders already this year, the United States is second only to 2019’s total of 45. According to the database, a mass killing is defined as the death of four or more individuals, excluding the killer.
Three days prior to the attack at the Walmart, someone in Colorado opened fire at a gay bar, killing five people and injuring 17. 21 people were killed earlier this year when a gunman stormed an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, shocking the nation.
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The attack on Tuesday also brought to mind the Walmart shooting in El Paso, Texas, in 2019, when a shooter who authorities say was targeting Mexicans opened fire and murdered 22 people.
Although Kosinski said he couldn’t speculate on the shooter’s method of death, he did not think cops fired any shots.
When police arrived at the business in Chesapeake, Virginia’s second-largest city and a short drive between Norfolk and Virginia Beach, the shooting had reportedly stopped.
Five people from the Walmart were being treated at Norfolk General Hospital, according to a text message from Sentara Healthcare spokesperson Mike Kafka. Their health status wasn’t immediately known.
Early on Wednesday morning, Walmart stated that it was “shocked at this awful situation.”
In a tweet, U.S. Senator Mark Warner expressed his disgust over reports of yet another mass shooting, this time at a Walmart in Chesapeake.
By tweeting that she was “very horrified that America’s newest mass massacre took place in a Walmart in my district,” state senator Louise Lucas echoed Warner’s stance.
