Jeromy Basham via Storyful
A Tuesday night shooting at a Walmart store in Chesapeake, Va., left seven people dead, including the suspected shooter, police said. Officers were dispatched to an active threat situation at the Walmart Supercenter at 10:12 p.m. local time, Chesapeake Police spokesman Leo Kosinski told reporters at the scene.
“Over the next 30 to 45 minutes we were able to find several dead and several injured,” Kosinski said.
Early Wednesday morning, police confirmed that officers had finished searching the store and that all of the victims had been located. A message posted to the City of Chesapeake’s Twitter account, which had previously passed on confirmed reports from the police department, quoted police as putting the total death toll at seven, including the suspect.
The exact number of people injured has not been confirmed, but the victims were taken to several hospitals in the area and one of them confirmed on Tuesday evening that it was treating five people for unspecified injuries.
The shooter allegedly acted alone, Kosinski said, and the circumstances of the individual’s death were not immediately provided.
The shooting reportedly took place inside the store, Kosinksi said, although at least one body was found outside. According to Walmart’s website, the store was open to customers at the time of the shooting.
Chesapeake is located in the Hampton Roads coastal region of southern Virginia, which includes the cities of Norfolk and Virginia Beach.
Kosinksi said a “reunification site” had been established at the Chesapeake Conference Center, which, according to a city Twitter account, was “for immediate family members or emergency contact for those who may have could have been in the building”.
This is the second major mass shooting in the United States in recent days. Five persons were killed and 17 others injured when a suspect opened fire at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, early Sunday morning.
“Sickened by reports of another mass shooting, this time at a Walmart in Chesapeake,” said Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia. tweeted early Wednesday morning.
Walmart provided a statement saying the company was “shocked by this tragic event” and “praying for those affected, the community and our associates.”
The retail giant said it was “working closely with law enforcement and we are focused on supporting our associates.”
Virginia State Senator Louise Lucas, a Democrat who represents the Chesapeake area which encompasses Chesapeake, said in a tweet that she was “heartbroken that the last mass shooting in America took place in a Walmart in my district”.
“I will not rest until we find the solutions to end this epidemic of gun violence in our country that has claimed so many lives,” she said.
“Tragically, our community is suffering from another incident of senseless gun violence just as families gather for Thanksgiving,” said U.S. Representative Bobby Scott of Virginia.
According to data compiled by Gun Violence Archive, there have been more than 600 mass shootings in the United States this year, at least 36 of which have resulted in deaths.
A criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston, Alan Fox, who has compiled data on shootings in the United States for decades, reported the same figure, which he said had made 2022 a record year for such attacks. even before the incident at the Chesapeake Walmart. .
“I’ve studied mass shootings for over 40 years and I’m absolutely convinced that there’s never been a year where we’ve had so many,” Fox said in an article published Monday by Northeastern, following the Colorado shootings. .
Fox noted “an unprecedented increase” since the beginning of October alone, during which time it said there were 13 fatal mass shootings.
“That’s an average of about two mass shootings a week,” Fox said.
