A municipal building in Virginia Beach, Va., was turned into a scene of carnage on Friday afternoon after a longtime public utilities employee began firing indiscriminately at his co-workers, killing at least 11 people and injuring six others before dying after a shootout with the police.
It had been nearing closing time in an office offering some of the most mundane functions of city government, such as paying water bills and applying for building permits, when the employee, whose name and possible motive were not immediately disclosed, began stalking through several floors firing at his colleagues, the authorities said.
The loud bursts of gunfire sent workers scrambling and barricading their office doors. “My boss basically was like, ‘This is not a drill, get down, call 911,’” Megan Banton, an administrative assistant who was in the building where the shooting happened, told reporters at the scene.
About 20 people in her second-floor office were hugging and holding one another, she said, as a bloody scene unfolded in the building. They heard gunshots, shouts from police officers to “get down” and frantic conversations in a stairwell outside their office, she said. She stayed on the phone with 911 to make sure the police were coming.
“They couldn’t come fast enough,” she said.
The identities of the victims were not released. One of those injured was a police officer, who was saved by his bulletproof vest, said Chief James A. Cervera of the Virginia Beach Police Department.
He called the shooting a “devastating incident” that “none of us want to be here talking about,” adding that it was “going to change the lives of a number of families in our city.”
The shooting took place shortly after 4 p.m. within the sprawling Virginia Beach Municipal Center, a campus of city offices and agencies, including the Police Department. The attack unfolded on multiple floors in Building No. 2, which includes offices for planning and public works, among others, and is adjacent to City Hall.
“This is the most devastating day in the history of Virginia Beach,” Mayor Robert M. Dyer said at an evening news conference.
“The people involved are our friends, co-workers, neighbors, colleagues,” he continued before his voice trailed off and he bowed his head.
Dale T. Gauding, a spokesman for Sentara Healthcare, said five patients were taken to Sentara Virginia Beach General Hospital.
Another patient at Sentara Princess Anne Hospital was being picked up by helicopter and transferred to a trauma center at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, he said. Details on their conditions were not immediately available.
Another patient at Sentara Princess Anne Hospital was being picked up by helicopter and transferred to a trauma center at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, he said. Details on their conditions were not immediately available.
“You don’t prepare for something like this,” said Mayor Dyer. “It’s a nightmare no one wants to actually live through.”
Nothing like this has happened in Virginia Beach in the 40 years that Guy King Tower, a City Council member and retired lawyer, has been living there. “Nothing remotely like it, certainly in my memory,” said Mr. Tower, who has been living in the city since the 1970s but just joined the council a month ago.
He was at the municipal center early this afternoon, but left before the shooting. He said that Building 2 — where the shooting occurred — is connected by a tunnel to Building 1, which is the main administrative office.
He said that in addition to a dominant Navy presence, the area also has Marine, Army and Air Force bases. “This is a military town, and people deal with the wages of war on a pretty regular basis,” Mr. Tower said. “There are a lot of people here who have had loved ones in harm’s way. But certainly a mass murder had never happened that I can recall.”
The Kempsville Mennonite Church was hosting a graduation celebration for its high school seniors on Friday evening as the chaos unfolded just a few minutes up the road.
William Yoder, 28, was one of the few people there to have heard about the shooting, because members of their community do not have televisions and many do not have smartphones.
“It’s semirural in this area,” Mr. Yoder said. “The civic center is pretty close to farmland, a few neighborhoods. Most times it is fairly quiet.”
“It is pretty shocking,” he added.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/31/u...-shooting.html