Journalists shot dead on air over alleged racial enmity
Virginia gunman then kills himself after eluding police for five hours
Alison Parker surely saw her killer out of the corner of her eye as he walked up filming her on his cellphone. But ever the professional, she ignored him and carried on with her interview on live TV, as she had been trained to do.
The slightest glance to her right would have shown her that the 6-foot-3 man towering over cameraman Adam Ward had a pistol in his hand that he calmly raised, lowered and raised again, pointing directly at her heart as he whispered “bitch.”
For more than 20 seconds Vester Flanagan, a former colleague with grudges against each of them, stood still almost within touching distance of Parker, filming her as she interviewed a local official at an outdoor shopping mall at 6:45 a.m. Then, after raising his gun for a final time, he opened fire, killing Parker and Ward as viewers of Virginia’s WDBJ-TV and colleagues in the studio watched with horror. Ward’s fiancée, producer Melissa Ott, was in the control room of the studio in Roanoke at the time.
In a 23-page fax sent to ABC News after the shooting, Flanagan, a serial litigant over racism claims, said he carried out the murders as revenge for the killing of nine black churchgoers by a white supremacist in Charleston, S.C., in June.
He claimed Parker was a “racist,” adding: “My hollow point bullets have the victims’ initials on them.” He also claimed that “Jehovah spoke to me” and told him to act. Police described him as “disturbed” with his life “spiralling out of control.”
Parker, 24, only turned to look at Flanagan after he fired the first shot, screaming in surprise and terror, then tried in vain to flee as he unleashed a rapid volley of eight shots, still filming on his cellphone.
Ward, 27, fell to the floor with his camera, which captured a momentary image of his murderer.
Parker and Ward died at the scene. Their interview subject, Vicki Gardner, was in stable condition after surgery.
WDBJ quickly switched back to the anchor at the station, her eyes large and jaw dropping as she said, “OK, not sure what happened there.” The station later went live again, reporting on their own staff as the story developed.
Within hours, as he was being pursued by police, Flanagan posted his video of the murders on his Facebook and Twitter accounts, his killer’s-eye-view, like a bloodthirsty video game made real, a new low in America’s never-ending story of gun crime.
He tweeted: “Alison made racist comments ... EEOC (equal opportunities) report filed ... They hired her after that???”
“Adam went to (HR) on me after working with me one time!!!” and: “I filmed the shooting see Facebook.”
In a fax to ABC he said he had been a “human powder keg for a while … just waiting to go BOOM!!!!” He said he put down a deposit for his gun two days after the Charleston shooting, in which nine black worshippers were shot dead by a white supremacist.
After evading police for almost five hours, Flanagan, 41, shot himself as his car was pursued by a traffic officer, and died later in hospital.
The White House urged Congress rapidly to pass gun control laws sought by U.S. President Barack Obama, whose spokesman said it was time to show “common sense” on firearms legislation.
Jeff Marks, general manager of WDBJ, said: “How can this individual have robbed these families, the families of Alison and Adam, of their lives and their happiness and their love for whatever reason?”
He said Flanagan had been fired in 2013 from his job as a multimedia reporter. “After many incidents of his anger coming to the fore, we dismissed him. He did not take that well,” Marks said.
Flanagan had clearly intended to garner maximum publicity by carrying out the shooting live on television and posting his videos online, a tactic that he may have copied from ISIL in the Middle East. It left media companies across the world with an increasingly familiar dilemma: whether to broadcast the footage, which was widely available on the Internet, or ignore it out of respect for the victims and in order to deny Flanagan’s wish.
Alison Parker’s father, Andy, said: “It’s like showing those beheadings. I am not going to watch it. I can’t watch it. I can’t watch any news. All it would do is rip out my heart further than it already is.”
After incidents many of his anger coming to the fore, we dismissed (Vester Flanagan). He did not take that well.