Multiple people killed in Virginia Walmart shooting
Police believe there was a lone shooter, who is dead, a spokesman says.
CHESAPEAKE, Va. — Multiple people are dead and others are wounded after a shooting at a Virginia Walmart on Tuesday night, police said.
Officers responded to a report of a shooting at the Walmart on Sam’s Circle around 10:15 p.m., and as soon as they arrived they found evidence of a shooting, Chesapeake police spokesman MPO Leo Kosinski said in a briefing.
Over 35 to 40 minutes, officers found multiple dead and injured people in the store and put rescue and tactical teams together to enter and provide lifesaving measures, he said.
Police believe there was one shooter, who is dead, he said. They believe that the shooting had stopped when police arrived, Kosinski said. He did not have a number of dead, but said it was “less than 10, right now.”
Kosinski said he doesn’t believe police fired shots, but he could not say whether the shooter was dead of a self-inflicted gunshot.
Mike Kafka, a spokesman for Sentara Healthcare, said in a text message that five patients from the Walmart were being treated at Norfolk General Hospital. Their conditions weren’t immediately available.
The Virginia shooting comes three days after an assailant opened fire at a nightclub in Colorado, killing five people and wounding 18. That suspect was arrested after patrons at the club tackled him and beat him. The shootings come in a year when the country was shaken by the deaths of 21 in a school massacre in Uvalde, Texas.
Tuesday’s attack also brought back memories of another shooting at a Walmart in 2019, when a gunman police say was targeting Mexicans opened fire at a store in El Paso and killed 22 people. Walmart didn’t have a security guard on duty that day.
Sen. Mark R. Warner (DVa.) tweeted that he is “sickened by reports of yet another mass shooting, this time at a Walmart in Chesapeake.”
Virginia state Sen. L. Louise Lucas echoed Warner’s sentiment, tweeting that she was “absolutely heartbroken that America’s latest mass shooting took place in a Walmart in my district.”
Chesapeake police tweeted that a family reunification site has been set up at the Chesapeake Conference Center. This site is only for immediate family members or the emergency contact of those who may have been in the building, the tweet said.