November 23, 2022 Walmart shooting in Chesapeake, Virginia

Members of law enforcement stand outside of a Walmart in Chesapeake, Virginia, on November 23.

At least six people were killed in a shooting at a Walmart in Chesapeake, Virginia.

Four people injured in the shooting remained hospitalized Wednesday morning, Chesapeake Police Chief Mark Solesky said. At least two were in critical condition, said Dr. Michael Hooper, vice president and chief medical officer at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital.

Chesapeake Police are releasing new details as its investigation continues. Here’s what we know so far:

The timeline:

The scene inside the store: Once they were inside, Chesapeake Police said officers started locating and evacuating shoppers and employees, the statement said.

According to the statement, police said they believe around 50 people were inside the store at the time of the shooting. They are still trying to find people who witnessed the incident and may have more information, the statement said.

While they were searching, they found several people dead — two people and the shooter were dead in the break room, according to police, and another person was found dead near the front of the store. Officials say three people died at the hospital.

What we know about the victims: The city of Chesapeake, Virginia, has identified the five of the six people killed in the shooting:

A 16-year-old male was also killed, officials said.

What we know about the suspect: The shooter has been identified as 31-year-old Andre Bing, a “team lead” for store’s overnight shift, according to police. Law enforcement said they believe he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Chesapeake Police said Bing had one handgun and “several magazines” of ammunition with him. Police said he was “dressed in civilian clothing and was not wearing any type of armor or ballistic vest,” the statement reads.

What’s next: The Chesapeake SWAT team executed a search warrant at Bing’s house, the statement from police said, adding that investigators are “actively working to learn more about the suspect’s background and what may have motivated the shooting.”

Police said detectives are still collecting evidence at the Walmart and the store is expected to be closed for the next several days as law enforcement continues to process the scene.

The statement from police said detectives are also working to contact victims’ families. They have not released the names of any of the victims yet.

Jessie Wilczewski, a Walmart employee who was in the break room when the gunman opened fire, said at one point the shooter put his gun up to her head, but then let her go.

She told CNN she was in the break room for a meeting before her shift. The meeting had just started when she saw the gunman in the doorway, she said.

“At first it didn’t look real, it didn’t register as real. The only thing that made it real was the vibrations hitting your chest and the ringing from the gun going off,” she said, saying she got under a table and was trying to be quiet, worried the shooter was going to come back.

Wilczewski said she could have ran in that moment, but she stayed so that the people who were shot in the break room were not alone.

“I stayed so they wouldn’t be alone in their last moments because I knew there was no way … as bad as everything was, there was no way,” she said.

Wilczewski said later, the gunman told her to come out from under the table.

“He told me to go home,” she said. “He took the gun away from my forehead and he was aiming it at the ceiling and he said ‘Jessie, go home.’”

She said she got up and ran out of the store to her car.

“Never, ever in my life would I ever wish this upon anybody. It’s horrible because it doesn’t stop. It doesn’t stop replaying when you leave the scene it,” Wilczewski said.

Brian Pendleton.

Joshua Johnson, who worked as a maintenance worker at the Walmart in Chesapeake until 2019, told CNN that Brian Pendleton trained him when he started working there.

“Brian was the type of guy if you ever needed something, he would give you the shirt off his back,” Johnson said. “He never had any problems with anybody.”

Pendleton, 38, was one of six people killed when another employee opened fire at Walmart on Tuesday night.

Shaundrayia Reese, a former Walmart employee, told CNN she just spoke to Pendleton a month ago. 

“Walmart has always been like a family,” she added. “It hurts because I lost someone I really cared about.” 

Chesapeake, Virginia, Mayor Rick West said the community will come out the other end of tragedy stronger. In a video message on Wednesday, following the mass shooting at a Walmart that killed at least six people, the mayor also thanked people throughout the country for their support.

“I know this community and I know it well. And I know that we will come together and lend a helping hand to the victims families,” West said in the video.

West said law enforcement will “do what they can” and release new details from its investigation soon.

“Please know that we will get through this and we will get through this together and we will never forget those who we have lost,” he said.

Watch the video:

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas attends a hearing in Washington, DC, on November 17.

In the wake of two mass shootings in the US over the past week, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said, “we have seen too many acts of violence across our country.” 

“Whatever the motive — whether personal grievance, an ideology of hate, or other evil motive — communities continue to be victimized and made to feel unsafe,” he added, touting the department’s efforts to prevent targeted acts of violence.

At least six people were killed Tuesday night when a gunman opened fire inside a Walmart in Virginia. Late Saturday, five people were killed in a shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado.

Briana Tyler uses her hands like a gun to demonstrate how the gunman at the Walmart in Chesapeake, Virginia, was shooting indiscriminately.

It was shortly after 10 p.m. when Briana Tyler clocked into work at Walmart on Tuesday and made her way to the break room for a nightly meeting where employees would get their assignments. 

Just before the meeting began, she saw a colleague, who would later be identified by the city of Chesapeake as 31-year-old Andre Bing, the suspected shooter, stand in a doorway. 

“It was so random. It was like everybody was just waiting to, you know, figure out where they were going for the night and then all of a sudden you just hear ‘pa pa pa pa pa pa pa,’” Tyler told CNN. “And it’s like, it wasn’t a break in between them to where like you could really try to process it.”

According to a statement from Walmart, Bing, was a “team lead” for the store’s overnight shift. Police say he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. 

Six people were killed in the attack, according to the city of Chesapeake. 

During the shooting, Tyler recalls, Bing didn’t speak or point the gun at anyone in particular. 

Tyler recalls Bing looking at her during the incident, and having gunshots fly by inches from her face. She also saw injured friends on the ground as she fled the store.  

At the time, the experience felt surreal to Tyler, who is a new hire at the store. She froze for a moment and said it wasn’t until she saw a friend bleeding from her neck that things began to click — the shooting was really happening, and she’d have to run.  

“As I was running, it was just run, don’t trip, don’t fall, just run,” she said. “And I just knew I had to make it home to my son and as soon as I made it outside I just called my mom.” 

Police have said there is no clear motive yet determined for the shooting.

The city of Chesapeake, Virginia, has identified the five of the six people killed in the shooting at Walmart on Tuesday.   

They are:

A 16-year-old male was also killed in the shooting, officials said.

“The sixth victim is a 16-year old male resident of Chesapeake whose name and photo are being withheld at the time due to him being a minor,” the statement from the city said.

Jeromy Basham was near the garden center area of the Chesapeake, Virginia, Walmart when the shooting unfolded just after 10:00 p.m. on Tuesday.

“It sounded loud as s**t but it was so many of the same kind of sound I don’t know what the hell else it could have been,” he said in a video uploaded to his Facebook page.

As he heard the gunshots, Basham said it was oddly quiet. No one was screaming, and he didn’t see anyone moving.

Then after another few seconds, “you hear almost everyone the same time and people just start flooding out.”

Realizing what he was hearing was gunshots, and seeing the other customers run, Basham bolted too, leaving his shopping and running for safety.

Basham said he took cover for a while after some employees told him, “Don’t come out.” 

Once outside, Basham said he witnessed police officers entering the Walmart with heavy body armor and long rifles. In the parking lot, other eyewitnesses and Walmart employees were seen amongst the first responders. 

“He just came in and started slaughtering people,” a Walmart employee, seen wearing an employee vest, is heard saying in the video. 

Additional videos from Basham show dozens of first responders on scene. He also said he witnessed a body being transported out of the store in a shopping cart and transferred to a gurney. In another video, Basham said he witnessed another body being transported to an ambulance.

Members of law enforcement investigate the site of a fatal shooting in a Walmart on November 23, in Chesapeake, Virginia.

Walmart confirms the man suspected in Tuesday night’s mass shooting in Chesapeake, Virginia, was an employee.  

“The alleged shooter has been identified as Andre Bing. We can confirm that he was a Walmart associate,” Walmart said in a statement. “Andre’s position with the company was overnight team lead and he’s been employed with us since 2010.”

“We are thankful for the local first responders and will continue to work with local law enforcement as they continue their investigation,” it added.  

President and CEO of Walmart US John Furner said the shooting at the store that left six dead was a “tragic event.”

Furner has also instructed some of Walmart’s Emergency Operations Center members to help the Chesapeake community “through this challenging time.”  

Several coworkers of the Walmart supervisor suspected of committing the deadly rampage inside a Chesapeake, Virginia, store, killing six people, said the shooter had exhibited odd and threatening behavior in the past. 

Andre Bing, the suspected gunman who worked as a night-shift team leader, could be gruff with fellow employees and expressed paranoid views about the government, according to interviews with coworkers. 

“He said a lot of disturbing things,” said Donya Prioleau, who said she was in the employee break room when Bing entered and unexpectedly opened fire. Bing “came in, shot three of my friends … before I took off running,” she said. “Half of us didn’t believe it was real until some of us saw all the blood on the floor.” 

“We don’t know what made him do this,” she said. “None of us can understand why it happened.”

In the past, Prioleau said, Bing could be “condescending when he spoke to us. He didn’t have good communication skills. He was quite mean to a lot of us.” 

Shaundrayia Reese, who worked with Bing from 2015 to 2018, described him as a loner.

“He was always saying the government was watching him. He didn’t like social media and he kept black tape on his phone camera. Everyone always thought something was wrong with him,” Reese said.

A video Reese said she took in 2016 shows a man she identified as Bing talking to people before realizing he’s being filmed and walking away. 

“He didn’t like to be recorded,” Reese said. “He was always scared that the government was listening.” 

Joshua Johnson, who worked as maintenance worker at the store until 2019, also told CNN Bing had previously issued ominous threats if he ever lost his job.

“He said if he ever got fired from his job he would retaliate and people would remember who he was,” Johnson said.

Neither Johnson nor Reese reported any concerns about Bing to management, they said.

According to Johnson, Bing had problems with some of the maintenance workers and would threaten to write them up if they didn’t follow his orders. 

Chesapeake Police Chief Mark Solesky said there is no clear motive for the shooting known at this time.

Walmart confirmed Bing was an employee and said in a statement the company was “thankful for the local first responders and will continue to work with local law enforcement as they continue their investigation.”