Walmart shooter legally bought the handgun he used hours before killing six coworkers and left a 'death note,' authorities say

Eliza Relman
Updated ·2 min read
17
Walmart shooter legally bought the handgun he used hours before killing six coworkers and left a 'death note,' authorities say

  • The gunman who opened fire at a Chesapeake, Virginia, Walmart legally purchased the weapon he used.

  • Authorities say the gunman bought his 9-millimeter handgun at a local store just hours before the shooting.

  • The shooter, a Walmart store supervisor, killed six of his coworkers and injured others.

The gunman who opened fire in a Walmart store in Chesapeake, Virginia on Tuesday legally purchased the 9-millimeter handgun he used to kill six people from a local store on Tuesday morning, local authorities said on Friday.

Police identified the shooter as 31-year-old Andre Bing, who was employed as an overnight supervisor at the Walmart store. Authorities said Bing shot and killed himself at the scene and had no criminal history.

Chesapeake officials on Friday also released a note, labeled a "death note," found in Bing's phone, in which he railed against certain people, whose names were redacted by authorities, who he believed had treated him poorly. Bing had worked for Walmart since 2010. Since the shooting, former coworkers have described him as paranoid, and said he'd expressed concerns about government surveillance.

Authorities said Bing opened fire in the break room inside the store just after 10 pm, killing six of his coworkers. Authorities identified the victims as Tyneka Johnson, 22, Brian Pendleton, 38, Randy Blevins, 70, Lorenzo Gamble, 43, Kellie Pyle, 52, and Fernando Chavez-Barron, 16. Others injured in the massacre remain hospitalized as of Friday.

"There is nothing that can justify taking innocent lives," a Walmart spokesman said in a statement to Insider. "Our focus continues to be on the families who are grieving and supporting our associates through this difficult time."

Joshua Johnson, a former maintenance worker at the Chesapeake Walmart, told CNN that Bing had made threatening remarks in the past.

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

There have been at least three mass shootings in Virginia in just the last month and more than 600 multiple-victim shootings in the US in each of the last three years, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The number of mass shootings per year in the US has more than doubled since 2014.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates. 

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