2 Virginia TV journalists & shooter dead

MONETA, Va. (AP) – For the latest on the fatal on-air shooting of two WDBJ TV station employees, go to  WDBJ TV.

MONETA, Va. (AP) –   The suspect in the on-air shooting of two TV station employees has died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.  Vester  Flanagan died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound hours after the Wednesday morning shooting.

Authorities say Vester Flanagan died hours after this morning’s shooting deaths of former co-workers Alison Parker and Adam Ward during a live broadcast outside a shopping mall near Roanoke, Virginia. Police who’d been looking for him since the shooting spotted him on a northern Virginia interstate in late morning and pursued his car, but he sped away and crashed. Police say they found him suffering from a gunshot wound.

Authorities say the suspect in the on-air fatal shooting of two journalists was found about 11:30-a.m. by Virginia state troopers after he switched from his vehicle to a rental car he’d gotten earlier this month.

The Mustang is being treated as evidence.

Overton says Flanagan then left the airport in the Chevy Sonic he’d rented earlier in the month.

A Virginia state trooper located him driving on the interstate using license plate recognition equipment.

Officials say they don’t yet know a motive in the fatal on-air shooting of a reporter and a cameraman from a TV station in Virginia.

Authorities say they know the suspect, Vester Flanagan, was a former employee at the station, WDBJ-TV. They say they don’t know if the shooting was racially motivated. Flanagan was black and had formerly complained about racial bias at the station.

He went by Bryce Williams on the air.

The Station GM says suspect was angry man who was fired.

Jeffrey Marks of WDBJ-TV in Virginia talked briefly on air about Vester Flanagan- who went by Bryce Williams on the air – on Wednesday afternoon. Marks says Flanagan was hired as a reporter a few years ago after a while out of the TV news business.

Marks says the man had a reputation of being difficult to work with and being on the lookout for people to say things he could take offense to.

Marks says: “Eventually, after many incidents of his anger coming to the fore, we dismissed him. He did not take that well.”

Marks says that when Flanagan was fired, police had to escort him from the building.

Marks said that Flanagan alleged that other employees made racially-tinged comments to him and that he filed a complaint with the EEOC. But Marks says the allegations couldn’t be corroborated. He says the claim was dismissed.

ON-AIR SHOOTING-VICTIMS

MONETA, Va. (AP) – The television reporter and cameraman killed while they were doing a live shot are being described as a team who were at the beginning of their careers.

Friends and colleagues said Wednesday that Alison Parker and Adam Ward were part of a close-knit family at TV station WDBJ in Roanoke, Virginia.

The 24-year-old Parker was hired at WDBJ full time about a year ago. The 27-year-old Ward had worked at the station for several years, first in the production department, then as a video journalist.

They both found love at the station. Parker was dating an anchor. Ward was engaged to a producer.

WDBJ-TV says on its website that Vicki Gardner of the Smith Mountain Lake Regional Chamber of Commerce was injured in the shooting Wednesday morning, being interviewed on live T.V.  She is reported in Stable Condition at a local hospital.

The gunman has been described as a disgruntled former station employee. He is at a hospital with a life-threatening gunshot wound.

Reported earlier Wednesday….

MONETA, Va. (AP) – An official has identified the suspect in the fatal on-air shooting of a reporter and cameraman from a TV station in central Virginia.

Becky Coyner with dispatch and records at the Augusta County Sheriff’s Office says the suspect is 41-year-old Vester Lee Flanagan II, of Roanoke.  He went under the T.V. name of Bryce Williams, a former reporter at the T.V. station.

Virginia State Police say that as they were pursuing the suspect in the on-air fatal shooting, he ran off the road and crashed, and was found suffering from a gunshot wound.

Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller said Wednesday that the suspect is being treated for life-threatening injuries.

Gov. Terry McAuliffe has said the suspect is believed to be a disgruntled employee of the station, WDBJ-TV.

The station employees were killed in incident Wednesday morning.   Reporter Alison Parker, and cameraman Adam Ward were  at a shopping center, where an employee with the local chamber of commerce was being interviewed live on the air.

WDBJ-TV says on its website that Vicki Gardner of the Smith Mountain Lake Regional Chamber of Commerce was injured in the shooting Wednesday morning.  She is reported in Stable Condition at a local hospital.

The gunman in this morning’s fatal shooting of two TV station employees in Virginia has apparently posted video of the shooting on Twitter and Facebook.

The video shows an outstretched arm holding a handgun and firing repeatedly at Alison Parker as she tried to run away.

ABC News says it received a fax from someone who claimed to be Bryce Williams, a person on the staff at the Virginia station that saw two employees fatally shot on air.

ABC News says on its website that sometime between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, it received the fax. It describes it as a lengthy document of 23 pages. ABC News says it has turned the document over to authorities. ABC News did not offer any other details.

A Twitter account under an apparent alias of a man suspected of killing a TV reporter and cameraman describes what he claims were workplace conflicts with the pair.
The tweets also say Williams filed a report with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and that Parker was still hired despite that report. The tweets also say Ward reported Williams to human resources after working with him one time. The nature of that complaint was not described.

An anchor at the Virginia TV station that saw two of its employees fatally shot on air says he was in love with the reporter who died and that they wanted to get married.

Anchor Chris Hurst says in tweets that although the two didn’t share their relationship publicly, they were in love and had just moved in together.

Hurst tweeted: “We were together almost nine months. It was the best nine months of our lives. We wanted to get married. We just celebrated her 24th birthday.”

A spokesman for TV station WDBJ says the cameraman who was killed, Adam Ward, was engaged to Melissa Ott, a producer at the station. Wednesday was his last day working for the station.