Virginia Walmart mass shooting: Store to close for the 'foreseeable future'

Brian Pendleton, one of the six people killed in the shooting, would have turned 39 next week, his mother said in an emotional phone interview Wednesday.

"He had a real big heart," his mother, Michelle Johnson, said. "Anybody that wanted to laugh, or just want company, he'd buy you lunch. He'd buy you anything in a minute."

Pendleton worked at the Walmart for nearly 11 years as a custodian and "loved his job," she said.

"He was just a hard worker and a good kid," she said.

When a family friend called and told her there had been a shooting at his Walmart, Johnson's husband went to where families had been told to convene for reunification. He was told Brian had been transferred to Norfolk General Hospital, so Johnson and her husband drove there, she said.

"We waited, and then the police came out with a nurse and they took us to a side room and that's when they told us that he didn't make it," Johnson said, choking up.

"That's when they said that he didn't make it," Johnson said, sobbing. "I just wondered, was he afraid at that time? I know my son. I didn't want him to be afraid, and I didn't want him to hurt."

Pendleton had a condition called congenital hydrocephalus. Johnson has it too, she said, but they had both been "blessed" not to have a severe case.

"We're fighters, and we trust the Lord," she said.

This was Pendleton's favorite time of year, with Thanksgiving and his birthday on Dec. 2, said Johnson.

"I don't understand why, what happened, happened," she said.

"I will never go near that Walmart again," she added.

-ABC News' Sasha Pezenik

Chesapeake Mayor Rick West offered words of support in a brief video statement Wednesday evening.

"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. "We'll share this burden together and we'll be stronger for it."

The mayor promised to share more information on the incident.

"Until then, please know that we will get through this, and we will get through this together, and we will never forget those that we have lost," he said.

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Chesapeake mayor offers words of support

“We will get through this together,” said Chesapeake Mayor Rick West, offering words of support in a brief video statement Wednesday evening.

City of Chesapeake

At least 50 people were believed to be in a Chesapeake, Virginia, Walmart when a gunman opened fire Tuesday night, Chesapeake police said.

Authorities are still investigating a motive and are looking into the background of the suspect, 31-year-old Andre Bing, according to police. A search warrant has been executed at Bing’s house, police said.

Bing, who died at the store of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, wasn’t wearing any type of armor or a ballistic vest, authorities said.

Police said they’re "still trying to account for anyone who may have been at the store and witnessed the incident, but fled prior to police arrival." Anyone with information is urged to contact the FBI at 1-800-CALLFBI.

The Walmart is expected to be closed for several days, police added.

Walmart employee Briana Tyler said she was with her co-workers in the break room around 10 p.m. when the gunfire broke out.

"My manager just opened the door and he just opened fire," Tyler told ABC News. "He wasn't aiming at anybody specifically. He just literally started shooting throughout the entire break room and I watched multiple people just drop down to the floor, whether they were trying to duck for cover or they were hit."

Tyler said the gunman looked "directly at" her and fired, but "luckily missed" her head by "an inch or two."

"He didn't say a word, he didn't say anything at all," she said. "He just came around the corner and started shooting. The first person that was in his eyesight, he shot him down.”

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Walmart gunman ‘looked directly at me,’ employee says

Walmart employee Briana Tyler said she was with her co-workers in the break room around 10 p.m. when the gunfire broke out.

ABCNews.com

In another interview with ABC News later on Wednesday, she said the suspect, identified as 31-year-old Andre Bing, "was quiet and to himself" and "gave off ... the loner type."

"I've never once had, like, a joyous, fun conversation with him. It was always about work and that was it," she explained. "With everybody else, you know, a lot of people will, they laugh, they joke, I have other supervisors that I can, you know, talk to casually. But with him ... he wasn't like the fun, bubbly type of person."

Tyler, 28, is a mom to a 4-year-old son.

She said the shooting “taught me that life can literally be taken from you at the blink of an eye,” even when “doing something as innocently as trying to go to work.”

“So I would just say just reach out to the ones you love, keep an open relationship with them, do your best … because at the end of the day, you genuinely never know when you will look your child or your mother in their eyes again,” she said.