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

Employees will continue to be paid, the company said.

A Virginia community is reeling after a man armed with a handgun shot and killed six people and injured several others in a mass shooting at a Walmart in Chesapeake.

Survivors said the gunman walked into a break room and opened fire on Nov. 22.

The suspect, a current employee, died at the scene from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said.

Two victims remain in the hospital and two have been released, Walmart said Tuesday.


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6 hospitalized, 1 in critical condition

Six people were injured and hospitalized after Tuesday night’s Walmart mass shooting, officials said, including one victim in critical condition.

Three of the six victims killed in the shooting died at hospitals and the other three were pronounced dead at the scene, officials said.

Two victims were found dead in the store’s break room, where the shooter’s body was found, officials said. Another victim’s body was found toward the front of the store.


‘Our hearts are just completely broken’: Governor

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin called the mass shooting "a horrendous, senseless act of violence."

“Our hearts are just completely broken this morning," he told reporters Wednesday.

“Our job is to support families who are facing the unthinkable today: families who have lost a loved one or have a loved one who is injured,” he said.


Biden: ‘Yet another horrific and senseless act of violence’

President Joe Biden said in a statement, “Because of yet another horrific and senseless act of violence, there are now even more tables across the country that will have empty seats this Thanksgiving. There are now more families who know the worst kind of loss and pain imaginable.”

“We are grateful to the first responders who mobilized to assist victims, and I have directed federal officials to provide any support and assistance needed to the people of Chesapeake,” he said.

Biden noted that this shooting comes just days after another mass shooting in Virginia, at the University of Virginia.

He said the nation “must take greater action” when it comes to gun-reform laws.

We “mourn for all those across America who have lost loved ones to these tragic shootings that we must come together as a nation to stand against,” Biden said.


Employee recounts hiding during shooting

Walmart employee Kevin Harper told ABC News he arrived to work early Tuesday night. He was sitting in the break room when he said something didn’t feel right -- so he left.

Moments later, Harper said he heard around three or four muffled gunshots and he ran into a clothes hanger to hide.

“I couldn’t tell you how long I hid in there. Time just stopped at that moment,” he said.

He said he then ran as fast as he could out of the employee entrance. On his way out, he said he saw two people on the floor, including one woman covered in blood.

“I’m just praying for my Walmart family,” Harper said.

-ABC News’ Ike Ejiochi


Gunman didn't say anything, just 'started shooting'

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.”

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.