WDBJ TV shooter sends suicide note to ABC

A reporter and a cameraman were fatally shot during a live interview outside a shopping mall Wednesday morning.

The gunman is believed to have fired six or seven times, WDBJ General Manager Jeff Marks said.

Flanagan was a disgruntled former employee of the journalists’ TV station, WDBJ7.

According to a former WDBJ employee, Vester L. Flanagan – the man authorities say they’re seeking in connection with the shooting – worked at WDBJ as a reporter about a year using the on-air name Bryce Williams. The network says it received a fax Wednesday morning.

The 23-page-long document also contained references to other gunmen associated with mass shootings in the nation.

“Why did I do it?” But Flanagan, who writes extensively about his experiences as a black man in the memorandum, was enraged by the Charleston massacre at a black church.

From Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.: “My thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their families”. Harris and Klebold killed 13 people in 1999.

Williams created a document he called a “Suicide Note for Friends and Family”.

The writer claimed he suffered racial discrimination, sexual harassment and bullying at work.

Parker, 24, and WDBJ7 cameraman Adam Ward, 27, were both killed in the attack while Parker conducted an interview of a local Chamber of Commerce director Vicki Gardner, who was also shot and taken to surgery. He added that the station had to call police to escort Flanagan from the building when he was sacked.

“There are some common sense things that only Congress can do that we know would have a tangible impact on reducing gun violence in this country”, said Josh Earnest, White House spokesman.

Virginia state police found him in his vehicle on a highway with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. “He did not take that well”, Marks said.

From 1993 to 2005, he worked at KPIX, San Francisco’s local CBS affiliate.

White or Black, Flanagan’s actions are inexcusable – there’s no question about that – but he evidently harbored anger from enduring discrimination within his career as a journalist.

Flanagan is an African-American.

“Alison made racist comments” he wrote. Shafer had hired and fired Flanagan at a Florida television station. The station denied in court documents that he had been discriminated against, and the case was eventually settled.

Yet early indications suggest that it was in fact from Flanagan, the suspect responsible for the deaths of Parker and Ward. The article is accompanied by a photo of what appears to be Flanagan.

Flanagan filed a lawsuit against Marks and WDBJ past year.

“Eventually, after many incidents of his anger, we dismissed him”.

After the shooting, a Twitter account purporting to belong to “Bryce Williams” posted the footage, as well as several Tweets accusing Parker of racism and complaining Ward had reported him to the station’s human resources department. The video showed an outstretched arm holding the handgun and firing repeatedly at Parker as she tried to run away.