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One People’s Project would like to extend our condolences to the families of Allison Parker and Adam Ward (pictured), the WDBJ-7 Roanoke reporter and cameraman who were murdered reportedly by Vester Lee Flanagan, aka Bryce Williams this morning. WDBJ was the station we worked with when we held a public meeting in Roanoke about now-imprisoned neo-Nazi Bill White, and we only saw them as a solid professional media outlet. This is a look at how things transpired.<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
On Wednesday August 26 at 6:45 a.m., Alison Parker, a WDBJ news reporter, and Adam Ward, a cameraman, were shot dead during a live broadcast. The shooter, Bryce Williams, was a disgruntled former station employee who allegedly filmed the murders and posted the videos to Twitter and Facebook before attempting to shoot himself.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s everything else we know about the case so far.<\/p>\n
According to reports Vester Lee Flanagan\u2014known professionally as Bryce Williams\u2014was a 41-year-old former multimedia reporter with WDBJ. Flanagan was apparently fired by the station, though it may not have been a recent dismissal\u2014according to his LinkedIn, he left the station in February, 2013.<\/p>\n
According to reports, Virginia authorities believe the male shooter who murdered two people during\u2026
Read more<\/p>\n
The station\u2019s general manager tells BuzzFeed, \u201cVester was an unhappy man. We employed him as a reporter and he had some talent in that respect and some experience… He quickly gathered a reputation of someone who was difficult to work with. He was sort of looking out to people to say things he could take offense to. Eventually, after many incidents of his anger, we dismissed him. He did not take that well. We had to call police to escort him from the building.\u201d<\/p>\n
And Flanagan clearly held a grudge against his former co-workers. A Twitter account listed under the name, @bryce_williams7, posted its first tweet on August 12 and continued updating until around 11:15 a.m. Wednesday. Many of the early tweets tout Williams\u2019 former stints as a child model and \u201cprince\u201d of his 11th grade homecoming. In another tweet, he discusses being a Jehovah\u2019s Witness and later claims he was once a \u201chigh paid \u2018companion\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
But in more recent updates, posted after the shooting, the Williams account addresses the station directly, accusing Parker and Ward of wronging him on the job.<\/p>\n
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ABC reports that someone\u2014purportedly Flanagan\u2014also faxed the network a 23-page manifesto sometime between Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning. They have since turned that over to the authorities.<\/p>\n
Shortly after the shooting, Flanagan reportedly attempted to commit suicide on the I-66 outside Roanoke. According to a statement from the Virginia State Police, a trooper \u201cinitiated a traffic stop on the suspect vehicle,\u201d however the \u201cvehicle refused to stop and sped away from the trooper.\u201d Flanagan had posted cell phone video of the shooting to his social media accounts minutes before. He is currently in critical condition but \u201cstill has a pulse.\u201d<\/p>\n
Update 4:45 p.m.<\/p>\n
ABC has published excerpts from a 23-page manifesto faxed around 8:26 a.m. by a person purporting to be Flanagan. In the document, Flanagan praises other shooters, both alleged and convicted, and says the racism behind the Charleston shooting \u201csent him over the top.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the network, Flanagan called less than two hours after the fax came through to confess to the shootings.<\/p>\n
Footage of the shooting aired during a WDBJ live broadcast at Bridgewater Plaza, a shopping center in Moneta, VA, around 6:45 a.m. EST. In the clip that made it to air, Parker can be seen interviewing Vicki Gardner, executive director of the Smith Mountain Lake Chamber of Commerce, as the first shot rings out. Parker, who was hit first, starts to scream and runs away. The camera drops to the ground, but not before capturing a brief shot of the shooter, who can be seen holding a gun as he advances.<\/p>\n
Parker and Ward were both killed in the melee and apparently pronounced dead at the scene. Gardner, who didn\u2019t appear to be a target, was hit in the back and is currently in surgery. The shooter was able to flee.<\/p>\n
In the ensuing five hours, Williams, who was reportedly being pursued by law enforcement somewhere on Virginia\u2019s I-64, managed to update both his Twitter and Facebook accounts with accusations against his dead co-workers and first-person video footage of the shooting. The accounts were ultimately suspended around 11:15 a.m.\u2014but not before the footage went viral.<\/p>\n
In one video uploaded to Twitter, the shooter points the gun at Parker and whispers, \u201cBitch.\u201d In the second video, he can be seen shooting Parker in the torso at least four times as she runs away screaming. The camera goes dark as he fires at least another six shots. An uncut version of the same clips was also uploaded to a Facebook page listed under Williams\u2019 name.<\/p>\n
He was apparently updating the accounts while simultaneously fleeing from authorities in a gray 2009 Ford. According to the AP, state police were eventually able to run Williams off the road. He reportedly attempted to commit suicide by shooting himself but was, at least initially, unsuccessful\u2014he\u2019s reportedly in critical condition.<\/p>\n
Two WDBJ employees\u2014Alison Parker, a 24-year-old reporter, and Adam Ward, a 27-year-old cameraman\u2014were killed in the shooting. Their interview subject, Smith Mountain Lake Chamber of Commerce Vicki Gardner, was shot in the back and went into surgery. As of this afternoon, she is reportedly in stable condition.<\/p>\n
Both Parker and Ward were reportedly in romantic relationships with other WDBJ staffers.<\/p>\n
Ward was said to be engaged to a morning producer at the show who was in the control room and saw the shootings live. It was reportedly her last day at the network and the pair were planning to celebrate at a staff party later that afternoon. CNN\u2019s Brian Stelter reports they were planning to leave the station and move to Charlotte.<\/p>\n
Parker was reportedly dating Chris Hurst, an anchor at the network.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One People’s Project would like to extend our condolences to the families of Allison Parker…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5879,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.idavox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.idavox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.idavox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.idavox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.idavox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.idavox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.idavox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.idavox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.idavox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.idavox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}