Disgruntled employee kills 12 colleagues in deadliest US shooting this year
A shooter opened fire at his office in Virginia Beach, killing 12 people A long-time disgruntled em..
A long-time disgruntled employee opened fire at a local government building in the US state of Virginia, killing 12 people.
Four others were wounded in the attack, including a police officer whose bulletproof vest saved his life.
The shooting happened shortly after 4pm local time when the employee of the public utilities department entered a building at the Virginia Beach Municipal Centre.
Local police the gunman, armed with a .45-caliber pistol, immediately began to indiscriminately fire upon all of the victims.
Virginia Beach Police Chief James Cervera said officers entered the building and evacuated as many employees as they could before they exchanged fire with the gunman.
He said there was a long gun battle between those four officers and the suspect before the shooter was killed at the scene.
His name has not been released.
Officials said they would say his name once and later he will forever be known as the suspect out of respect for the dead.
Eyewitness Megan Banton, who works in a building across from where the shooting occurred, said: We just heard people yelling and screaming to get down.
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We put the desk up against the door because we didnt know if they were coming in.
We were just hoping that it would be over soon and then we heard the cops yelling up the steps.
She added: We tried to do everything we could to keep everybody safe.
We were all just terrified. It felt like it wasnt real, like we were in a dream. You are just terrified because all you can hear is the gunshots.
The mass shooting is the deadliest in the US since November 2018, when a dozen people were killed in a Los Angeles are bar and grill.