A shooting at a Walmart in Chesapeake, Va., on Tuesday night left several people dead and wounded, though the exact numbers were not immediately known, police said. The shooter was among the dead, officials said.
Officers responded to a report of a shooting at the store around 10:15 p.m. ET, and as soon as they arrived they found evidence of a shooting, Chesapeake police public information officer Leo Kosinski said in a briefing.
Over 35 to 40 minutes, officers found multiple dead people and injured people in the store and put rescue and tactical teams together to go inside to tend to victims, he said.
Police believe there was one shooter, who is dead, he said. They believe that the shooting had stopped when police arrived, Kosinski said. He did not have a number of dead, but said it was "less than 10, right now."
Kosinski said he doesn't believe police fired shots, but he could not say whether the shooter was dead of a self-inflicted gunshot.
Chesapeake is about 11 kilometres south of Norfolk.
"We are shocked at this tragic event at our Chesapeake, Virginia store," Walmart tweeted early Wednesday. "We're praying for those impacted, the community and our associates. We're working closely with law enforcement, and we are focused on supporting our associates," the tweet said.
Days after Colorado nightclub shooting
Mike Kafka, a spokesman for Sentara Healthcare, said in a text message that five patients from the Walmart are being treated at Norfolk General Hospital. Their conditions weren't immediately available.
The Virginia shooting comes three days after a person opened fire at a gay nightclub in Colorado, killing five people and wounding 17. That shooter, who is non-binary, was arrested after patrons at the club tackled and beat them. The shootings come in a year when the country was shaken by the deaths of 21 in a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
U.S. Sen. Mark Warner tweeted that he is "sickened by reports of yet another mass shooting, this time at a Walmart in Chesapeake."
Sickened by reports of yet another mass shooting, this time at a Walmart in Chesapeake. I’ll be monitoring developments closely.
In the meantime, I urge all those in the community to listen to guidance from local law enforcement and stay away from the scene.
—Tuesday's shooting also brought back memories of another shooting at a Walmart in 2019, when a gunman police say was targeting Mexicans opened fire at a store in El Paso, Texas, and killed 22 people. Walmart didn't have a security guard on duty that day.
