The Virginia Beach mass shooter was one of their own, a veteran city engineer with a building pass that allowed him to slaughter his helpless colleagues.
Authorities released the names Saturday of the dozen innocent victims, with 11 of the dead identified as city employees — just like their killer, DeWayne Craddock. The lone gunman, a 15-year city worker, was gunned down in a wild shootout with police after the Friday afternoon massacre inside a government building.
Two of the wounded survivors underwent surgery Saturday at the Sentara Beach General Hospital, including one with “devastating” gunshot wounds, said Chief of Trauma Dr. Martin O’Grady. Without going into detail, O’Grady said the two people who died Friday at the facility had little chance of survival when they were rushed to the hospital by first responders.
“The people who died suffered multiple injuries to multiple parts,” he said while declining to say how many times either victim had been shot.
In wake of the massacre, authorities and officials vowed they would publicly name the shooter only once after which “he will be forever referred to as the suspect. Our focus is on the dignity of the victims in the case and their families.”
One of the survivors brought in for a second surgery Saturday will likely require at least one more operation next week, according to O’Grady. A police officer cheated death when one of Craddock’s slugs was stopped by the cop’s bulletproof vest.
City Manager Dave Hansen identified the murder victims, many of them longtime colleagues, as he tried to explain the pain created by the sudden executions of these familiar faces.
“We want you to know who they were so in the days and weeks to come you know what they meant to all of us,” Hansen told reporters. “They leave a void we will never be able to fill.”
The victims named on identified Saturday were right-of-way agents Laquita C. Brown, Mary Louise Gayle, Alexander Mikhail Gusev, engineers Tara Welch Gallagher, Katherine A. Nixon, Richard H. Nettleton and Christopher Kelly Rapp and engineer technician Joshua A. Hardy, administrative assistant Michelle “Missy” Langer, special projects coordinator Robert “Bobby” Williams and account clerk Ryan Keith Cox. Their time of service ranged from 11 months to more than 40 years.
Herbert “Bert” Snelling, a contractor trying to get a city permit, was the 12th victim.
Police said Craddock, 40, was a certified professional engineer employed by the Virginia Beach public utilities department and carried an employee pass that gave him access to the public works building. He unleashed a hail of bullets around 4 p.m Friday on several floors of the facility with a .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun, turning his place of work into a bloody war zone.
Police said the shooter also brought extended ammunition magazines that held more bullets than normal, suggesting he sought to inflict as much damage as possible. He also had his handgun equipped with a silencer, which is legal in Virginia, but not in Virginia Beach per a local ordinance, according to the Virginia Pilot.
Additional weapons were recovered at the scene and at Craddock’s home, police said without providing specific details.
When police arrived on the scene within minutes of the first 911 call, officers launched a “long-term, large gun battle” with Craddock through the building within the city’s municipal complex, located barely the length of a football field from police headquarters.
“I can’t tell you how many minutes, I can’t tell you how many seconds,” Police Chief James Cervera said, adding that “many, many” shots were fired before the suspect was fatally struck.
Cervera said his officers went through mass shooting training on March 30, noting that while preparation is important “everything changes” when it becomes reality.
“Things change in a moment’s notice, such as the gun battle with the suspect. So we did train as recent as March 30, but officers had to make instantaneous decisions at that moment in time on how to engage the suspect,” he told reporters. “They did it, miraculously.”
Another round of training scheduled for Saturday, this one for citizens, was cancelled in the wake of the shooting. The “Active Threat Citizens Defense" was intended to “enhance preparedness for citizens to ‘rise to the occasion.’” Some topics included how to recognize a hostile situation, how to best utilize surroundings and nearby items in the event of a threat and a “no-skills needed" maneuver to combat a gunman.
“Having to face an armed individual with bad intentions is every person’s worst nightmare. You can’t stop evil, you can only respond to it,” the event description reads. “The aggressor’s actions are not your fault; failure to plan and failure to train is.”
Cervera said Craddock’s motive in the attack remains unclear and authorities would not say whether he was targeting anyone in particular.
The fatal incident in Virginia Beach Friday evening was the deadliest mass shooting in the United States since November, when a gunman opened fire inside the Borderline Bar & Grill in Thousand Oaks, Calif. He managed to kill 12 people, including a police officer, before fatally shooting himself. The latest mass shooting in the United States rocked the residents of Virginia Beach, a popular resort town with a population of around 440,000
“This is the most devastating day in the history of Virginia Beach,” Mayor Bobby Dyer said. “The people involved are our friends, coworkers, neighbors and colleagues.”
President Trump said he’d been in contact with Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam and offered his “Condolences to that great community.”
“The Federal Government is there, and will be, for whatever they may need,” he tweeted just before 11 a.m. Saturday. “God bless the families and all!”
Cervera confirmed that the FBI and Virginia State Police were on the scene and had worked through the night to identify each of the victims.
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