Virginia Beach Mass Shooting-Suspect Shot Dead
Police investigating a part of the area where the mass shooting took place. The shooter was an employee with the city’s public works. (L. Todd Spencer/Virginian Pilot Staff)
This happened in my neck of the woods. A disgruntled employee opened fire on fellow city workers at Virginia Beach’s Municipal Center. Twelve passed away as a result of the shooting, including the gunman.
Police officers engaged in a shootout with the shooter, one of them got shot. However, the vest that the officer was wearing prevented that officer from becoming another death/serious injury. Four others were injured.
From the Virginian Pilot:
The gunfire in Virginia Beach began shortly after 4 p.m. as workers were preparing to leave for the weekend. The shooting occurred in building 2, next to City Hall near the intersection of Nimmo Parkway and Princess Anne Boulevard. The planning, public utilities, public works departments and others are located there. The three-story brick building on Courthouse Drive houses about 400 workers.
Many of the employees work out of small office spaces along long hallways. The doors are typically unlocked and open to the public.
Craddock on Friday was a current employee of the public utilities department, Cervera said. He came armed with a .45-caliber handgun with a sound suppressor on it and shot one victim in a vehicle outside before entering the building. The rest were shot inside.
He shot one person in their car, then entered a building and shot personnel on all three levels. You could read more at the Virginian Pilot.
Category: Police
Another “Gun Free Zone” gone wrong, Liberals will never learn.
My condolences to the families.
The murderer can rot in hell.
How tragic!
I’m glad to see they make a point of only identifying the shooter by name once.
Sadly, by focusing on the shooter it becomes a perverted form of celebrity and may inspire others wgi have nothing to live for.
I think this is a smart trend in the media.
Wiki does the same thing. The Wikimedia will have an entry for the shooting itself, with fact about the incident and aftermath as well as the victims. The shooter is described by name with relevant details. But the shooter does not get their own Wiki article. He exists in history as only the perpetrator of a crime and not as a person external to that act.
Unfortunately, serial killers still get their own wiki entry.
Interesting facts about DeWayne Craddock, the shooter.
He was a former member of the Virginia National Guard, serving as a cannon crew member:
https://heavy.com/news/2019/05/dewayne-craddock/
My heart goes out to the Families of the victims.
IMHO, Mental Illness plays a huge factor in mass shootings. Perhaps those Politicians who shamefully use tragedies such as this to further their political agendas, i.e. GUN CONTROL, should focus their energy and resources on combatting mental illness in our society.
Or better yet, tackle Inner-City problems, i.e. Chicago, where everyday a life is lost due to a shooting.
Again, am preaching to the Choir, but IMHO, guns don’t kill people. People kill people. Having GUN CONTROL is NOT going to stop a person with Mental Illness from killing others. Those folks will find some other way to take out their own frustrations or failure on others with another source, i.e. run over folks with a vehicle.
And those Politicians or Hollywood B Actord who keep advocating Gun Control, such as the Virginia Governor or others? Well, set the example. Get rid of your armed security. I dare them to go out in public without security guards surrounding them.
itwillneverhappen
May those Families find comfort and strength on that senseless tragedy.
So sad to see another one of these events. Since the shooter is dead and cannot be questioned about his motives, I wonder how long before CNN starts pushing the idea DeWayne was a sufferer of the PTS of D. Also, you can bet we will be hearing about “high capacity clips” from the gun haters. They will ignore the fact that his weapon, a .45 semi-auto pistol, was illegal as soon as he attached a suppressor to the barrel. But then who worries about violating gun laws when you are about to commit mass murder and shoot it out with the police?
At least the article used the term suppressor.
That will change to silencer before I finish typing.
“They will ignore the fact that his weapon, a .45 semi-auto pistol, was illegal as soon as he attached a suppressor to the barrel.”
rgr769, it might not necessarily be illegal for this guy to have owned a suppressor for his .45 cal., if he followed the regulations & was eligible to purchase & own it. In his state (Virginia), it is legal to own one.
“If silencers are legal to own in your state (this includes AL, AK, AZ, AR, CO, CT, FL, GA, ID, IN, KS, KY, LA, ME, MD, MI, MS, MO, MT, NE, NV, NH, NM, NC, ND, OH, OK, OR, PA, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VA, WA, WV, WI, and WY) pick one that fits your shotgun, handgun or rifle at your Class III arms (machine guns, etc.) dealer. Its serial number will be used for the registration process, but you won’t be able to purchase it or take it home until it is registered to you by the BATF’s NFA branch.”
More info here on what is required to be done.
I’ll never understand why people like this have to take innocent lives.
https://www.nrafamily.org/articles/2018/2/7/how-to-buy-a-suppressor/
Apparently, anyway in one report, the City of VA Beach made them illegal to possess by city ordinance. But the same article notes they are generally legal in Virginia statewide, assuming one complies with the NFA and BATF requirements.
Some media sources are saying he is a veteran. The only details I am seeing is that he was formerly in the National Guard and May have served in Germany.
I don’t know where you got the above info, but you might want to read the link AP provided above. I shows that he served for six years as an Army National Guardsman as a 13D artilleryman in the 1st Bn of the 111th FA. He was discharged in April, 2002. This info came directly from the VA National Guard. So, it is unlikely he spent any time overseas.
Even if I am three full standard deviations from the mean as far as pissed of folks that still leaves about 7,000,000 pissed barely keeping it together of men and women in this country.
There was a time I could never even imagine someone snapping like that.
Now I just wonder why the hell they decide to take innocent people with them.
I think this nation is a powder keg of very angry barely keeping together folks.
It’s clearly toxic masculinity.
That is what the progs will be screaming after “Orange Man’s fault” and blaming the inanimate objects involved. They have already started blaming the NRA.
Of course they are. I see Governor “Coon Man” Northam has weathered his storm to appear as a “leader” during this crisis.
POS being a Vet will keep this in the news a little longer, despite the fact that it wasn’t a school or church and that he didn’t have a scary black rifle.
God’s Peace be unto the Families….The perp? Rot in hell as Satan devours your murderous soul.
TYT will label him a black skinned white man.
Sigh. Spiritual Warfare on. These events can not be predicted. I lived there for a short two years. Peace to the families who must live on and make the best of it.
A few days ago, Colin Flaherty, writing over at American Thinker, provided detailed examples to rebut the media narrative that mass shootings (as determined by national crime data definition) are primarily the acts of angry white males. Flaherty offers plenty of evidence that more multiple gunshot victims fall prey to black shooters than white.
The weakness in Flaherty’s premise is that he doesn’t differentiate between impulse shootings, done mostly by blacks, and premeditated, carefully planned and prepared for shootings which do indeed seem to be carried out by white males. White shooters also tend to be the ones who pick venues where they know the victims will be unarmed by policy or law.
However, in terms of actual numbers, black mass shooters kill far more Americans annually than white perps–they just tend to do it much more frequently but with fewer victims per incident.
It’s an interesting read. Here’s the link:
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/05/the_lie_that_will_not_die_and_the_truth_about_black_mass_shooters.html
You appear to be assuming that one set is “impulse”. Since that set also appears to be often to largely unsolved, or minimally investigated, we don’t really know if it was meticulously planned, or incompetent planned, or sudden rage.
If Chicago is one such event pool, and half the population is below average (by definition) on brain-power, “planned” can be kinda poorly done by the standards of a vet list.
The news helps muddle this. There is little attention paid to certain types of mayhem. Unless a pair of three-sigma thugs hold a national capital in fear-thrall, versus say killing locals the newsies don’t know, the newsies don’t explore the details much.
And that bias is before we even get to the political stuff.
A few decades ago I read an article in the news stating that most murders are “crimes of passion”. Well duh!
Nowadays it’s delineated into specific catagories such as domestic abuse, racism,
car jackings, racism, terrorism, racism, poverty and occasionally racism.
I read a news article with a neighbor stating that the shooter was a “meathead” who pumped iron at a local gym and was absolutely “jacked.” I hope investigators and reporters zero in on this to determine if the shooter abused steroids or other illicit performance enhancing drugs. I see no correlation with six years in the VA ARNG tipping this dude into violence but the drug angle might be a contributing factor. May he be consumed in the lake of fire for eternity.
The press, for whatever reason, is not splashing this guy on every front page and screen.
Do you suppose they all, collectively and at once, came to their senses about minimizing publicity for any mass murderer?
No. However, since this is a professionally educated African American male and therefore does not fit the pro-gun-control stereotype of Old White Conservative Mass Shooter, this guy will be allowed to fade out of memory, sorta like that guy who killed the newslady and others a couple of years ago.
Yes, they got real quiet, real quick about that “aggrieved” black news spokes-hole. It’s like someone told them, “he’s dead, Jim,” and the stage went dark.
So it -was- to good to be true. (Lol)
He turns out to be a registered Democrat, according to at one news source in that area. And I found only one news article with a picture presumably of the shooter, although it was un-captioned.
Does. Not. Fit. The. Narrative.
I work for a large corporation and we had that stupid training on what to do if someone comes in shooting. Ather the video we were all looking around and the HR guy says anybody have any questions or comments? Well, you know I just had to point out the stupid so I say: ok the film says that the shooter is MOST likely an employee or recent employee right, so this here training on where to hide and all is just giving a “potential” shooter info on what we would all do – right?? Nervous laughter, uh well, that is something we hope doesn’t happen. To which I replied, you know what police departments, gun stores and the Hells Angles club house have in common? No? Well, most folks would assume the people inside would be armed. IF y’all took that stupid no concealed carry sign off the door, then maybe, just maybe, someone would think twice before coming in here to shoot the sheeple.
But, but, but we can’t allow you guys to carry, it’s against policy – yeah, and my family will own your ass after I get killed, doesn’t help me but there’s that.