Posted on 08/26/2015 12:15:31 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Gunman in Shooting of Virginia TV Reporter, Photographer Grew Up in Oakland, Graduated from San Francisco State
An Oakland Hills neighbor said that Vester Flanagan was "demure" as a child.
The man accused of killing a television reporter and photographer during a live broadcast in Virginia on Wednesday had worked in the news industry on and off for two decades, including at jobs in the Bay Area and Florida.
Vester Flanagan II, who used the name Bryce Williams professionally, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound following the attack. Within hours of the shooting, a portrait had emerged of an anchor, reporter and producer who was talented but angry and volatile.
The Northern California native was described as a disgruntled employee who WDBJ7 General Manager Jeff Marks said had been let go from the station and escorted out by police in 2013 after "many incidents of his anger coming to the fore." Still, one former neighbor from Oakland Hills recalled him being "demure" and "well-spoken." Authorities say Flanagan opened fire on two former colleagues from Roanoke CBS station WDBJ7 at close range during an interview early Wednesday, killing reporter Alison Park, 24, and cameraman Adam Ward, 27, and sending a local Chamber of Commerce official to the hospital.
Marks said Flanagan, who was employed at the station from March 2012 to February 2013, was an “unhappy man” who “quickly gathered a reputation somewhat of being difficult to work with.”
"He was sort of looking out for people to say things that he could take offense to," Marks said on his station's broadcast. "And eventually after many incidents of his anger coming to the fore, we dismissed him. And he did not take that well."
Flanagan had also filed several Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaints about what he perceived as racism in the workplace.
Flanagan grew up in Oakland and graduated from Skyline High School. He interned at KPIX in San Francisco from 1993 to 1995, the television station confirmed. His LinkedIn profile has now been taken down, as have his Twitter and Facebook accounts.
He graduated from San Francisco State University in 1995 with a degree in radio and TV, the university confirmed. He also listed on LinkedIn that he worked at PG&E as a customer service representative from 2001 to 2002. He went on to work at stations in Texas and Georgia, before landing a job as a weekend anchor and reporter at NBC affiliate WTWC in Tallahassee, Florida, according to a bio published in 2012. He worked as a reporter, anchor and producer for the weekend newscast at a North Carolina station and later joined WDBJ7 in 2012, the bio said.
Don Shafer, who hired Flanagan at WTWC in 1999, described troubling behavior during the suspected gunman's short time in Florida.
“He was a good on-air performer, a pretty good reporter and then things started getting a little strange with him,” Shafer, now news director at XETV-TV in San Diego, said in an interview with his current station. “He threatened to punch people out and was kind of running fairly rough-shot over other people in the newsroom.” Shafer said Flanagan was terminated from his contract for bizarre behavior in 2000. Soon after, Flanagan sued the station for racial discrimination.
“He was pretty difficult to work with,” Shafer said.
Flanagan appeared to turn to social media with claims of racism after the shooting, airing grievances about his colleagues and referencing a discrimination claim against his latest employer. Jarring first-person video of the attack was posted to the social media accounts, which were quickly suspended. ABC News also reported that it received a 23-page document via fax that purported to be from the suspect.
At least one longtime acquaintance of the suspect, however, said he was shocked by the news and portrayal that emerged. Flanagan's former neighbor Virgil Barker, who lives across the street from where Flanagan grew up in the Oakland Hills and later attended Skyline High School, said he was "devastated" to hear about the tragedy on television early Wednesday morning. He described a young Flanagan as "demure," "personable" and "well spoken."
"It's not like he's a monster," Barker said in an interview with NBC Bay Area. "It's just one of things where he must have snapped."
Barker said Flanagan's late mother was a school teacher and his dad, who now lives in Vallejo, California, was a salesman. His two sisters were all college-educated and became professionals, Barker said. "He came from a nice home, and had a nice family."
The on-air shooting marked the first time since 2007 that a journalist in the United States had been killed on the job or because of their work, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. The last slaying was the death of Oakland Post's Chauncey Bailey that year, as was reported by the Poynter Institute.
“———was kind of running fairly rough-shot over other people in the newsroom.”
—
Rough-shot?
Don’t they have proofreaders these days?
.
Plus, it’s odd that I hadn’t heard that ‘tidbit’ on the MSM newscasts................really................I mean really...........................
The existing Liberal monopoly of the media services are the greatest threat to this country currently in existence.
This is why the public is misinformed. This is why they didn't know better than to elect Obama.
UN-informed is more like it.............All the news they deem fits the agenda to print....................
He shot two women. That's another characteristic of killer queers. They hate women. It's not that they have no use for them, it's that they actually HATE them.
I know of a case where two queers robbed a bank, shot several women, and then tried to saw their heads off with a bowie knife.
That probably explains a lot of it. Oakland is nothing but a dysfunctional crime-ridden ghetto - despite, oddly enough, Jerry Brown’s attempts during his stint as mayor to clean it up - and SF State, never a great school, is nothing but leftist politics.
Apparently, he learned his training well.
The 'gibsmedat' was strong with this one.
True.
Doubly protected!
He obviously had trouble dealing with failure. Life humbles us all, but most of us don’t get a built-in excuse for why some of our dreams don’t come true. At some point we have to reconcile ourselves to our level of achievement and make peace with it.
LOL, they probably went to SF State.
More likely an uncomfortable silence took over whenever he entered the room, followed by hurried exits.
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