The kind of "reality TV" we can most definitely do without:
Police are closing in on a suspect who shot and killed a Virginia TV news reporter and cameraman during a live broadcast Wednesday morning.
Police in Moneta, Virginia, said they are searching for a male suspect who opened fire on reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward as the pair were delivering a live report at about 6:45 a.m. EDT. The two were employees of CBS affiliate WDBJ-TV in Roanoke, Virginia.
Parker was twenty-four. Ward had just turned twenty-seven, according to WDBJ.
Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe said an arrest of the suspect is 'imminent,' adding that police have a photo of the suspect.
“We believe it’s a disgruntled employee of the station, and they’re in pursuit,” he said on WTOP’s Ask The Governor program.
In a statement on Twitter, McAuliffe said he was “heartbroken over [the] senseless murders.”
"Disgruntled" by what, one wonders. Such (presumably former) employees typically direct their vengeful ire at their ex-bosses, not their co-workers. (And no, Zim, you don't have to start looking over your shoulder - although if you had, it would be awfully late to start doing so now.) It is, indeed, senseless, unless the shooter had hit on Miss Parker and she had told him to buzz off or something. Which wouldn't make such a grotesque overreaction any less senseless.
Fortunately, law enforcement was in hot pursuit of the suspect, one Vester Flanagan, a former WDBJ reporter, and they got the bastard:
Police pursued the suspect and in the late morning, an ABC local affiliate and CNN reported the suspected shooter had shot himself, but it was not known if he was dead or alive. The suspect was identified as Vester Flanagan, forty-one, according to a dispatcher for the Augusta County, Virginia, Sheriff’s Department.
After the shooting of the journalists, someone claiming to have filmed it posted video online that appeared to be from shooter’s vantage point.
The videos were posted to a Twitter account and on Facebook but were removed shortly afterward. One video clearly showed a handgun as the person filming approached the woman reporter.
Which should be in the hands of law enforcement and nobody else. And no, it will not be posted here. The anti-gun nuts are going to have enough of a field day with this atrocity already.
But I will say this: Of last-sights to take with me beyond the proverbial veil, this one wouldn't be on my list.
R.I.P. anyway, young ones. God willing, at His feet.
UPDATE: Vester Flanagan is dead. And very good riddance. But he did leave a manifesto that has definite "racial/sexual justice" overtones:
Someone claiming to be accused Virginia shooter Bryce Williams faxed ABC News a twenty-three-page manifesto saying his inspiration for shooting a reporter and cameraman Wednesday morning were the church shootings in Charleston, South Carolina.
“Why did I do it? I put down a deposit for a gun on 6/19/15. The church shooting in Charleston happened on 6/17/15…," the document says, referring to the shootings that left nine churchgoers dead in June inside a Charleston church....
“What sent me over the top was the church shooting. And my hollow point bullets have the victims’ initials on them," the document sent to ABC said, along with, “The church shooting was the tipping point…but my anger has been building steadily...I’ve been a human powder keg for a while…just waiting to go BOOM!!!!”....
“As for Dylann Roof? You (deleted)! You want a race war (deleted)? BRING IT THEN YOU WHITE …(deleted)!!!”
Flanagan was also, apparently, homosexual.
Expect the Lavender Lobby to launch a campaign against the "homophobic" Virginia media establishment and #BlackLivesMatter to launch riots in Roanoke in the very near future.
UPDATE: That didn't take long, did it?:
“We have got to do something about gun violence in America,” [Hillary Clinton] told reporters. “And I will take it on.”
“There’s so much evidence that if guns were not so readily available, if there were universal background checks … that maybe we could prevent this kind of carnage,” she added.
Which means Vester Flanagan would either have passed his background check and got his gun anyway, or he would have obtained illegally, bypassing background checks altogether. She knows how the process works.
But she's counting on your ignorance. A bet that has yet to be a winning one, and yet one they simply refuse to give up, and always will.
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