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Two Virginia television journalists fatally shot in on-air attack[READ OP]

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L

Lonestar

I joined for Erin Brockovich discussion
Krejlooc said:
Today was her last day. She and her fiance were moving to another city to start a new life. They had a party planned for her when she got back to the station.

Her fiance watched her die on camera from the news room. He's a director there.
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Was it her last day, or Ward's? Reading that his fiance was shortly about to start a new job in Charlotte, and he had already mentioned "getting out of news."

Unless both were shortly about to go....goddammit
 
R

Resident_UA

Member
Russian "news" media isn't wasting any time... I purposefully cut off capture where you can see the gun.

While photos are everywhere, video of brutal shootings of journalists can be found here
Click to expand...

xBT0mW6.png
 
K

Krejlooc

Banned
Zoe said:
You're getting the people mixed up.

The reporter was the girlfriend/fiance of one of the anchors. They just moved in together.

The cameraman was engaged to a producer who accepted a job in Charlotte. Today was the producer's (and his?) last day.
Click to expand...

Oh I see now.

This is all so incredibly tragic
 
C

captjohnboyd

Member
Krejlooc said:
Today was her last day. She and her fiance were moving to another city to start a new life. They had a party planned for her when she got back to the station.

Her fiance watched her die on camera from the news room. He's a director there.
Click to expand...

Is that correct? when I watched the stations live stream earlier this AM they said the camera man was the one who was moving and they threw the party for his fiancee who had just been hired at another job.

The reporter was only living with and dating a coworker
 
W

wrestleman

Member
Some information on his 'racial comments' tweet:

On WDBJ, Jeff Marks (GM of the station) was explaining Bryce Williams' (Vester Flanagan) time at the station, and explained that he seemed easily angered and would report people frequently -- the EEOC investigated his reports and all the employees were investigated and questioned over the comments Williams alleged that his colleagues made, and found no corroboration from anyone else at the station, which included several employees of the same ethnicity as Williams, who would have also been working with the people he accused. They dismissed the reports, and (this part may be iffy, it's been a bit since this was discussed on the air) Williams was let go some time later for his anger issues, and had to be escorted off the premises by police at the request of WDBJ.

captjohnboyd said:
Is that correct? when I watched the stations live stream earlier this AM they said the camera man was the one who was moving and they threw the party for his fiancee who had just been hired at another job.

The reporter was only living with and dating a coworker
Click to expand...

Correct.
 
C

Cardigan

Member
Krejlooc said:
No, the camera man had a fiance as well, but her fiance (or maybe just boyfriend) was there and they were leaving. He was posting on twitter earlier.
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No, the girl was dating a guy at the station. They just moved in together but were not engaged. You have it mixed up.
 
Zabant

Zabant

Member
I'm not gonna link TMZ but they're saying it's racial.
He said;

-- Claims producer called him a "monkey"
-- Claims an "official" joked about a black murder suspect with gold and green grillz, saying he had "collared greens" stuck in his teeth
-- Claims he heard a manager tell another black employee to "stop talking ebonics."
Click to expand...
 
G

gabbo

Member
Mark5130 said:
I wish I hadn't watched the second POV video that was posted. Absolutely terrifying. My question, though, is how did the two women not notice him standing there with a gun pointed at them? It's not like it was over in a split second.
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I haven't seen the video, but I'd think unless he's within peripheral view of either of them, it would just be background noise to you mind
 
A

Ayt

Banned
Maninthemirror said:
If the death of dozens of 6 year olds by guns in one event doesn't move the needle, nothing will.
Click to expand...

As sick as it is to a think about, a POV live stream of a similar event might change things and we very well could be living in a world where that is inevitable.
 
C

Christoff Yurievich

Member
ShockingAlberto said:
There's a lot of redundancies in place to ensure people get fair trials. This is one of them, even if it's blatantly obvious.

I'd rather have it there than not.
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True. The emotions of the day are winning this round right now as far as 'fair' goes.

protomouse said:
Your username is oddly fitting. They do this as to not affect public judgement.
Click to expand...

Would you believe me if I said I made the word up? It was a portmanteau of where I was going for college and a random word because I needed to make an AOL account back in 1995. And then it turns out to be a real word.
 
A

antonz

Member
3rd victim looks to be doing ok. The only positive news that will come out of this

Vicki Gardner, #WDBJ shooting victim, in stable condition after surgery, Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital says
Click to expand...
 
R

_Ryo_

Member
This is horrifying.
As a citizen of Virginia, it's doubly so.
And as someone who has frequented Smith Mountain Lake plenty of times, it's just impossibly fucked up.

We need gun control, badly. I mean, it's easy as fuck for anyone to get a gun as they sell them all the time at yard sales and flea markets and there is no background check and you don't even have to have a license and apparently it's completely legal to sell this way due to some stupid loophole. Have cash, get gun. Simple as that. Fucking insane.
 
Y

Yrael

Member
I'm glad to hear that the interviewee is in a stable condition now.

Daft_Cat said:
I apologize. I shouldn't have picked on you or worded my thoughts in such an inflammatory way. I'm usually pretty good about keeping a cool head, but reading that post back... it was sort of mean.

My intent was just to highlight that as horrifying as watching that video is, it's only a sliver of what the people involved felt. That's still an important sliver, though ... for some, that might be enough to personalize the issue and generate a degree of empathy on an emotional rather than purely rational level. An image is worth a thousand words, I suppose.

You're right though -- for others, it might be traumatic past the point of any usefulness.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the apology (and my apologies too for snapping at you). :)
 
Interfectum

Interfectum

Member
My god, that video from the shooter's perspective... he waits for the live camera to face the reporter before shooting her. He just stood there and waited. wtf
 
B

Blader

Member
Ayt said:
As sick as it is to a think about, a POV live stream of a similar event might change things and we very well could be living in a world where that is inevitable.
Click to expand...

There is no breaking point anymore. Gun attitudes will never change in any meaningful way.
 
P

protomouse

Member
Jackpot said:
It's tragic, but in the grand scheme of things, no it is not. Gun murders happen literally every day in the US. Outside of the novelty of "live killing on-air", what are the wider implications of this that warrant international coverage?

Let's face it, we know why. It's because this is the first time that people can get to feel as if they were there by watching the video.
Click to expand...

No, it's certainly big outside of the morbidity aspect, and I can guarantee you that it is much larger than anything that happens in our country. We just don't get the kind of gun violence that goes on in the US, especially not an on-air execution in broad daylight. The only outlier (and far so) in post-war times is Anders Breivik.
 
M

MGrant

Member
wrestleman said:
Some information on his 'racial comments' tweet:

On WDBJ, Jeff Marks (GM of the station) was explaining Bryce Williams' (Vester Flanagan) time at the station, and explained that he seemed easily angered and would report people frequently -- the EEOC investigated his reports and all the employees were investigated and questioned over the comments Williams alleged that his colleagues made, and found no corroboration from anyone else at the station, which included several employees of the same ethnicity as Williams, who would have also been working with the people he accused. They dismissed the reports, and (this part may be iffy, it's been a bit since this was discussed on the air) Williams was let go some time later for his anger issues, and had to be escorted off the premises by police at the request of WDBJ.
Click to expand...

Figures. Dude had anger issues, didn't have enough empathy to realize that this was his problem, convinced himself that the reason people didn't like him was because of his race. Being escorted out by police doesn't necessarily mean anything, though. Everyone had to be escorted out by security when they left my last job, just as a matter of protocol.
 
Clockwork

Clockwork

Member
Based on his history (conflict/allegations at multiple jobs but no wrongdoing found when investigated) is it possible the guy was schizophrenic and it was mostly in his head?
 
K

Krejlooc

Banned
Jackpot said:
How was this a major shooting?



It's tragic, but in the grand scheme of things, no it is not. Gun murders happen literally every day in the US. Outside of the novelty of "live killing on-air", what are the wider implications of this that warrant international coverage?

Let's face it, we know why. It's because this is the first time that people can get to feel as if they were there by watching the video.
Click to expand...

Yo - AGAIN - there are friends of the victim in this topic. Arguing the degree to which their deaths matter is insensitive as fuck. Have some respect.
 
S

Squalor

Junior Member
jmizzal said:
wow he was that close to her
Click to expand...
And it's not even as though it were a split-second situation. He stood around and looked around for a few seconds before he fired.

It was crazy. Really felt like a first-person shooter, but it was real life, and it was absolutely disturbing.
 
B

bedlamite

Member
_Ryo_ said:
We need gun control, badly. I mean, it's easy as fuck for anyone to get a gun as they sell them all the time at yard sales and flea markets and there is no background check and you don't even have to have a license and apparently it's completely legal to sell this way due to some stupid loophole. Have cash, get gun. Simple as that. Fucking insane.
Click to expand...
If Sandy Hook didn't change anything, this shooting most likely won't either, unfortunately.
 
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