Update: Seven dead, including gunman, in mass shooting at Chesapeake Walmart

File Photo: Gephardt Daily

ROANOKE, Virginia, Nov. 23 (UPI/Gephardt Daily) — At least seven people were killed, including the suspected gunman, in a mass shooting late Tuesday at a Chesapeake, Va., Walmart.

The City of Chesapeake announced the death toll early Wednesday, hours after a gunman opened fire at a Walmart Supercenter on Sam’s Circle in the city of some 251,000 people located about 100 miles southeast of Richmond near Norfolk and Virginia’s east coast.

Leo Kosinski, public information officer with the Chesapeake Police Department, confirmed in an earlier press conference that the gunman had been killed.

Asked if the suspect had died in a police-involved shooting, Kosinski said: “I don’t believe so, but I can’t say that for sure.”

Officers responded to a call of a shooting at the shopping center shortly before 10:15 p.m. Tuesday.

When officers arrived, they confronted an unfolding active threat situation and adopted “an active threat response,” Kosinski said, adding the officers conducted a tactical entrance of the building and located “multiple fatalities and multiple injured persons.”

The injured have been transported to area hospitals, he said.

Authorities believe there was only one shooter.

“We are shocked at this tragic event at our Chesapeake, Va., store,” a Walmart spokesperson told UPI in a statement. “We’re praying for those impacted, the community and our associates.”

The Washington Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said they were en route to assist in the investigation.

The City of Chesapeake had earlier confirmed via Twitter that there had been “an active shooter incident” at the Walmart, resulting in multiple fatalities.

The shooting comes more than a week after a gunman fatally shot three University of Virginia football players and wounded two others on campus the night of Nov. 14. Christopher Darnell Jones Jr. has been arrested and charged for their murders.

“I am absolutely heartbroken that America’s latest mass shooting took place in a Walmart in my district in Chesapeake, Virginia, tonight,” State Sen. Louise Lucas, a Democrat, said in a statement. “I will not rest until we find the solutions to end this gun violence epidemic in our country that has taken so many lives.”

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., said he was “sickened by reports of yet another mass shooting.”

“Enough is enough,” Rep. Elaine Luria, D-Va., tweeted.

The city said a reunification site has been established at the Chesapeake Conference Center for immediate family members or the emergency contacts of those who may have been at the Walmart during the shooting.

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