A jury in Los Angeles found rapper Tory Lanez guilty on all 3 counts in the 2020 shooting that wounded music star Megan Thee Stallion. CBS News legal contributor Jessica Levinson joins Catherine Herridge with more on the breaking news.
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A 19-year-old man was shot and killed Friday night during an altercation inside a Nordstrom store at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, authorities said. The shooting prompted a more than one-hour lockdown.
Bloomington Police Chief Booker Hodges told reporters in a late-night news briefing that an officer heard the gunshots coming from the first floor of the Nordstrom at about 7:50 p.m. local time. The officer responded to find the victim with multiple gunshot wounds.
The victim died at the scene despite lifesaving efforts, Hodges said. His name was not immediately provided.
According to Hodges, surveillance video showed that the shooting appeared to have been precipitated by “some kind of altercation between two groups” of males. One of them then pulled out a gun and opened fire.
The jacket of a woman, who Hodges described as “an innocent bystander,” was also grazed by a bullet, but she was unhurt.
An officer stands inside Nordstrom at the Mall of America after a shooting on Dec. 23, 2022, in Bloomington, Minnesota.
Abbie Parr / AP
No suspects have yet been arrested, Hodges disclosed. About five to seven people ran out of the store following the shooting.
“We’re in the process of identifying suspects,” Hodges said.
The mall was placed on lockdown after the shots were fired, during which customers and employees were asked to “remain in the closest secure location.” The lockdown was lifted a little after 9 p.m. local time.
This marks the second time in past five months the Mall of America has been placed on lockdown due to a shooting. On Aug. 4, shots were fired near the cash registers of a Nike store, but no injuries occurred.
The shooting caused chaos, sending panicked customers and employees running for safety. Hodges said at the time that there had also been an altercation between two groups. One of the groups left, but then returned, and one person fired three shots into the store, Hodges said.
Two men suspected of being involved in the shooting were arrested days later following a multiagency manhunt. Three others were also arrested, accused of helping the two men escape.
The mall began testing the use of a “weapons detection system” at its north entrance in October, according to CBS Minnesota.
BLOOMINGTON, Minn. (AP) — The Mall of America announced it was lifting a lockdown after Minnesota police responded to a reported shooting on Friday.
The Bloomington Police Department tweeted shortly after 8:15 p.m. that police and emergency medical crews were on the scene of a shooting at the mall. The lockdown lasted for about an hour before the mall tweeted that shoppers were being sent outside.
Police did not immediately provide details on whether anyone was injured or arrested.
Mall of America is now lifting lockdown. Guests should now exit the property. Mall of America remains closed for the evening. Please stay tuned for an additional statement.
Videos posted on social media show shoppers hiding in stores, and an announcement in the mall warned people to seek shelter. Some videos show shoppers running for cover after a loud bang is heard. The reported shooting comes as shopping centers and malls across the U.S. see an influx of customers just days before Christmas.
The reported shooting comes as shopping centers and malls across the U.S. see an influx of customers just days before Christmas.
Jenny Hefty of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and her 16-year-old daughter had just gotten off the escalator up to the mall’s second floor, right in front of the Nordstrom store, when people started running toward them and screaming. Her daughter thought she heard gunshots, although Hefty did not.
“At first we thought they were just messing around,” she told The Associated Press on Friday night. “It was like ‘why are all these kids running by us?’”
Retailers began shutting their doors and her husband told them to run as armed guards rushed toward Nordstrom, where Hefty had been trying perfume about 20 minutes earlier.
The trio raced to their hotel in the mall complex and frantically tried to reach the couple’s 18-year-old daughter, 21-year-old son and their friends on their cellphones. They had been shut inside stores or whisked into safer spots as the mall locked down.
The family, which often travels the four hours to the mall, was in town for the Minnesota Vikings football game against the New York Giants on Saturday.
“Of course we wanted to come early and do some Christmas shopping,” Hefty said.
BREAKING: Mall of America has been locked down after a reported shooting. This video from Nordstrom, posted by Jovonta Patton to his verified social media feeds, shows the moment the shots rang out. @KARE11pic.twitter.com/aBQkwRwOZt
The Mall of America confirmed the lockdown on its Twitter account and asked shoppers to remain in “the closest secure location.”
Mall officials said on Twitter that the lockdown was lifted later on Friday.
Since it opened in 1992, the mall has been the largest in the U.S. and is a tourist destination and community gathering spot. It bans guns on the premises but does not have metal detectors at its entrances.
The mall was placed on lockdown in August after a reported shooting at the suburban Minneapolis shopping complex sent some shoppers running for cover and two people were wounded last New Year’s Eve during an apparent altercation.
Representatives from the city of Bloomington and the Mall of America did not immediately return requests for comment.
On Friday, a Los Angeles jury found the rapper Tory Lanez guilty of shooting Megan Thee Stallion. Megan accused Lanez of shooting her in the feet in July 2020 following an argument between them that took place in an SUV, and prosecutors brought gun and assault charges against the Canadian rapper. During eight days of testimony, Megan offered an emotional account of the night of the fight and said that Lanez offered her and her former friend and assistant Kelsey Harris, who was also in the car, $1 million not to speak out. Lanez’s attorneys tried to position Harris as the shooter, and Lanez declined to testify. Lanez faces up to 22 years and 8 months in prison after being convicted on all three counts in the case.
In a statement, Los Angeles district attorney George Gascón pointed to the backlash Megan has received since going public with her accusation. “You showed incredible courage and vulnerability with your testimony despite repeated and grotesque attacks that you did not deserve,” he said. “You faced unjust and despicable scrutiny that no woman should ever face and you have been an inspiration to others across La County and the nation.”
“The jury got it right,” Megan’s attorney Alex Spiro said. “I am thankful there is justice for Meg.”
In her testimony last week, Megan largely repeated what she’s said in interviews and on social media about what happened on the night of the shooting. In her telling, an ongoing conflict over the course of an evening–the group had been coming from a pool party at Kylie Jenner’s home–escalated after Lanez said in the car that he had had sexual relationships with both Megan and Harris. She said the argument turned towards the state of the two rappers’ careers. “Tory was basically telling me I wasn’t shit,” she testified, “and I said, ‘Actually, You ain’t shit. This is where you at in your career. This is where you at with your music.’ And I feel like that really rubbed him the wrong way.” Then, according to Megan, she exited the vehicle, and Lanez yelled, “Dance, bitch!” and began shooting at her.
During his cross-examination of Megan, Lanez’s attorney George Mgdesyan tried to discredit her account by eliciting an admission that she lied in an interview with Gayle King when she said that she hadn’t had a sexual relationship with Lanez. Mgdesyan also asked why Megan had initially said she had stepped on glass, which Megan addressed in her testimony. “This was the height of police brutality and George Floyd, and if I said this man just shot me, I didn’t know if they might shoot first and ask questions later,” she told the jury. “In the Black community, in my community,” she continued, “it’s not really acceptable to be cooperating with police officers.” Megan also testified that as a woman in her industry, “people have a hard time believing you anyway.”
The defense effort was not enough to sway a jury against Megan’s account of the night. As prosecutor Alexander Bott said during his closing remarks on Wednesday: “If you believe Megan, that’s enough.”
Mgdesyan said Friday evening that Lanez may file an appeal. “We are shocked by the verdict. There was not sufficient evidence to convict Mr. Peterson,” the attorney said in a statement, Page Six reported. “We believe this case was not proven beyond a reasonable doubt. We will be exploring all options including an appeal.”
The jury’s decision marked the end of a trial surrounded by online contention and, in some cases, the proliferation of false rumors about the case. On Thursday, just after the jury began deliberating, several prominent hip-hop outlets and bloggers sent out tweets claiming that a verdict had been reached finding Lanez not guilty on two charges, only to retract them after it quickly emerged that the jury was on lunch break. An NBC News report this week explored how a crop of gossip bloggers had shaped the tenor of social media discussion around the trial. “It’s been very clear, as I’ve seen entertainment and gossip spaces commenting on the case, that she has been set up as someone who is out for herself, lying, and problematic in all these ways,” Catherine Knight Steele, a University of Maryland communications professor, told the outlet. “This points to the way that mis- and disinformation, and misogynoir, is trafficked because of its profitability, even in the Black community. It’s profitable for these sites to traffic in the most vile stereotypes about Black women.”
The dynamic in some ways echoed Megan’s description of the attacks she said she has faced since accusing Lanez. “If I would have known that coming out and speaking my truth would come with people agreeing with me being shot,” she testified last week, “if I would have known, I would have started to lose my confidence.”
Lanez is scheduled to be sentenced on January 27. He could also be deported following his conviction.
A shooting targeting a Kurdish cultural center in a bustling Paris neighborhood Friday left three people dead and three others wounded, authorities said. A 69-year-old suspect was wounded and arrested.
The Paris prosecutor’s office opened an investigation for murder and attempted murder. The Paris prosecutor said the suspect had a prior police record, including an arrest for attacking migrants living in tents, and that investigators are considering a possible racist motive for the shooting.
The shooting occurred at midday at a Kurdish cultural center and a restaurant and hairdresser nearby, according to the mayor for the 10th arrondissement, Alexandra Cordebard. Speaking to reporters at the scene, she said the “real motivation″ for the shooting remains unclear.
As she spoke, a crowd nearby chanted, “Erdogan, terrorist” — referring to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan — and “Turkish state, assassin.”
A police officers guards the crime scene where a shooting took place in Paris, Friday, Dec. 23, 2022. aMultiple people have been wounded and one person arrested after a shooting in central Paris on Friday, authorities said.
Lewis Joly / AP
Police cordoned off the area in the 10th arrondissement of the French capital, on a busy street with shops and restaurants near the Gare de l’Est train station. The shooting came at a time when Paris is buzzing with activity before the Christmas weekend. The Paris police department warned people to stay away from the area.
Paris Prosecutor Laure Beccuau said three people hit in the shooting have died, one is in critical condition and two others are hospitalized with less serious injuries. The attacker was also wounded in the face, she said.
She said anti-terrorism prosecutors are in contact with investigators, but haven’t indicated any sign of a terrorist motive.
In 2013, three women Kurdish activists, including Sakine Cansiz — a founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK — were found shot dead at a Kurdish center in Paris. A Turkish citizen was charged with their killing, although suspicion also fell on the Turkish intelligence service.
Turkey’s army has been battling against Kurdish militants affiliated with the banned PKK, in southeast Turkey as well as in northern Iraq. Turkey’s military has also recently launched a series of strikes from the air and with artillery against Syrian Kurdish militant targets in northern Syria. The PKK is considered a terrorist organization in Turkey, Europe and the United States, and has led an armed insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984.
France was hit by a string of deadly attacks by Islamic extremists in 2015-2016 and remains on alert for terrorism-related violence.
A Los Angeles jury reached a verdict Friday in the trial of rapper Tory Lanez, who is accused of shooting Megan Thee Stallion in the feet in 2020. Lanez, whose real name is Daystar Peterson, could face more than 22 years in prison and deportation back to Canada if convicted on all counts.
The Los Angeles County Superior Court said the verdict would be read shortly.
Lanez, 30, has been charged with discharging a firearm with gross negligence, assault with a semiautomatic firearm and carrying a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle.
Megan Thee Stallion, whose real name is Megan Pete, testified that Lanez shot at her feet five times following a party in the Hollywood Hills on July 12, 2020. She also told the court that the shooting was preceded by an argument between Megan and Lanez that got heated, especially when they began attacking each other’s music careers.
“I feel like that really rubbed him the wrong way,” she said during her testimony, according to The Associated Press. “He kept yelling and cursing.”
She got out of the vehicle and tried to walk away when Lanez leaned out and opened fire, she said, leaving the back of her feet wounded. At one point, he yelled “Dance, b—-!” she testified. She eventually got back into the car, which was pulled over shortly after, CBS Los Angeles reported.
Megan Thee Stallion, whose legal name is Megan Pete, makes her way to the courthouse in Los Angeles on Dec. 13, 2022, to testify in the trial of rapper Tory Lanez for allegedly shooting her in 2020.
Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
She said that, despite the shooting, she agreed to get back in the vehicle with Lanez, his bodyguard and a third person because she was wearing a thong bikini and also felt like her manager would know what to do if she was able to get in touch with him, according to CBS Los Angeles.
She also testified that Lanez had offered her $1 million to keep quiet about the incident since he was on probation, but a lawyer for Lanez stated that wasn’t true.
“The argument was with the two people in the back seat,” she said. “So I asked the driver to pull the car over. Like, I’m done with this. And I should have stayed out of the car. Like, I should have not got back in the car. And they was like, ‘Megan, just get back in the car. We’re almost there.’ And, like, just, ‘Get back in.’ So I get back in the car. It’s… getting worse.”
As the argument escalated, Megan Thee Stallion said she got out of the car, and that’s when, she told King, that Lanez fired a gun at her several times.
“So I get out of the car and it’s like everything happens so fast,” Megan Thee Stallion told King. “And all I hear is this man screaming. And he said, ‘Dance, b—-!’ And he started shooting. And I’m just like, ‘Oh, my God.’ Like, he shot a couple of times. And I was so scared.”
A journalist finds herself in a game of cat and mouse with a skilled former attorney dogged by mayhem and suspicions of murder. Why do bad things happen to the men in Catherine Shelton’s life? Follow “48 Hours” contributor Jenna Jackson’s quest for answers.
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A journalist finds herself in a game of cat and mouse with a skilled former attorney dogged by mayhem and suspicions of murder. Why do bad things happen to the men in Catherine Shelton’s life? “48 Hours” contributor Jenna Jackson reports.
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On Tuesday morning in Los Angeles, Megan Thee Stallion took the witness stand in Tory Lanez’s shooting trial. In the two-plus years since the altercation that took place after a pool party at Kylie Jenner’s Los Angeles home in July 2020, the rapper has given her account of the night on multiple occasions in interviews and on social media, claiming that Lanez shot at her feet outside of an SUV. Now, with Lanez pleading not guilty on three assault and gun charges related to the alleged shooting, she said she was disturbed to be telling the story again.
“I just don’t feel good,” Megan said as she began her testimony, according to Rolling Stone. A prosecutor had asked if she was nervous. “I can’t believe I have to come up here and do this.”
Megan arrived at the courthouse in a purple Sergio Hudson suit and was greeted by a small group of supporters holding a sign reading, “I Stand With Megan,” the Los Angeles Timesreported.
In her testimony, she went on to recount the details of how the fight between her and Lanez began. Megan said that while she, Lanez, and her former friend and assistant Kelsey Harris were in the car, Lanez revealed that he and Megan had had a sexual relationship. “Because I knew Kelsey had a crush on Tory, I didn’t want to hurt her feelings,” she reportedly testified, “and I didn’t want her to know that I had dealt with him in any kind of way.”
As the fight escalated, Megan said, they began arguing about the state of their rap careers. “Tory was basically telling me I wasn’t shit,” she testified, according to Rolling Stone, “and I said, ‘Actually, You ain’t shit. This is where you at in your career. This is where you at with your music.’ And I feel like that really rubbed him the wrong way.”
Megan said she began walking away from the car and that Lanez said, “Dance, bitch!” before shooting her in the feet. She testified that Lanez immediately tried to cover his tracks: “He’s saying, ‘Please don’t say anything. I’ll give y’all a million dollars. I can’t go to jail. I already got caught with a gun before.’”
The rapper testified that she initially told police she stepped on glass. “This was the height of police brutality and George Floyd, and if I said this man just shot me, I didn’t know if they might shoot first and ask questions later,” she said, according to Rolling Stone. “In the Black community, in my community,” she went on, “it’s not really acceptable to be cooperating with police officers.” Megan also testified that as a woman in her industry, “people have a hard time believing you anyway.”
The trial is expected to last until the beginning of next week. Lanez faces more than 22 years in prison if convicted on all charges.
Hillman, 30, was a chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear specialist who had joined the Army in February 2015, the Fort Stewart Public Affairs Office said in a statement. In July 2021, Hillman was assigned to the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, also known as the Spartan Brigade, which is based out of Fort Stewart.
An undated photo of Sgt. Nathan Hillman in uniform.
Fort Stewart Public Affairs Office
Monday’s shooting took place inside the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team complex on the military base, which is located near the city of Hinesville. Law enforcement arrived on scene just after 10 a.m. local time. A suspect was taken into custody, but their identity has not yet been released. No information on a motive has been shared, and the investigation into the shooting is ongoing.
“On Monday morning, the Spartan family lost one of our own in a tragic and unexpected way,” Col. Ethan J. Diven, commander of the Spartan Brigade, said in a statement. “With deepest sorrow our hearts are with the families and units involved in the incident. Providing support to the impacted families and soldiers is our first priority. We are working closely with the Fort Stewart military police and U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division.”
Hillman’s home of record, the public affairs office said, was Plum, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh. He had had one deployment to Afghanistan, and had been awarded two Army Commendation Medals, two Army Achievement Medals, and the Air Assault Badge.
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In August 2020, Megan Thee Stallion addressed a story that had been circulating for the last month. Tabloids and gossip sites were stringing together details of an alleged shooting that took place after a party at Kylie Jenner’s Los Angeles home. The rapper Tory Lanez was arrested on a concealed-weapons charge, and Page Six reported the most explosive account: that Lanez had shot Megan in the foot amid an altercation that took place around an SUV. On Instagram, Megan claimed that the substance of it was true, and in the coming months, prosecutors brought assault and gun charges against Lanez.
The legal matter dragged on for the next two years after Lanez pleaded not guilty to all the charges, but Megan’s ascent to Grammy awards and Billboard hits amplified the aftermath, and the case continued to attract periodic waves of public attention. Eachrapper released music making reference to it, as social media pages and YouTube channels debated the available evidence. Megan offered further details in an interview with Gayle King, and wrote an essay for TheNew York Times focusing on how her experience fit into the broader context of violence against Black women.
On Monday morning, the alleged shooting arrived in front of a Los Angeles jury. As Rolling Stonereported, the prosecution began its case by establishing in opening arguments that Kelsey Harris, a former best friend and assistant of Megan who was at the scene of the alleged shooting, would offer testimony that confirms Megan’s account. “Kelsey will tell you that she just saw her close friend get shot by the defendant,” assistant district attorney Alexander Bott reportedly told jurors. Bott went on to say that Megan will testify that Lanez shouted “Dance, bitch!” before shooting at her.
Lanez’s legal battles deepened in September after the R&B singer August Alsinaclaimed on Instagram that the rapper assaulted him in Chicago. No charges over the allegation have been filed, but prosecutors argued in a pretrial hearing that Lanez violated his bail conditions, as TMZ reported, and Judge David Herriford placed him on house arrest before releasing him last week in anticipation of the trial proceedings.
In his opening remarks on Monday, Lanez’s attorney George Mgdesyan said that Megan was the only person at the scene who heard Lanez say “Dance, bitch,” according to Rolling Stone. The lawyer reportedly said that on the night of the alleged shooting, Megan resented the time Lanez was spending with Jenner, and that Corey Gamble, the boyfriend of Jenner’s mother Kris, would testify about seeing an argument begin at Jenner’s home. Continuing his statement, Mgdesyan claimed that Harris had been the one to discharge the gun after Lanez revealed in the car that he had a sexual relationship with Megan in addition to the one he had with Harris. (According to Mgdesyan, Harris claimed that this meant Megan had crossed her for the third time in this way, after parallel romantic conflicts broke out over the rapper DaBaby and the NBA player Ben Simmons.)
While Lanez has never assembled the kind of mainstream profile that Megan has occupied over the past few years, he’s built a steady following, and to some degree retained it amid the aftermath of the alleged shooting. In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, his Quarantine Radio series on Instagram Live turned him into a breakout star of the social-media-centered entertainment ecosystem that sprung out of the moment. Lanez no longer has a major label deal—he and Interscope Records parted ways in February 2020—and in his post alleging that Lanez beat him up, Alsina wrote, “Dude has no real friends, and is on a crash out mission.” But he continues to release music independently, and appeared on The Breakfast Club in September to discuss a new album. In his public comments about the alleged shooting, Lanez has described Megan as a jealous ex who framed him. (Megan told Gayle King that she and Lanez haven’t had a sexual relationship.) In February, amid a spate of reports and legal developments in the case, Megan posted a screenshot of a death threat she had received on social media.
“I want him to go to jail. I want him to go under the jail,” Megan toldRolling Stone in June. “I feel like you’ve already tried to break me enough. You’ve already shot me. So, why are you dragging it out like this? Like, what else? Have you hated me this much the whole time and I didn’t see it?”
If convicted on all counts, Lanez faces up to 22 years and eight months in prison. The trial is expected to last between five and seven days.
A 33-year-old man was arrested on a murder charge in the shooting of rapper Takeoff, who police on Friday said was an “innocent bystander” when he was struck by gunfire outside a Houston bowling alley.
Patrick Xavier Clark was taken into custody peacefully Thursday night, Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said. Clark’s arrest came one day after another man was charged in connection with the Nov. 1 shooting, which authorities said followed a dispute over a dice game and wounded two other people.
Clark was being held in jail Friday awaiting a bond hearing. Court records do not list an attorney who could speak for him, but indicate he was arrested as he was preparing to leave the country for Mexico.
This image provided by the Houston Police Dept., shows Patrick Xavier Clark, 33, who has been arrested in the fatal shooting of rapper Takeoff. (Houston Police Dept. via AP).
Born Kirsnick Khari Ball, Takeoff was the youngest member of Migos, the Grammy-nominated rap trio from suburban Atlanta that also featured his uncle Quavo and cousin Offset.
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The 28-year-old musician was shot outside the downtown bowling alley at around 2:30 a.m., when police said a dispute erupted as more than 30 people were leaving a private party there. Police previously said another man and a woman suffered non-life-threatening gunshot injuries and that at least two people opened fired.
Police Sgt. Michael Burrow said during a Friday news conference that the gunfire followed a disagreement over a “lucrative” game of dice, but that Takeoff was not involved and was “an innocent bystander.” Finner said police do not know whether Clark was invited to the party or if he knew Takeoff.
Every person on the scene left without talking to police, Burrow said. Some of those people have since been located by the authorities, who have also worked to piece together events with ballistics, video and audio recordings, according to Burrow. He said investigators are still trying to track down witnesses.
“We will be looking to find you,” he said. “It will be easier if you come find us.”
On Wednesday, authorities announced the arrest of Cameron Joshua in connection to the shooting. Joshua was charged with illegally having a gun at the time Takeoff was shot, but prosecutors said the 22-year-old is not believed to have fired the weapon. Christopher Downey, Joshua’s attorney, told reporters that he has not seen anything to suggest that his client was involved in Takeoff’s killing.
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Burrow said that investigators believe it was Clark’s gunfire that killed the rapper.
Police say Takeoff was ‘innocent bystander’ and ‘not involved’ in argument that led to fatal shooting
Prosecutors on Friday asked a court to set Clark’s bond at $1 million, arguing he is a flight risk. After Takeoff’s shooting, Clark applied for an expedited passport by submitting the itinerary for an “imminent” flight to Mexico, according to court records. They say he was arrested the day he received the passport and was in possession of a “large amount” of cash.
Fans and other performers, including Drake and Justin Bieber, celebrated Takeoff’s musical legacy in a memorial service last month in Atlanta.
Migos’ record label, Quality Control, mourned Takeoff’s death in a statement posted on Instagram that attributed it to “senseless violence.”
Migos first broke through with the massive hit “Versace” in 2013. They had four Top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, though Takeoff was not on their multi-week No. 1 hit “Bad and Boujee,” featuring Lil Uzi Vert. They put out a trilogy of albums called “Culture,” “Culture II” and “Culture III,” with the first two hitting No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart.
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Takeoff and Quavo released a joint album “Only Built for Infinity Links” just weeks before his death.
A Walmart worker who survived last week’s mass shooting at a Virginia store is suing the retail giant for $50 million, saying that she and others had complained about her former co-worker’s behavior prior to him carrying out the attack and that the store’s management failed to keep its employees safe.
Donya Prioleau, in a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Chesapeake Circuit Court, says the gunman, who worked as a store supervisor, kept a “kill list” of potential shooting targets. He also threatened retaliation if ever fired, saying “people will remember my name,” and expressed paranoia about being watched by the government, her suit states.
The Nov. 22 attack in Chesapeake left six people dead, not including the gunman, who was identified by police as Andre Bing.
“Many Walmart employees and managers, including Ms. Prioleau, had observed Mr. Bing exhibit bizarre and threatening behavior leading up to the shooting,” her lawsuit states, adding that Walmart had been warned that Bing “was violent and could harm others.”
Prioleau, center, speaks to a member of the FBI on Thursday after the fatal shooting that left six people dead.
Nathan Howard via Getty Images
Prioleau submitted a complaint about Bing via a Walmart Global Ethics statement form in September. It accused him of harassing her and making inappropriate comments, including about her age, height and socioeconomic status, according to the lawsuit.
On the same day that her ethics complaint was filed, Prioleau’s mother also spoke with a store manager to express concerns about her daughter’s safety in relation to Bing. Her mother was told that “nothing … could be done about Mr. Bing because he was liked by management,” according to the lawsuit.
“Walmart and its managers were aware of Mr. Bing’s behavior and threats, but kept employing him anyway,” her suit alleges.
A Walmart representative, in a statement to HuffPost on Wednesday, said the company is reviewing the suit and will respond as appropriate with the court.
Robin Fisher of Chesapeake prays at a makeshift memorial in the parking lot of the Walmart Supercenter on Sunday.
“Our deepest sympathies go out to our associates and everyone impacted, including those who were injured. We are focused on supporting all our associates with significant resources, including counseling,” the statement reads in part.
In addition to physical injuries sustained while attempting to flee the violence, Prioleau states that she continues to experience severe anxiety, nightmares, sleeplessness, flashbacks, stomach pain and a loss of appetite.
“Bullets whizzed by … [Prioleau’s] face and left side, barely missing her. She witnessed several of her coworkers being brutally murdered on either side of her,” her suit states.
“As workplace shootings and violence become horrifyingly common, employers have a responsibility to understand the warning signs and take threats seriously in order to protect their employees and customers,” her attorneys, John Morgan and Peter Anderson of Morgan & Morgan, said in a statement.
“Our hearts are broken for the families of those who lost loved ones and for those, like Ms. Prioleau, whose lives will never be the same because of this trauma. We will work to hold Walmart accountable for failing to stop this tragedy.”
Authorities said one person was killed and at least five others wounded when a dispute escalated into a shooting Saturday evening near a popular shopping and entertainment district in Atlanta.
The shooting occurred at about 8 p.m. local time on a street near Atlantic Station, Atlanta police Lt. Germain Dearlove said in a late Saturday night news briefing. Footage from the scene showed a heavy police presence with several surrounding roads blocked off.
One male victim was pronounced dead on scene, Dearlove said, and five others were transported to nearby hospitals with unknown injuries. All six victims were believed to be between 15 and 21 years of age. No names were immediately provided.
Just prior to the shooting, Dearlove said, a “large group” of juveniles had been escorted off Atlantic Station property by security for “unruly behavior, and also curfew violations.”
That group then gathered on the 17th Street bridge where a “dispute occurred, that escalated to gunfire.”
Dearlove said the exact circumstances of the shooting were still unclear. No arrests have been made.
“It may be between two groups, one shooting at another, so two possible shooters,” Dearlove said.
Atlantic Station is busy shopping area, with several stores and restaurants. It is located a few miles north of downtown Atlanta.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A drive-by shooting in Nashville on Saturday injured two people as they and others were walking out of church from the funeral of a woman who was fatally shot earlier this month, according to police.
Metro Nashville Police Department spokesperson Don Aaron said the afternoon shooting occurred outside New Season Church, where a funeral service had just ended for 19-year-old Terriana Johnson. The hearse was parked out front with the rear door open and people were filing out of church as the shots began, Aaron said.
Police say they are on the lookout for a black late-model Honda Civic with a temporary tag, from which one shooter or more fired as the car passed by, hitting an 18-year-old woman in the leg and a 25-year-old man in the pelvis. Neither were considered life-threatening injuries, Aaron said.
Some attendees of the funeral services for Johnson — who was not a member of the church that was hosting — were armed and fired back at the car, Aaron said.
The shooting occurred before Johnson’s body was brought out of the church, according to police, and her burial took place later in the afternoon.
Authorities remain on the lookout for a 17-year-old charged with criminal homicide in Johnson’s fatal shooting on Nov. 14 at Watkins Park. Police allege that the teen opened fire on a car in which Johnson was riding after Johnson and the suspect’s sister were involved in a fight moments earlier.
Aaron said the shooting “appears to be some type of beef between two groups of people,” but not necessarily between members of the two families.
“This was just a brazen shooting,” Aaron told reporters. “These persons have no regard for human life at all.”
Chesapeake, Virginia — The Walmart supervisor who shot and killed six co-workers in Virginia seemed to target people and fired at some victims after they were already hit and appeared to be dead, said a witness who was present when the shooting started. Jessica Wilczewski said workers were gathered in a store break room to begin their overnight shift late Tuesday when team leader Andre Bing entered and opened fire with a handgun. While another witness has described Bing as shooting wildly, Wilczewski said she observed him target certain people.
“The way he was acting — he was going hunting,” Wilczewski told The Associated Press on Thursday. “The way he was looking at people’s faces and the way he did what he did, he was picking people out.”
She said she observed him shoot at people who were already on the ground.
“What I do know is that he made sure who he wanted dead, was dead,” she said. “He went back and shot dead bodies that were already dead. To make sure.”
Wilczewski said she had only worked at the store for five days and didn’t know with whom Bing got along or had problems. She said being a new employee may have been the reason she was spared.
She said that after the shooting started, a co-worker sitting next to her pulled her under the table to hide. She said that at one point, Bing told her to get out from under the table. But when he saw who she was, he told her, “Jessie, go home.” She said she slowly got up and then ran out of the store.
Police are trying to determine a motive, while former coworkers are struggling to make sense of the rampage in Chesapeake, a city of about 250,000 people near Virginia’s coast.
CBS News correspondent Jeff Pegues reported Thursday that the gunman’s last couple weeks on the job may provide some insight as to why he lashed out, as multiple reports have said his phone contains notes in which he complained about his job, and his coworkers.
Some of those who worked with Bing, 31, said he had a reputation for being an aggressive, if not hostile, supervisor, who once admitted to having “anger issues.” But he also could make people laugh and seemed to be dealing with the typical stresses at work that many people endure.
“I don’t think he had many people to fall back on in his personal life,” said Nathan Sinclair, who worked at the Walmart for nearly a year before leaving earlier this month.
Law enforcement work the scene of a mass shooting at a Walmart, November 23, 2022, in Chesapeake, Virginia.
Alex Brandon/AP
During chats among coworkers, “We would be like ‘work is consuming my life.’ And (Bing) would be like, ‘Yeah, I don’t have a social life anyway,’” Sinclair recalled Thursday.
Sinclair said he and Bing did not get along. Bing was known for being “verbally hostile” to employees and wasn’t particularly well-liked, Sinclair said. But there were times when Bing was made fun of and not necessarily treated fairly.
“There’s no telling what he could have been thinking. … You never know if somebody really doesn’t have any kind of support group,” Sinclair said.
On balance, Bing seemed pretty normal to Janice Strausburg, who knew him from working at Walmart for 13 years before leaving in June.
Bing could be “grumpy” but could also be “placid,” she said. He made people laugh and told Strausburg he liked dance. When she invited him to church, he declined but mentioned that his mother had been a preacher.
Members of the FBI search the home of the suspected gunman in the fatal shooting at a Walmart, November 23, 2022, in Chesapeake, Virginia.
Nathan Howard/Getty
Strausburg thought Bing’s grumpiness was due to the stresses that come with any job. He also once told her that he had “had anger issues” and complained he was going to “get the managers in trouble.”
She never expected this.
“I think he had mental issues,” Strausburg said Thursday. “What else could it be?”
Tuesday night’s violence in Chesapeake was the nation’s second high-profile mass shooting in four days. Bing was dead when officers reached the store in the state’s second-largest city. Authorities said he apparently shot himself.
Police have identified the victims as Brian Pendleton, 38; Kellie Pyle, 52; Lorenzo Gamble, 43; and Randy Blevins, 70, who were all from Chesapeake; and Tyneka Johnson, 22, of nearby Portsmouth. The dead also included a 16-year-old boy whose name was withheld because of his age, police said.
Photos provided by the Chesapeake, Virginia, Police Department show, from top left, Tyneka Johnson, Brian Pendleton and Randy Blevins, and on the bottom,Kellie Pyle and Lorenzo Gamble, who police identified as victims of a Nov. 22, 2022 shooting at a Walmart in Chesapeake. The other victim was a 16-year-old who was not identified by police due to their age.
Chesapeake Police Department/AP
A Walmart spokesperson confirmed in an email that all of the victims worked for the company.
Krystal Kawabata, a spokesperson for the FBI’s field office in Norfolk, Virginia, confirmed the agency is assisting police with the investigation but directed all inquiries to the Chesapeake Police Department, the lead investigative agency.
Another Walmart employee, Briana Tyler, has said Bing appeared to fire at random.
“He was just shooting all throughout the room. It didn’t matter who he hit,” Tyler told the AP Wednesday.
Six people also were wounded in the shooting, which happened just after 10 p.m. as shoppers were stocking up ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday. Police said they believe about 50 people were in the store at the time.
Bing was identified as an overnight team leader who had been a Walmart employee since 2010. Police said he had one handgun and several magazines of ammunition.
Tyler said the overnight stocking team of 15 to 20 people had just gathered in the break room to go over the morning plan. Another team leader had begun speaking when Bing entered the room and opened fire, Tyler and Wiczewski said.
Tyler, who started working at Walmart two months ago and had worked with Bing just a night earlier, said she never had a negative encounter with him, but others told her he was “the manager to look out for.” She said Bing had a history of writing up people for no reason.
Chet Barnett and his wife Debbie hug and stand in a moment of silence in the parking lot of a Walmart in Chesapeake, Virginia, November 24, 2022, two days after a store employee opened fire in a break room, killing six colleagues.
Mike Caudill/The Washington Post/Getty
Wilczewski said she tried but could not bring herself to visit a memorial in the store’s parking lot Wednesday.
“I wrote a letter and I wanted to put it out there,” she said. “I wrote to the ones I watched die. And I said that I’m sorry I wasn’t louder. I’m sorry you couldn’t feel my touch. But you weren’t alone.”
According to data compiled by the Gun Violence Archive, there have been more than 600 mass shootings in the United States this year, including at least 36 incidents with four or more fatalities.
A criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston, Alan Fox, who has compiled data on shootings in the U.S. for decades, reported the same figure, which he said had made 2022 a record year for such attacks even prior to the incident at the Walmart in Chesapeake.
“I’ve been studying mass killings for over 40 years and I am quite confident that there has never been a year where we’ve had so many,” said Fox in an article published Monday by Northeastern, in the wake of the Colorado shooting.
A store manager at a Chesapeake, Virginia, Walmart opened fire on fellow employees, killing six people and wounding several others. Police identified the gunman as 31-year-old Andre Bing, who was armed with a handgun and multiple magazines. He died from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. Jeff Pegues has more.
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In Colorado Springs, the suspect in the fatal mass shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub was ordered to be held without bond after making an initial court appearance. Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, is facing multiple counts of murder and hate crime charges. Janet Shamlian has the latest.
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