Vester Flanagan, 41, the man who gunned down WDBJ reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward on Tuesday died Wednesday from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Police discovered Flanagan on the side of the road n critical condition. He died a few hours later in hospital.
Flanagan has links to Florida as he worked at WCWT-TV in Tallahassee.
UPDATE, 2:56 PM ET:
ABC News reported Flanagan penned a suicide note saying he was motivated by a “Race War”:
“As for Dylann Roof? You (deleted)! You want a race war (deleted)? BRING IT THEN YOU WHITE …(deleted)!!!” He said Jehovah spoke to him, telling him to act. “
Later in the manifesto, the writer quotes the Virginia Tech mass killer, Seung Hui Cho, and calls him “his boy,” and expresses admiration for the Columbine High School killers. “Also, I was influenced by Seung–Hui Cho. That’s my boy right there. He got NEARLY double the amount that Eric Harris and Dylann Klebold got…just sayin’.”
In an often rambling letter to the authorities, and family and friends, he writes of a long list of grievances. In one part of the document, Williams calls it a “Suicide Note for Friends and Family”.
– He says has suffered racial discrimination, sexual harassment and bullying at work.
– He says he has been attacked by black men and white females.
– He talks about how he was attacked for being a gay, black man
The Tallahassee Democrat re-published their story about Flanagan’s run-in with WCWT management in 2000: “Vester Flanagan, who has reported for WTWC-TV since last March, said he and another black employee were referred to as “monkeys” and that a supervisor once told him that “blacks are lazy and do not take advantage of free money” for scholarships and economic opportunities. He said when he cited his own background of nearly seven years in television, going back to internships at San Francisco State University, the supervisor told him he was an “exception.”
Flanagan, a former reporter at WDBJ, appeared on-air under the name Bryce Williams. He produced a first-person perspective video of the shooting and posted it on Facebook. The video is currently making the rounds of the internet. Williams/Flanagan openly boasted about the video on social media.
Williams was described as “a disgruntled employee” who sued his former employer for racial discrimination.
“Vester was an unhappy man. We employed him as a reporter and he had some talent in that respect and some experience,” a general manager at the news station told BuzzFeed. “He quickly gathered a reputation of someone who was difficult to work with. He was sort of looking out to people to say things he could take offense to. Eventually, after many incidents of his anger, we dismissed him. He did not take that well. We had to call police to escort him from the building.”
Parker’s boyfriend Chris Hurst posted news on Twitter that the couple were stepping up their relationship by living together.