WATCH ABOVE: The shopping plaza where a TV crew was gunned down has reopened in Moneta, Virginia. As Craig Boswell reports, while people are trying to move on, they say the victims of Wednesday’s ambush will not be forgotten.
ROANOKE, Va. – Businesses are reopening at the scene of this week’s on-air shooting as more details surface of the gunman’s long history of confronting and bullying co-workers at a succession of television and customer-service jobs.
Friday’s reopening of Bridgewater Plaza comes two days after Vester Flanagan, 41, killed two journalists from a Roanoke TV station where he once worked, and wounded the Smith Mountain Lake Regional Chamber of Commerce official they were interviewing. The chamber’s lakeshore visitor centre is set among tourist shops and restaurants in the strip mall in Moneta, about 20 miles southeast of Roanoke.
Flanagan’s hair-trigger temper became evident at least 15 years ago at WTWC-TV in Tallahassee, Florida, said Don Shafer, who hired him there in 1999. Shafer recalled Flanagan as a good reporter and a “clever, funny guy” – but said he also had conflicts with co-workers “to the point where he was threatening people.”
“Had some physical confrontations with a couple of people, and at one point became such a distraction that we finally had to terminate him,” said Shafer, now news director with XETV in San Diego.
READ MORE: WDBJ-7’s memos to Bryce Williams reveal angry behaviour, threats
After stints in California, Florida and North Carolina, Flanagan’s last television job was at WDBJ in Roanoke. On the day he was fired in 2013, he pressed a wooden cross into his boss’ hand and said, “You’ll need this,” as two police officers escorted him out. Cameraman Adam Ward filmed Flanagan’s departure.
On Wednesday, Flanagan gunned down Ward, and reporter Alison Parker during a live morning broadcast, fulfilling a threat to turn his conflicts with co-workers into headlines. He died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound hours later.
Dan Dennison, who was news director at WDBJ when Flanagan was there and the recipient of the wooden cross, described Flanagan as a “professional victim” during his tenure at the station.
“He was victimized by everything and everyone and could never quite grasp the fact that he was the common denominator in all of these really sometimes serious interpersonal conflicts that he had with people,” Dennison said.
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Flanagan interpreted efforts by the station to improve his performance and persuade him to work more co-operatively with colleagues as discrimination, said Dennison, who now works as a communications manager at the Hawaii state Department of Land and Natural Resources.
READ MORE: Father of slain journalist calls for tighter laws so ‘crazy people can’t get guns’
Dennison said the station had no idea of his shortcomings before he was hired and that he had received positive recommendations.
Others who ran across Flanagan after he lost his job at WDBJ described a man increasingly irked by slights more often imagined than real.
A former co-worker at a UnitedHealthcare call centre where Flanagan worked until late 2014 said he tried to grab her shoulder and told her never to speak to him again after she offhandedly said he was unusually quiet.
The manager of a bar in Roanoke said Flanagan was so incensed when no one thanked him for his business as he left the tavern that he sent a nearly 20-page letter, lambasting employees’ behaviour.
Flanagan described himself in a court document as an aggrieved and unappreciated victim.
“How heartless can you be? My entire life was disrupted after moving clear across the country for a job only to have my dream turn into a nightmare,” Flanagan wrote in a letter to a judge filed as part of his 2013 lawsuit against WDBJ-TV. “Your Honor, I am not the monster here.”
READ MORE: The psychology of a disgruntled employee who kills
The lawsuit was dismissed in July 2014. But in recent weeks, Flanagan laid careful plans for retribution. He contacted ABC News about what he claimed was a story tip and filled his Facebook page with photos and video montages seemingly designed to introduce himself to a larger audience.
On Wednesday, after killing Parker, 24, and Ward, 27, he went online to claim they had wronged him in the past.
He also texted a friend suggesting he had “done something stupid,” investigators wrote in a search warrant. He turned the gun on himself when police caught up to him a few hours later. Inside his rental car, investigators found extra license plates, a wig, shawl, sunglasses and a hat as well as some stamped letters and a “to do” list.
On Thursday, the station’s general manager, Jeffrey Marks, recalled a series of problems with Flanagan while he worked at WDBJ from March 2012 to February 2013. Flanagan accused a news photographer of trespassing on private property. He confronted an anchor over a story and attempted to reach the company’s CEO to complain. He filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, as well as the lawsuit.
Flanagan’s joking and smiling one minute could turn to anger in the next, former colleague Justin McLeod said.
READ MORE: What we know about Alison Parker and Adam Ward, the two journalists killed in Virginia
Once, for no apparent reason, Flanagan told a photographer he knew the man didn’t like him because he was gay. The photographer told Flanagan he hadn’t known about his sexual orientation, McLeod said.
Former co-workers, surprised that Flanagan had stayed in town after losing his job, passed him from time to time. They called them “Bryce sightings,” referring to Flanagan’s on-air name, Bryce Williams, McLeod said.
Others who crossed paths with Flanagan during that time, said he took offence easily.
Heather Fay, general manager of Jack Brown’s Beer & Burger Joint in downtown Roanoke, said she threw out a lengthy letter Flanagan had sent, criticizing the staff for telling customers to “have a nice day” instead of “thank you.”
“It was bizarre, for sure,” she said.
READ MORE: What employers can do to prevent workplace violence after a firing
Fay said there was no indication the author was contemplating a crime.
Flanagan’s interpersonal conflicts were at odds with the outgoing student some recalled in Oakland, California, where he was chosen junior prince at Skyline High School’s homecoming. At San Francisco State University, Flanagan relished being in the spotlight during group presentations.
“He was such a nice guy, just a soft-spoken, well-dressed, good-looking guy. He never had any problems, no fights, nothing like that,” said a high school classmate, Chris Dobbins, now an Oakland attorney.
A cousin, Guynell Smith, 69, who had stopped by Flanagan’s father’s home in Vallejo, California, told reporters the family was unaware of any troubles. “He was just a normal kid,” she said. “We knew Vester a different way.”
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Associated Press reporters Matthew Barakat, Jonathan Drew, Alan Suderman, John Raby and David Dishneau in Roanoke, Virginia; Larry O’Dell in Richmond, Virginia; Audrey McAvoy in Honolulu; Holbrook Mohr in Jackson, Mississippi; Terry Chea in Vallejo, California; Garance Burke in Oakland, California; Julie Watson in San Diego and researcher Jennifer Farrar in New York contributed to this story.
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