Reporter/cameraman executed on live TV in Virginia

[mrclose]

A picture of the killer (middle) with who I believe are the the two victims.



Video is included in this post for anyone interested.

 (very disturbing)



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Mp-s3GGi-M

[Big Dog]

I read that the two victims were engaged to fellow employees, and the cameraman's fiancee' was in the control room at the time of the shooting.

A sad, terrible thing.

[thundley4]

WTF? How do you not notice someone coming into your space like that?  Both women should have seen him.

[DLR Pyro]

WTF? How do you not notice someone coming into your space like that?  Both women should have seen him.

I'm guessing that they were focused on the interview at hand and didn't pay attention to anyone else walking by.

[thundley4]

I'm guessing that they were focused on the interview at hand and didn't pay attention to anyone else walking by.

Reporters should be more observant than that.

[FiddyBeowulf]

That is some cold ****ed up sh1t right there.

[USA4ME]

And the shooter says his motivation for the attack was the female reporter making “racist comments”.

Thank goodness Dear Leader hasn't said or done anything that would cause unhinged kooks like this nut to act out in anger. 

.

[DLR Pyro]

And the shooter says his motivation for the attack was the female reporter making “racist comments”.

Thank goodness Dear Leader hasn't said or done anything that would cause unhinged kooks like this nut to act out in anger. 

.

We have become a nation of thin skinned babies who can't handle an unkind comment and have to resort to violence to deal with any perceived insults. 

Waiting for the left to use this an another cause to cry for gun control.

[mrclose]

Correction

The white guy in the picture is the female reporters fiancé.
Not the cameraman.

[BlueStateSaint]

We have become a nation of thin skinned babies who can't handle an unkind comment and have to resort to violence to deal with any perceived insults. 

Waiting for the left to use this an another cause to cry for gun control.

Hillary and Terry McAuliffe already did.

[FaC]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/08/26/tv-camera-crew-caught-in-active-shooter-situation-in-southwest-virginia/?hpid=z1

“We employed him as a reporter, and he had some talent in that respect, and some experience, although he had been out of the business for a while when we hired him here,” Marks said. “He quickly became — gathered a reputation as someone who was difficult to work with…

“He was sort of looking out for people to say things that he could take offense to,” Marks recalled. “And eventually, after many incidents of his anger coming to the fore, we dismissed him. And he did not take that well. We had to call the police to escort him from the building.

This is not too surprising...

[freedumb2003b]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/08/26/tv-camera-crew-caught-in-active-shooter-situation-in-southwest-virginia/?hpid=z1

This is not too surprising...

You have to wonder what is DU name was.

I have been following this and it is tragedy upon tragedy.

The dead reporter only met him in passing as he was fired a year before she started her stint as a reporter.

These deaths are at the feet of liberals who created an environment of victimhood for all Persons Of Colour.   This wasn't mental illness, it was inculcation.

24 and 27 -- life just starting.  I have no sympathy for the shooter and I (again) place these deaths at the feet of jackson, sharpton and rest of the race pimps.  May he burn in hell and I hope his last hours were in agonizing pain.
 

[freedumb2003b]

A picture of the killer (middle) with who I believe are the the two victims.



Video is included in this post for anyone interested.

 (very disturbing)



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Mp-s3GGi-M

YT pulled that about 15 mins after it was posted.  Heavy has it: http://heavy.com/news/2015/08/lester-lee-flanagan-flanighan-flanigan-wdbj-tv-disgruntled-employee-virginia-shooting-suspect-cameraman-photos-video-chase-gun-gunman-arrested/

[dutch508]

Shooter was black and gay.


Wonder if he voted for Romney?

[Boudicca]

I'm sure the Black Grievance Industry is EXTREMELY proud of itself tonight.  I hope all purveyors of race hatred, and other forms as well, rot in a special HELL with child, women and animal abusers.  ****ing 41-year old *victim* was out trolling for a reason to take offense, much like an entire segment of this nation, and their dear leader is Obama.
I just know the ****ward in charge of this country, God help us all, has come charging out to his podium to condemn the racist slaughter of two innocent people due to their skin tones.  Oh never mind, just heard he used the incident as yet another reason to come out for increased gun control...he ONLY supports gun rights for criminal beasts just as he only supports civil rights for non-whites and non-legal inhabitants of the USA.
Go **** yourselves, you damn liberals.  You've certainly managed to **** the rest of the country.

[Crazy Horse]

This hits close to home.   She started her career here at WCTI and was the reporter for Jacksonville NC.

[SVPete]

Some background info I've seen and heard through the day about the murdering scumbag.

He grew up in Oakland, and graduated from a high school there. He then attended and graduated from SF State. After college he worked for a time at KCBS in SF.

In the late 90s he worked at and got canned from a TV station in Tallahassee. He sued the station for racial discrimination, and the station settled out of court, probably because that was cheaper than fighting the complaint. Apparently that became the pattern of his career. His reputation at the VA station was one of minimal or worse competency as a reporter and for being difficult to work with. He also was reprimanded in 2012 for wearing an Obama 2012 button during a report from a polling place. He got canned from the VA station, filed an EEOC complaint, and lost when the station actually fought back with information about the poor performance for which he was canned. He was a failure as a professional victim!

Wish he'd just rid the world of himself without killing two decent and competent people.

[Ptarmigan]

Some background info I've seen and heard through the day about the murdering scumbag.

He grew up in Oakland, and graduated from a high school there. He then attended and graduated from SF State. After college he worked for a time at KCBS in SF.

In the late 90s he worked at and got canned from a TV station in Tallahassee. He sued the station for racial discrimination, and the station settled out of court, probably because that was cheaper than fighting the complaint. Apparently that became the pattern of his career. His reputation at the VA station was one of minimal or worse competency as a reporter and for being difficult to work with. He also was reprimanded in 2012 for wearing an Obama 2012 button during a report from a polling place. He got canned from the VA station, filed an EEOC complaint, and lost when the station actually fought back with information about the poor performance for which he was canned. He was a failure as a professional victim!

Wish he'd just rid the world of himself without killing two decent and competent people.

After Shooting, Alleged Gunman Details Grievances in ‘Suicide Notes’
http://abcnews.go.com/US/shooting-alleged-gunman-details-grievances-suicide-notes/story?id=33336339

He too had a manifesto. He is gay and he claims he also had problems with Black men.

[Ptarmigan]

We have become a nation of thin skinned babies who can't handle an unkind comment and have to resort to violence to deal with any perceived insults. 

Waiting for the left to use this an another cause to cry for gun control.

I made a post saying that leftists are injustice collectors driven by revenge.

[dixierose]

The shooter worked at WTOC in Savannah GA for a while several years ago. Not sure if he fired or just left.

[Mr Mannn]

The shooter worked at WTOC in Savannah GA for a while several years ago. Not sure if he fired or just left.

His history has come out.
He was fired. He was a drama queen (literally), who caused problems everywhere he went. He constantly played the race card and made it impossible to work with him.
After wearing out his welcome with management and coworkers, he was fired.

[DLR Pyro]

His history has come out.
He was fired. He was a drama queen (literally), who caused problems everywhere he went. He constantly played the race card and made it impossible to work with him.
After wearing out his welcome with management and coworkers, he was fired.

sounds like he was spring loaded to the victim position.  Too bad 2 good people had to die before he offed hisself.

[SVPete]

This NY Post piece gives a closer look at the killer's ugly character:

The comments that became a reporter’s death sentence
By Marisa Schultz and Frank Rosario
nypost.com
August 28, 2015 | 1:01am

ROANOKE, Va. — The words are a part of everyday conversation — “swinging” by an address and going out in the “field.”

But in the twisted mind of Virginia gunman Vester Lee Flanagan II, they were pure racism — and saying them became a death sentence for Alison Parker.

The 24-year-old white reporter, who was murdered on live TV along with her cameraman, used the phrases as an intern at ­WDBJ TV in Roanoke in 2012, according to an internal complaint filed by Flanagan, who was black.
...
Parker was never disciplined over the remarks, but Flanagan never forgot them.
...
“Alison made racist comments,” Flanagan posted while he was on the run from cops.

“They hired her after that??” he wrote.

But colleagues said that it was all in Flanagan’s head and that Parker was as far from racist as they come.
...
“That’s how that guy’s mind worked. Just crazy, left-field assumptions like that,” Ryan Fuqua, a video editor at WDBJ, told The Post.

HR tends toward being liberal, and probably all the more so in a liberal leaning industry like broadcasting. So either these stations' HR departments had better than expected common sense, or Flanagan was so outlandish that they couldn't bring themselves to take him seriously. As to getting hired, as I mentioned above, the legal climate in the US has long been one where companies will only confirm that some one worked for the company, and the dates of employment. Sharing info about their performance, their relationships with co-workers, and the terms of leaving the company's employ is an invitation to losing a lawsuit.

As to Flanagan's co-workers, every interaction with him - whether in conversation or in silence - was a risk of a discrimination/harassment complaint to HR. Flanagan was poisonous! Camera operators - with whom working as a team was imperative for reporters - must've drawn straws to determine who (i.e. the short straw) had to accompany him on a remote.

[SVPete]

sounds like he was spring loaded to the victim position.  Too bad 2 good people had to die before he offed hisself.

You posted while I was typing. And I concur with your latter sentence.

One of the injustices the courts have laden on businesses is what I posted above. While the VA station could not have known that Flanagan was a deadly ticking time bomb, had they known he was a race-card-playing horse's anus who could not work with anyone they probably would not have hired him, and those two people still alive. In fairness, the usual consequences of businesses hiring people they might've known were incompetents or horses' anuses are "merely" lost money and/or internal conflict.

[txradioguy]

WTF? How do you not notice someone coming into your space like that?  Both women should have seen him.

When you're looking through the viewfinder on a camera...you get tunnel vision.  Most of what you'd normally see in your peripheral disappears because you have one eye looking through the viewfinder and the other eye closed.

I have a very close call in Somalia on the roof of the Embassy early one morning while filming for the reasons I listed above.

Same in a way goes for the reporter and the subject being interviewed.  When you're live there are always people that want to come up and watch and listen.  You're aware of them...but at the same time you're not really aware of exactly who is standing there listening and watching.