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Friday afternoon, around approximately 4:00pm EST, reports of an active shooter at City of Virginia Beach: Operations Building. The operations building is located on the 2400 block of Courthouse Drive in Virginia Beach.
Friday afternoon, around approximately 4:00pm EST, reports of an active shooter at City of Virginia Beach: Operations Building. The Operations Building is located on the 2400 block of Courthouse Drive in Virginia Beach. On his way to make entry into the building the active shooter starts by shooting and killing a civilian contractor seating in his car in the parking lot of the Operations Building. A few minutes after the parking lot shooting initial reports pour in of a man armed with a .45 ACP pistol with a suppressor attached who started shooting indiscriminately at employees of the Operations Building. The active shooter moved freely through the three levels of the building shooting anyone he made contact with.
Two Virginia Beach Police Detecvies and two K-9 officers where on site within 5-10 minutes of the active shooter notification. On scene law enforcement personnel cleared the building and removed barricaded employees from offices as they searched for the shooter. A firefight between the active shooter and police took place. The active shooter was wounded and apprehend by police. The shooter dies of his wounds on site. The Virginia Beach Police found two .45 ACP pistols, suppressor, and extended capacity magazines on the pistols near the shooters body.
Saturday, Police Chief James A. Cervera at a press conference identified the shooter as DeWayne Craddock an employee of Operations Department of Virginia Beach. Craddock ended up killing 11 of his colleagues, 1 civilian contractor, and leaving 4 in critical condition at Sentara Virginia Beach General Hospital.
Update: Only 3 in critical condition per NBC News.
Intel Source Notice: The information for the Shooting Timeline will be coming from USA Today. Link to complete article will be in Resources.
Outside Building 2, a suspect later identified as DeWayne Craddock, 40, an engineer for the city’s public works department for 15 years, shoots a victim in a parked vehicle multiple times.
Craddock then enters the building and opens fire. He carries a .45 caliber handgun with a sound suppressor and multiple extended magazines.
He moves between floors, firing at workers. Victims are later found on all three floors.
A police dispatcher reports a man “possibly shot” in front of the building. A moment later, word came that the shooter was still active and that shots were being heard.
Four police officers — two from the detective bureau and two from the K9/special operations unit — are the first to respond. They find a gunshot victim outside.
Police enter Building 2 and evacuate as many employees as they can find. Many are still in the building. The municipal center has been put on lockdown.
Sounds of gunfire lead police to the shooter on the second floor. Police report they’ve located him in an east side stairwell.
A “long-term gun battle” ensues. Police report the shooter is “shooting through a door on the second floor, on the east side.”
The call “Officer hit!, Oficer hit!” goes out on the radio. A police officer is shot in the stomach and is dragged out to a location across the street from the post office. He is saved from serious injury by his bulletproof vest. The suspect is identified over the police radio as Craddock.
Arriving officers deploy outside the east side of the building to contain the shooter.
“We have several citizens we’re trying to keep safe now,” an officer says. “I got a bunch of people I’m going to be bringing out shortly, I’ll give you a heads-up when we make the stairwell.”
Other officers find six victims and one survivor on the third floor.
An officer asks for access keys to a second-floor room to evacuate workers. Another asks for breaching tools.
“There hasn’t been shots fired in a while,” an officer says. The last known position on the east side of the second floor.
Police report citizens are bringing out casualties.
“My wife just called me, she has a friend who’s on the third floor, and they’re hiding in the bathroom,” an officer says. Twitter begins posting active shooter alerts at the municipal center.
Officers who have the suspect trapped ask others to move to another frequency. “Clear the air, we have the suspect behind a barricaded door. Stay off radio. We need a key or access to the second story on the north end of the building.”
Police shoot the suspect. “He’s in custody,” an officer says. They render first aid while taking him to an ambulance outside. He later dies.
Officers proceed with evacuating the remaining workers.
Virginia Beach police issue an active shooter situation on Twitter. Multiple injuries and that the lone shooter has been taken into custody.
Virginia Beach police tweet: “Please avoid the municipal center area.”
People begin leaving some of the municipal buildings.
Area hospitals begin confirming the arrival of shooting victims.
Eleven city workers and one contractor are killed. Virginia Beach police, the Norfolk FBI and Virginia State Police are investigating.
Dewyane Craddock killed 12 civilians during his shooting offensive. Killing 11 of his fellow colleagues, 1 civilian contractor, and leaving 4 seriously wounded outside and inside the Building where he used to work. Listed below are there names.
Laquita C. Brown– The Chesapeake resident was a right-of-way agent who worked 4½ years for Virginia Beach’s public works department.
Tara Welch Gallagher– The Virginia Beach resident was an engineer who worked six years for the city’s public works department.
Mary Louise Gayle– The Virginia Beach resident was a right-of-way agent who worked 24 years for the city’s public works department.
Alexander Mikhail Gusev– The Virginia Beach resident was a right-of-way agent who worked nine years for the city’s public works department.
Katherine A. Nixon– The Virginia Beach resident was an engineer who worked 10 years for the city’s public utilities department.
Richard H. Nettlehorn– The Norfolk resident was an engineer who worked 28 years for Virginia Beach’s public utilities department.
Christopher Kelly Rapp-The Powhatan resident was an engineer who had worked 11 months in Virginia Beach’s public works departmenot.
Ryan Keith Cox– The Virginia Beach resident was an account clerk who worked 12½ years in the public utilities department.
Joshua O. Hardy– Hardy lived in Virginia Beach and worked as an engineering technician for 4½ years in the city’s public utilities department.
Michelle Langer– The Virginia Beach resident was an administrative assistant who worked 12 years in the public utilities department.
Robert Williams– The Chesapeake resident was a special projects coordinator who worked 41 years in Virginia Beach’s public utilities department.
Herbert Snelling– The Virginia Beach resident was a contractor who was trying to fill a permit at the time of the shooting.
Intel Note: I was unable to find out the names of the wounded who are in the hospital. HIPPA laws are restricting that information from the public and media on their identity.
Intel Source Notice: Information about Craddock will be pulled from an CNN article about the shooter. Link will be in resource section below.
Craddock was a certified professional engineer for the city of Virginia Beach in the public utilities department for about 15 years. He is listed on department news releases as a point of contact for information on local road projects over the past several years.
Before working for the city, Craddock was a project manager for a Virginia-based engineering firm. The firm’s 2003 hiring of Craddock was detailed in a local business newspaper that reported he had a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Old Dominion University.
Craddock obtained his certified professional engineer license in the state in 2008, according to Virginia’s Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation. The license was to expire in June 2020.
He enlisted in the Virginia National Guard in April 1996, according to spokesman A.A. Puryear. He was assigned to the Norfolk-based 1st Battalion, 111th Field Artillery Regiment, 116th Infantry Brigade Combat Team as a 13B cannon crew member.
He was discharged in April 2002 and held the rank of specialist at the time, the spokesman said. His records did not indicate overseas deployments.
A search of online court records in Virginia Beach and surrounding counties shows Craddock was cited for a motor vehicle infraction in 2013 but nothing else.
Virginia Police Chief James A. Cervera advised they do not have a motive on why Dewayne Craddock chose to engage in a shooting offense against his fellow colleagues. Chief Cervera advised that local, state and Federal law enforcement agencies are assisting with the investigation. Rumors where initially circulating that he was a disgruntled former employee which have proven to be false. USA Today released an article proving that the allegations of a disgruntled employee are false. Here is a link to the USA Today article.
That is the conclusion of all important and relevant information regarding the Virginia Beach Municipal Shooting. Later down the road I will do a complete intel brief once all the facts have come to light.
Information to build this intel brief is from CBS News, The Virginia Pilot, New York Times, CNN NBC News, USA Today and Google News. Below will be links to the articles from which I pulled my information.
https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/virginia-beach-mass-shooting/index.html
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/06/01/us/virginia-beach-suspect/index.html
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1012801
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/1319550001
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/1311103001
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