Six people were shot and killed inside a Walmart in Chesapeake, Virginia on Tuesday night.
It marked the second high-profile mass shooting in the U.S. in three days. Five people were shot and killed at an LGBTQ club in Colorado Springs over the weekend.
The Virginia shooter was also found dead at the scene. The motive remains unknown, but reports say it was an employee. Investigators believe the shooter opened fire on other employees in the break room.
A spokesman with the Chesapeake Police Department, Leo Kosinski, did not say exactly how many people had been fatally shot, but believed it was “less than 10.”
The city of Chesapeake later said on Twitter that seven people had died, including the attacker. It was unclear how many people were wounded.
The shooting came two days ahead of Thanksgiving, making the store busy with customers doing last-minute shopping. It shows another instance of how gun violence erupts in American life in places traditionally seen as safe. Schools, stores, and hospitals have all been targets of shooting sprees.
It was the third high-profile shooting this month.
At the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, a 22-year-old student allegedly opened fire on fellow students this month, killing three of them on a bus returning to campus from a field trip to Washington, DC.
The shooting at Walmart happened as the U.S. recorded more than 600 mass shootings this year.
The Walmart shooting was one of several attacks at American grocery stores and big-box retail outlets in recent years.
In 2019, a 21-year-old gunman stalked shoppers at a Walmart in El Paso, leaving 23 people dead and 26 others wounded. In May this year, a teenage gunman in Buffalo opened fire at a Tops supermarket, killing 10 people and injuring three more.
The Walmart supercenter where the shooting occurred is one of several in southeastern Virginia. It includes a grocery store, a pharmacy, a bank, a bakery, and a deli.
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