On Friday May 31^st, 2019 in Virginia Beach, Virginia there was a shooting around 4pm at the Virginia Beach Municipal Center. DeWayne Craddock, an engineer formerly employed by the City of Virginia Beach for about 15 years was the disgruntled shooter. Earlier in the day, he told his superiors that he was quitting and put his letter of resignation in. Multiple sources say he didn’t come off as angered or in a poor mental state because he wasn’t forced to resign which raised a lot of confusion on the motive behind his decision to murder 12 of his coworkers. Ethan Quick, a senior of Lafayette High School said, “If more good guys carry guns the people wanting to commit these crimes will think twice because they’ll be stopped before they can do the damage they’re wanting to do.”

Mr. Craddock was a 40 year-old former Virginia Army National Guardsmen who served for six years as an artillery cannon crew member he was also, a 2002 graduate of Old Dominion University with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering. A civil engineer is a person who practices the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructures while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing infrastructures that have been neglected. Ja’Ron Tyree Jackson, senior of Woodrow Wilson High School said, ” Its astonishing how someone who has a such a peaceful persona or look such as Dwayne Craddock would do such thing because, he’s never showed signs of being violent according to the news papers and what family members have said about him”

Michael E. Miller writer of The Washington Post said, “He had an all-business — but not off-putting — demeanor, one co-worker recounted. And a reserved but not peculiar presence, several neighbors said.”

Mr. Craddock used two .45 caliber pistols where he had plenty of ammunition and both, firearms were legally purchased in 2016 and 2018. He also had an extended shoot-out with officers within the office where he barricaded himself in a closet because he was severely wounded.  He later died.

Sources say this was one of the deadliest episodes of workplace violence in the United States in recent years. Ryan W. Miller writer of USA TODAY said, “Police say the suspect was armed with .45 caliber handgun with a silencer, believed to be used for stealth and to keep victims from knowing where the attacker was in the building.” Sources say, “a silencer or suppresser is a muzzle device that reduces the sound intensity and muzzle flash when a firearm or air gun is discharged. It can be a detachable accessory to, or integral part of, the muzzle or barrel.” All in all this has been a very sad event for Virginia as a whole and the United States but, we must remember the fallen victims: LaQuita Brown; Ryan Keith Cox; Tara Welch Gallagher; Mary Louise Gayle; Alexander Mikhail Gusev; Joshua O. Hardy; Michelle Langer, known as Missy; Richard H. Nettleton; Katherine A. Nixon; Christopher Kelly Rapp; and Robert Williams.