In the face of tragedy — and a televised and new media broadcast shooting, and the pattern of copycats that suggest that if the revolution isn’t televised live murders will be — new facts are being released about the troubled and downright scary history of fired reporter “Bryce Williams,” whose real name was Vester Flanegan. It’s clear now that Flanegan planned and stalked for his kill — even posting a murderer’s point of view video of the crime on social media, which got hits and was eventually pulled down. But it’s still being shown on some websites.

He killed Alison Parker, 24 years old and a morning reporter for WDBJ7, and Adam Ward, 27, a member of the crew, as viewers watched the Roanoke, Virginia station morning news — and Ward’s fiancee, the woman doing the newscast watched. Flanagan shot himself after a 2 mile police speed chase, and died later in the day. Here’s the WDBJ7 news story on the killing of their beloved staff members.

It turns out he was an exceptionally scary employee who had real issues. The Daily Beast reports:

Vester Lee Flanagan’s bosses called 911 on the day they fired him from WDBJ because of his volatile behavior. The incident was captured on camera by Adam Ward, the camerman Flanagan killed on Wednesday.

At a February 2013 meeting, WDBJ managers told Flanagan he wasn’t a good fit and would be terminated. Flanagan—who went by the on-air name Bryce Williams—became “agitated,” then issued a threat, according to documents obtained by The Daily Beast that were filed in Flanagan’s lawsuit against the station in 2014. (Flanagan lost.)

“He repeated … his feeling that firing him would lead to negative consequences for me personally and for the station,” former station manager Dan Dennison said. The manager said Flanagan “said he had to go to the bathroom, stood up abruptly, stormed out of the room, and slammed the door”—prompting a frightened sales team to take shelter in a locked office.

According to The Daily Beast, Flanagan told police there was a watermelon in the hallway. As he left he handed his boss a wooden cross and said: “You’ll need this.”
ABC News reports that they had gotten calls from a man claiming to be Bryce Williams and also last night what basically was a rambling manifesto/suicide note that said he was the victim of racism, triggered by the racist church killings in Charleston, and that Jehova told him to do it.
Some key parts of ABC’s report:

A man claiming to be Bryce Williams called ABC News over the last few weeks, saying he wanted to pitch a story, and wanted to fax information. He never told ABC News what the story was.

This morning, a fax was in the machine (time stamped 8:26 a.m.) almost two hours after the shooting. A little after 10 a.m., he called again, and introduced himself as Bryce, but also said his legal name was Vester Lee Flanagan, and that he shot two people this morning. While on the phone, he said authorities are “after me,” and “all over the place.” He hung up. ABC News contacted the authorities immediately and provided them with the fax.

In the 23-page document faxed to ABC News, the writer says “MY NAME IS BRYCE WILLIAMS” and his legal name is Vester Lee Flanagan II. He writes what triggered today’s carnage was his reaction to the racism of the Charleston church shooting.

“Why did I do it? I put down a deposit for a gun on 6/19/15. The Church shooting in Charleston happened on 6/17/15…”

“What sent me over the top was the church shooting. And my hollow point bullets have the victims’ initials on them.”

It is unclear whose initials he is referring to. He continues, “As for Dylann Roof? You (deleted)! You want a race war (deleted)? BRING IT THEN YOU WHITE …(deleted)!!!” He said Jehovah spoke to him, telling him to act.

AND:

Later in the manifesto, the writer quotes the Virginia Tech mass killer, Seung Hui Cho, calls him “his boy,” and expresses admiration for the Columbine High School killers. “Also, I was influenced by Seung–Hui Cho. That’s my boy right there. He got NEARLY double the amount that Eric Harris and Dylann Klebold got…just sayin.'”

Then in a part he labelled as a suicide note to friends and family he complained about “racial discrimination, sexual harassment [he was gay] and bullying at work” and being attacked by black men and white females and “

He wrote he has been attacked by black men and white female” talks about how he was attacked for being a gay, black man.” He called himself a powder keg that would go “BOOM!”

And you can you already guess some of the Tweets in an age when social media has not uplifted the quality of our national dialogue. Here’s a cross section under his name:

Some sites are showing the full video shot by Flanagan from his point of view. We’ll pass on that one.

JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief

Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.

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