{"id":9712,"date":"2019-06-01T11:41:36","date_gmt":"2019-06-01T07:41:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/?p=9712"},"modified":"2019-06-01T11:41:36","modified_gmt":"2019-06-01T07:41:36","slug":"virginia-beach-shooting-12-killed-after-city-worker-opens-fire-at-colleagues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/2019\/06\/01\/virginia-beach-shooting-12-killed-after-city-worker-opens-fire-at-colleagues\/","title":{"rendered":"Virginia Beach shooting: 12 killed after city worker opens fire at colleagues"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">At least 12 people were killed and several injured on Friday in a mass shooting at a government building in the US state of Virginia.<\/p>\n<p>Police said the suspect, a long-term and current Virginia Beach city employee, fired &#8220;indiscriminately&#8221; in a public utilities building.<\/p>\n<p>The gunman, whose identity was not released, was killed in an exchange of gunfire with police.<\/p>\n<p>Officials said an officer was wounded when a bullet struck his vest.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">How did the shooting unfold?<\/h2>\n<p>The attack began shortly after 16:00 (20:00 GMT), at Virginia Beach Municipal Center, in an area which is home to a number of city government buildings. The area was put into lockdown by police and employees were evacuated.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We just heard people yelling and screaming at people to get down,&#8221; Megan Banton, an administrative assistant in the building, told local television news station WAVY.<\/p>\n<p>One of the victims was shot outside in a car, and the rest were found over three floors of the government building, Police Chief James Cervera said.<\/p>\n<p>Four officers entered the building and located the gunman inside and &#8220;immediately engaged&#8221; him, Chief Cervera said. The attacker was then killed in an extended exchange of gunfire.<\/p>\n<p>The police chief said the crime scene was &#8220;horrific&#8221; and could &#8220;best be described as a war zone&#8221;.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__img js-image-replace\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/12FE6\/production\/_107189777_reuters3.jpg\" alt=\"Photograph of the building where shooting occurred\" width=\"976\" height=\"549\" data-highest-encountered-width=\"624\" \/><\/span><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\">The shooting was at Building 2 in Virginia Beach Municipal Center<\/span><\/figure>\n<p>&#8220;I want you to know that during this gun battle, basically the officers stopped this individual from committing more carnage in that building,&#8221; Chief Cervera said.<\/p>\n<p>Police recovered a rifle and a handgun, thought to have been used by the suspect, at the scene.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At least 12 people were killed and several injured on Friday in a mass shooting at a government building in the US state of Virginia. Police said the suspect, a long-term and current Virginia Beach city employee, fired &#8220;indiscriminately&#8221; in a public utilities building. The gunman, whose identity was not released, was killed in an &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9713,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9712"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9714,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9712\/revisions\/9714"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}