The man who killed a TV reporter and a cameraman during a live broadcast in Virginia on Wednesday, and who later posted a video of the slayings on social media, said he was motivated in part by other mass shootings including the recent Charleston church massacre, as well as personal experiences with racism and homophobia, according to a 23-page document he faxed to ABC News shortly after the killings.
“I’ve been a human powder keg for a while just waiting to go BOOM!!!!!” wrote Vester Lee Flanagan, who later died at a hospital later Wednesday, succumbing to a self-inflicted gunshot wound after a short car chase with Virginia police.
“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," he said, referencing the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal shooting that killed nine worshippers in South Carolina in June.
"And my hollow point bullets have the victims’ initials on them,” the document states, according to ABC, which said it wasn't clear whether he meant the Charleston victims or his own victims.
In the obscenity filled outburst, Flanagan condemned Dylann Roof, the accused Charleston church shooter, who authorities say was motivated by racial hatred of African Americans. "As for Dylann Roof? You [deleted]! You want a race war [deleted]? BRING IT THEN YOU WHITE …[deleted]!!!" reads Flanagan's document, according to ABC.
His suicide note also praises Virginia Tech shooter Seung Hui Cho, who killed 32 people at the school in 2007, as well as Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who killed 12 at a high school in Columbine, Colorado in 1999.
In his document, Flanagan said he also endured discrimination from both white and black people, over his race and sexual orientation.
“Yes, it will sound like I am angry...I am. And I have every right to be. But when I leave this Earth, the only emotion I want to feel is peace....” the document states, according to ABC, in a section addressed to his family.
The news network revealed certain sections of the document, which ABC said it received at 8:26 a.m., about two hours after Flanagan opened fire on reporter Alison Parker, photographer Adam Ward and head of the local chamber of commerce Vicki Gardner, who survived the attack. Parker and Ward were doing a story about tourism in the region.
In the note sent to ABC, Flanagan identifies himself as Bryce Williams, the name he used professionally, and the named he used when he called ABC at about 10 a.m. Wednesday, saying he had shot two people and that police were “after him” and “all over the place,” the network reported.
ABC said a person calling himself Williams had repeatedly been contacting ABC over the course of several weeks, trying to pitch a story. Local affiliate WDBJ said he was dismissed two years ago because of a history of angry outbursts.
“He did not take that well," the station’s General Manager Jeff Marks said during the station’s noon broadcast after the shootings.
A disturbing video posted to Flanagan's Twitter and Facebook accounts, under his Williams alias, shows the shooting from his perspective, apparently recorded on a camera mounted to the man’s chest.
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