All Victims of Virginia Beach Massacre Identified: 'Today We All Grieve'
Officials in Virginia Beach, Virginia, have identified the victims of a mass shooting that left twelve dead at the city’s municipal building on Friday.
Eleven of the twelve victims were city employees, five were in the Public Works Department and the remaining six were from the Public Utilities Department, the New York Post reported.
Victims from the Public Works Department include:
Laquita C. Brown, of Chesapeake, Virginia, who served as a right-of-way agent for 4.5 years.
Christopher Kelly Rapp, of Powhatan, who was an engineer for 11 months.
Tara Welch Gallagher, of Virginia Beach, who worked 6 years as an engineer.
Mary Louise Gayle, of Virginia Beach, who was a right-of-way agent and worked there over 24 years.
Alexander Mikhail Gusev, of Virginia Beach who was a right-of-way agent and served 9 years.
Those from the Public Utilities Department include:
Joshua A. Hardy, of Virginia Beach, who served as an engineering technician for 4.5 years.
Ryan Keith Cox, of Virginia Beach, who was an accounting clerk that served 12.5 years.
Katherine A Nixon, of Virginia Beach, who spent 10 years as an engineer.
Michelle Missy Langer, of Virginia Beach, who served 12 years as an administrative assistant.
Robert “Bobby” Williams, of Chesapeake, who spent 41 years as a special projects coordinator.
Richard Nettleton, of Norfolk, who worked as an engineer for 28 years and also served in an engineer brigade in Germany.
The one non-city employee, identified as Herbert “Bert” Snelling, was a contractor in the building trying to obtain a permit.
These are the 12 slain victims of the Virginia Beach mass shooting https://t.co/8LKIe5snr6 pic.twitter.com/P8TpYvPvPG
— Orlando Sentinel (@orlandosentinel) June 1, 2019
City officials have not disclosed the names or conditions of the four people who were seriously injured during the shooting.
At a news conference on Saturday morning, City Manager Dave Hansen said officials have “completed the most difficult task anyone will have to do, that is notifying the next of kin.”
“Today we all grieve,” he added.
Hansen told reporters that he has worked with most of the victims “for many years.”
“We want you to know who they were,” he said, “so in the days and weeks to come you will learn what they meant to all of us, to their families, to their friends and to their coworkers.”
“They leave a void that we will never be able to fill.”
Virginia Beach Police Chief James Cervera confirmed the identity of the shooter as DeWayne Craddock who was an employee for the city’s public utilities department for 15 years.
This would be “the only time we will announce his name,” Cervera said.
Officials didn’t share additional details on the shooting except that they found “additional weapons at the scene.”
“I’m not at liberty to tell what those weapons are at this time,” Cervera said.
Cervera did note, however, that because Craddock was a city employee, he was able to access the building using his security pass.
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