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After this morning’s fatal shooting of two reporters live on air, ABC News is reporting that a man identifying himself as the shooter faxed the network’s news a 23-page document detailing his motives.
The fax was titled “Suicide Note For Friends & Family,” and was signed as Bryce Williams, with his legal name Vester Lee Flanagan II in parentheses. Flanagan worked under the professional moniker Bryce Williams as a broadcast reporter. He was reportedly fired from WDBJ, the Roanoke, Virginia news station where victims Alison Parker and Adam Ward also worked. Flanagan died of self-inflicted gunshot wounds this afternoon, CNN reports.
In the fax, Flanagan cited the Charleston church shooting back in June as his final motivation for carrying out the shooting. As ABC excerpts: “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…”
Flanagan also addressed Charleston shooter Dylann Roof directly: “As for Dylann Roof? You (deleted)! You want a race war (deleted)? BRING IT THEN YOU WHITE …(deleted)!!!”
In his note, Flanagan said that the Charleston shooting added to the anger he felt from being subjected to racist attacks at WDBJ:
In his manifesto, he says he encountered “nasty racist things” while working at WDBJ-7 in Roanoke, and that drove him to sue the station. “I marched down to the courthouse and sued WDBJ7 by myself and they settled! HA!”
He continues: “I can remember one day in particular… leaving the courthouse… feeling overwhelmed… confused… even some fear. But by golly I knew I HAD to fight. … They truly f—-d with my life and caused an awful chain of events.” He says he even killed his cats in a forest “because of them.”
Flanagan says that, “Hell yeah, I made mistakes,” noting that he “should not have been so curt” with photographers in Roanoke. “[B]ut you know why I was? The damn news director was a micromanaging tyrant!!”
One of two tweets from a since deleted @bryce_williams7 Twitter account said that “Alison made racist comments” and “Adam went to hr on me after working with me one time!!!” Both tweets presumably refer to the victims. ABC says that Flanagan also detailed being “attacked as a gay, black man,” although ABC didn’t specify by whom.
In the note, Flanagan expressed admiration for Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho, and used a similar gun to Cho, according to anonymous sources cited by ABC News. The news outlet also reports that Flanagan had contacted it as Bryce Williams for the past few weeks, saying he wanted to pitch a story, but not specifying what it was. He faxed the document to ABC two hours after the shooting, then called the station to identify himself as the shooter. ABC immediately turned the fax over to police, then released these excerpts later in the afternoon.
A third victim, Vicki Gardner, who Parker was interviewing during the shooting, is reportedly in stable condition after being shot in the back.
UPDATE: CNN sheds some light on Flanagan’s time at WDBJ and his eventual firing…