WASHINGTON: A municipal employee sprayed gunfire “indiscriminately” in a government building complex on Friday in the US state of Virginia, police said, killing 12 people and wounding four in the latest mass shooting to rock the country.
The shooter was also killed after an extended gunbattle with responding officers, in a scene that “best could be described as a war zone,” Virginia Beach police chief James Cervera told a news conference.
The shooting happened just after 4:00 p.m. (2000 GMT), when the gunman entered one of the buildings at the Virginia Beach municipal complex and “immediately began to indiscriminately fire on all of the victims,” Cervera said.
One victim was killed outside in his vehicle, while the others were found on all three floors of the building. Police upgraded the casualty toll to 12 dead and four wounded Friday night, after earlier reporting 11 dead and six wounded.
The shooter was armed with a .45-caliber handgun fitted with a sound suppressor, and he reloaded multiple times with extended magazines, Cervera said.
“Due to the sound of gunfire, (the four responding officers) were able to locate the floor in which the suspect was committing his crimes. They immediately engaged with the suspect, and I can tell you that it was a long gunbattle,” Cervera said.
“During this gunbattle, basically the officers stopped this individual from committing more carnage in that building.”
Authorities did not release the shooter’s name or speculate on his motives, aside from saying that he was a longtime employee of the public utilities department.
The wounded included a police officer, who was saved by his bulletproof vest. All were undergoing surgery Friday night.
At least 12 dead after shooting in Virginia
At least 12 dead after shooting in Virginia
- A municipal employee sprayed gunfire in a government building complex
- The shooter was killed after an extended gunbattle with responding officers
At top UN court, Myanmar denies deadly Rohingya campaign amounts to genocide
- The country defended itself Friday at the United Nations top court against allegations of breaching the genocide convention
- Myanmar launched the campaign in Rakhine state in 2017 after an attack by a Rohingya insurgent group
THE HAGUE: Myanmar insisted Friday that its deadly military campaign against the Rohingya ethnic minority was a legitimate counter-terrorism operation and did not amount to genocide, as it defended itself at the top United Nations court against an allegation of breaching the genocide convention.
Myanmar launched the campaign in Rakhine state in 2017 after an attack by a Rohingya insurgent group. Security forces were accused of mass rapes, killings and torching thousands of homes as more than 700,000 Rohingya fled into neighboring Bangladesh.
“Myanmar was not obliged to remain idle and allow terrorists to have free reign of northern Rakhine state,” the country’s representative Ko Ko Hlaing told black-robed judges at the International Court of Justice.
Gambia filed genocide case in 2019
African nation Gambia brought a case at the court in 2019 alleging that Myanmar’s military actions amount to a breach of the Genocide Convention that was drawn up in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust.
Some 1.2 million members of the Rohingya minority are still languishing in chaotic, overcrowded camps in Bangladesh, where armed groups recruit children and girls as young as 12 are forced into prostitution. The sudden and severe foreign aid cuts imposed last year by US President Donald Trump shuttered thousands of the camps’ schools and have caused children to starve to death.
Buddhist-majority Myanmar has long considered the Rohingya Muslim minority to be “Bengalis” from Bangladesh even though their families have lived in the country for generations. Nearly all have been denied citizenship since 1982.
Myanmar denies Gambia claims of ‘genocidal intent’
As hearings opened Monday, Gambian Justice Minister Dawda Jallow said his nation filed the case after the Rohingya “endured decades of appalling persecution, and years of dehumanizing propaganda. This culminated in the savage, genocidal ‘clearance operations’ of 2016 and 2017, which were followed by continued genocidal policies meant to erase their existence in Myanmar.”
Hlaing disputed the evidence Gambia cited in its case, including the findings of an international fact-finding mission set up by the UN’s Human Rights Council.
“Myanmar’s position is that the Gambia has failed to meet its burden of proof,” he said. “This case will be decided on the basis of proven facts, not unsubstantiated allegations. Emotional anguish and blurry factual pictures are not a substitute for rigorous presentation of facts.”
Aung San Suu Kyi represented Myanmar at court in 2019. Now she’s imprisoned
Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi represented her country at jurisdiction hearings in the case in 2019, denying that Myanmar armed forces committed genocide and instead casting the mass exodus of Rohingya people from the country she led as an unfortunate result of a battle with insurgents.
The pro-democracy icon is now in prison after being convicted of what her supporters call trumped-up charges after a military takeover of power.
Myanmar contested the court’s jurisdiction, saying Gambia was not directly involved in the conflict and therefore could not initiate a case. Both countries are signatories to the genocide convention, and in 2022, judges rejected the argument, allowing the case to move forward.
Gambia rejects Myanmar’s claims that it was combating terrorism, with Jallow telling judges on Monday that “genocidal intent is the only reasonable inference that can be drawn from Myanmar’s pattern of conduct.”
In late 2024, prosecutors at another Hague-based tribunal, the International Criminal Court, requested an arrest warrant for the head of Myanmar’s military regime for crimes committed against the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority. Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, who seized power from Suu Kyi in 2021, is accused of crimes against humanity for the persecution of the Rohingya. The request is still pending.
