Killer felt 'victimized'
ROANOKE, Va. — The man who was news director during Vester Flanagan's rocky tenure at Virginia station WDBJ-TV described him as someone who constantly saw himself being victimized by others.
Dan Dennison described Flanagan, who shot and killed a reporter and a cameraman on live television Wednesday, as a “professional victim” during his time at the station before being fired in 2013.
“He was victimized by everything and everyone and could never quite grasp the fact that he was the common denominator in all of these really sometimes serious interpersonal conflicts that he had with people,” Dennison said.
Flanagan, 41, interpreted efforts by the station to improve his performance and persuade him to work more cooperatively with colleagues as discrimination, said Dennison, who now works as a communications manager at the Hawaii state Department of Land and Natural Resources.
On the day he was fired, Flanagan pressed a wooden cross into Dennison's hand and said, “You'll need this,” as two police officers escorted him out. Flanagan's departure then was filmed by Adam Ward, the cameraman who was killed along with reporter Alison Parker Wednesday morning.
Dennison said the station had no idea of his shortcomings before he was hired there and he had received positive recommendations.
Flanagan's hair-trigger temper became evident at least 15 years ago at WTWC-TV in Tallahassee, Fla., said Don Shafer, who hired him there in 1999. Shafer recalled Flanagan as a good reporter and a “clever, funny guy” — but said he also had conflicts with co-workers “to the point where he was threatening people.”
“Had some physical confrontations with a couple of people, and at one point became such a distraction that we finally had to terminate him,” said Shafer, now news director with XETV in San Diego.
After stints in California, Florida and North Carolina, Flanagan's last television job was at WDBJ in Roanoke.
On Wednesday, after killing Parker, 24, and Ward, 27, he went online to claim they had wronged him in the past.
He also texted a friend suggesting he had “done something stupid,” investigators wrote in a search warrant. He turned the gun on himself when police caught up to him a few hours later. Inside his rental car, investigators found extra license plates, a wig, shawl, sunglasses and a hat as well as some stamped letters and a “to do” list.
