The shooter who opened fire at Virginia Beach Municipal Center in 2019 had an “inflated sense of self-importance” and “fixated” on “workplace grievances,” the FBI announced on Wednesday.
DeWayne Craddock, 40, was shot and killed by police after he gunned down 12 people, including 11 co-workers and one contractor, on May 31, 2019. At the time, the incident was described as “the most devastating day in the history of Virginia Beach” by Mayor Bobby Dyer.
Two years after the deadly shooting, the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit concluded Craddock’s “perceived grievances began taking shape as early as 2014,” and he subsequently began to isolate “himself by disengaging from relationships to conceal his intentions.” The bureau also determined that the 40-year-old “suffered from significant mental health stressors,” though those alone could not account for the entire motive behind the attack.
12 DEAD IN VIRGINIA BEACH SHOOTING
“BAU assesses the shooter was motivated by perceived workplace grievances, which he fixated on for years,” the FBI wrote. “BAU found the shooter struggled with how he perceived his own work performance and how others at work viewed him. The shooter’s inflated sense of self-importance contributed to this conflict and led him to believe he was unjustly and repeatedly criticized and slighted. Violence was viewed by the shooter as a way to reconcile this conflict and restore his perverted view of justice.”
The bureau added that “no individual or group was in a position to see the confluence of behaviors that may have forewarned the attack.”
The Virginia Beach Police Department previously released its own report on Craddock’s behavior, concluding he suffered from “paranoia and relayed that he believed others were talking about him.” Law enforcement said Craddock had no history of mental health issues for the two years preceding the attack, no outstanding financial issues, and no apparent posts on social media talking about the attack beforehand.
“The suspect had no diagnoses of mental illness or Page 16 prescriptions for any controlled medications for the two years previous to the shooting,” the department wrote. “The suspect did not have any financial issues and had a sizeable amount of cash in his bank accounts. No social media accounts or writings indicative of violence or reasons for his actions were found.”
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The incident spurred Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, to introduce a host of gun control measures in the state’s previously Republican-controlled Legislature. The commonwealth has since passed several restrictions, including a ban on purchasing more than one handgun per month, the imposition of universal background checks, and an introduction of a red flag law, which allows local law enforcement to seize guns from those deemed a threat to themselves or others.
In January of last year, thousands of armed pro-Second Amendment supporters descended on Virginia’s Capitol to oppose the governor’s gun control plans. However, the laws went into effect that April.
