Va. Beach releases letter sent before shooting rampage

By Julie Zauzmer, Michael E. Miller and Justin Jouvenal | Washington Post

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — A resignation letter submitted by a city employee in the hours before he shot and killed 12 people at a government building Friday was brief and did not foreshadow the violence that was to come.

Virginia Beach officials released the email by DeWayne Craddock, 40, on Monday afternoon, as investigators continue to try to piece together a motive for the nation’s worst mass shooting this year.

“I want to officially put in my (2) weeks’ notice to vacant [sic] my position of Engineer III with the City of Virginia Beach,” Craddock wrote in an email. “It has been a pleasure to serve the City, but due to personal reasons I must relieve my position.”

The city redacted the time the email was sent and the receiver but has said in previous news briefings that it was sent early Friday.

Craddock was a longtime engineer with the city’s Department of Public Utilities, where he oversaw water and sewer projects. Investigators have been probing whether the shooting might be tied to personal or professional issues, but city officials have said Craddock had not been fired and they have not uncovered evidence of workplace problems.

“To my knowledge, the perpetrator’s performance was satisfactory,” City Manager Dave Hansen said at a Sunday press conference, adding that Craddock “was in good standing within his department . . . there were no issues of discipline ongoing.”

Three days after the shooting, a somber Monday played out at the city’s sprawling municipal complex, where employees returned to work for the first time since the rampage unfolded in the three-story, brick Building 2.

Most offices remain closed. Some entrances were still blocked with police barricades and police cars. The scene of the shooting was quiet and will be shuttered indefinitely as the investigation continues.

Many workers wore blue as they’d been urged to do to show solidarity. Some murmured about what a beautiful day it was and remembered those who were killed. Others didn’t speak but just put an arm around a colleague. Flags were at half staff.

Alveta Green, who works in the complex where the shooting happened said it still felt surreal.

Green is in charge of student support services for the Virginia Beach school district and trains staff to handle all manner of crisis and trauma.

On Monday morning, Green was bracing herself not only to supervise the psychologists and counselors deployed across the city to aid returning students and teachers, but also to help her own coworkers who found themselves at the heart of a crime scene the last time they went to work.

Building 6, where the school administration is housed, was one of the few buildings in the municipal complex where staff returned to work on Monday. Those in most buildings except Building 2, where the shooting occurred, will be back on Tuesday.

Authorities identified those killed as Virginia Beach residents Michelle “Missy” Langer, Ryan Keith Cox, Tara Welch Gallagher, Mary Louise Gayle, Alexander Mikhail Gusev, Katherine A. Nixon, Joshua O. Hardy and Herbert “Bert” Snelling; Chesapeake residents Laquita C. Brown and Robert “Bobby” Williams; Norfolk resident Richard H. Nettleton; and Powhatan resident Christopher Kelly Rapp.

Staff in Building 6 gathered Monday on the grassy lawn outside with black memorial ribbons pinned to their blue shirts and dresses alongside their school staff name tags. During a performance of the national anthem, a Christian prayer, a speech by the superintendent and 12 moments of silence, well over 100 returning workers silently embraced each other, and clasped hands while they cried.

Karin Dimaggio, the coordinator of psychological support services for the school district, said she would be alert to the need for support within her own office. “We lean on each other. We’re a very close office,” she said.

Nancy Liette, who works in purchasing for the school district, was carrying out her own form of therapy on the lawn as workers returned. She got her dog Nala trained as a therapy dog two years ago, and normally takes Nala to nursing homes on weekends. Today, she brought Nala to work. A few coworkers hugged Liette and thanked her; most went straight down to the dog’s level to tousle her golden fur.

On Friday, Liette was huddled with some of these same coworkers, staying away from windows and sending urgent text messages to their families when they got news of an active shooter in Building 2. When she reentered Building 6 on Monday, she was glad she had Nala by her side. “I think it’s helping me as much as it’s helping anybody else.”

Craddock was a veteran of the Virginia Army National Guard and had served in it for six years as an artillery cannon crew member. He had a shaved head and a bodybuilder’s physique. At his home on a quiet cul-de-sac, he had cameras in the windows.

Agata Craddock, his ex-wife, declined to comment Monday.

“I am still trying to process all this,” she said. “I was put in this position. I am not ready for this yet. I am not ready for this. I want to respect the people who died. I am cooperating with police and FBI and those are the people who I will talk to.”

Court records show Craddock married his wife on Valentine’s Day 2008 in Virginia Beach. The two separated on Sept. 6, 2016 and divorced in August 2017 citing “certain differences”, according to court records. The divorce was uncontested and as part of it, Craddock paid a lump sum of $25,000, court records show. His ex-wife got to keep their two dogs, Jackson and Carbon, the filing state.

Marisha Clark, who lives across the street from the complex where the shooting happened, said she spent the weekend trying to figure out how much to explain to her kids – ages 7 and 11 – about the incident.

“I will never get that out of my mind: My 11-year-old running into the house, shouting, ‘Mommy, there’s a mass shooting,'” Clark said.

After she dropped her kids off at school on Monday she went to the complex.

“I needed to be out there. To go pray. If someone needed a hug, I wanted to be there.”

The last time she had been here, her son’s youth football team was being honored, at Building 2. Not so long ago, on a totally different day.

Outside of Building 6, she found a table full of brightly painted rocks, with paint markers for writing messages that will eventually go into a community rock garden. “Keith Cox, Never Forget” someone had written on one. “LaQuita Brown,” someone wrote on another, with a drawing of the sun and waves. One said, “Peace that defies understanding.”

Clark took a yellow rock, and held it in her hand for a long time. “We’re not strangers. We’re community at this point. We are all hurting. We are really hurting,” she said.

She wrote in capital letters on the rock, simply: LOVE.