6 victims of the Walmart shooting in Chesapeake, Virginia, include a 16-year-old boy
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Lloyd Lee,Rebecca Cohen
Nov 26, 2022, 01:37 IST
Left to right: Lorenzo Gamble, Brian Pendleton, Kellie Pyle, Randall Blevins, and Tyneka Johnson. The identity of the sixth victim is being withheld because he was a minor.City of Chesapeake
Six people were killed by a gunman at a Walmart in Chesapeake, Virginia, on Tuesday.
One of the victims includes 16-year-old Chesapeake resident Fernando Chavez-Barron.
City of Chesapeake authorities identified the victims as Tyneka Johnson, 22, Brian Pendleton, 38, Randy Blevins, 70, Lorenzo Gamble, 43, Kellie Pyle, 52, and a 16-year-old boy, who they later identified as Fernando Chavez-Barron. Chavez-Barron's identity was initially withheld because he was a minor, the city said.
A memorial was held for Chavez-Barron in the parking lot of the Walmart store on Thursday night. The city is holding a candlelight vigil for all the victims on Monday night at the Chesapeake City Park.
"It is with great sadness that we confirm 16-year-old Fernando Chavez-Barron of Chesapeake was the juvenile victim in this tragedy," the city said in a statement.
The shooter was a Walmart associate working as an overnight team lead at the store, Walmart said in a statement to Insider.
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All of the six victims were also Walmart employees, the company told Insider in a statement.
"I know this community and I know it well," Chesapeake Mayor Rick West said in a statement posted on Twitter. "And I know that we will come together and lend a helping hand to the victims' families. We'll share this burden together and we'll be stronger for it."
Randall 'Randy' Blevins, 70
Blevins was a longtime member of the Chesapeake Walmart's modular team, which set the prices on items, Shaundrayia Reese, a former employee who worked at the store from 2015 to 2018, told The New York Times.
In an interview with The Post, his mother, Linda Gamble, said that he loved to watch his 19-year-old son play football. His 10-year-old son cried whenever his father left, she said.
"He just kept to himself and did his job," Gamble's mother told the Post. "He was the quiet one of the family."
When her husband informed her that her son had been shot and killed, Gamble told The New York Times, "All I could do was fall out the chair and scream."
Brian Pendleton, 38
Josh Johnson, a former co-worker, described Pendleton to The Times as an older brother.
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"If you had any problems, you could go to Brian," he said. "He would go to bat for you and help you with anything."
Reese, who also knew Pendleton, told the publication that "he never raised his voice" and "never had a bad bone in his body."
"Nobody could ever say anything bad about that man. He was one of the sweetest people I've ever met in my life. He didn't deserve to die like that," she said.
Fernando Chavez-Barron, 16
A friend of Chavez-Barron's family, Rosy Perez, told the Times that the 16-year-old — a student at the local high school — took on the overnight shift to help make some extra money for his family.
"He always was the sunshine in the room, always making someone laugh," Mary Guiterrez, a 17-year-old who had known Chavez-Barron since childhood, told the Times.
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Tyneka Johnson, 22
Johnson began working at the Walmart recently. Her former tutor, Casheba Cannon, called Johnson "a light in a dim room" in an interview with the Post.
Kellie Pyle, 52
Pyle, a mother of two and a grandmother of a two-year-old, also began working at Walmart recently, her cousin, Billy Pillar-Gibson, told the Post. She moved back to her hometown of Norfolk in May and had plans to marry her high school sweetheart next year.
This story is developing. Check back for updates.
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