VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — The Commission to Investigate the May 31, 2019 Virginia Beach Mass Shooting has shared a preliminary report with state leaders and lawmakers, detailing its accomplishments and goals.
In the interim report, the commission says it plans to investigate "workplace grievances" and employee discipline within the City of Virginia Beach.
The Commission also said the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit report provided the best description of the shooter's motivations and psychology.
Butch Bracknell, the commission's vice-chair, said there are details in the full FBI analysis that the commission would like to share with the public.
“There are things in the BAU report that haven’t seen the light of day heretofore, and we’re hoping to pull as much of that into our own report as we can," Bracknell said. "We are going to be discussing with the FBI about how much more of their work we can [share] in a publicly releasable way."
In June, the FBI released a short summary of its investigation, which determined the shooter acted on “perceived workplace grievances,” adding that no one could have predicted his actions.
A Virginia Beach city employee shot and killed 12 people and injured four others at a city building in May of 2019.
Bracknell said the commission will recommend changes to city leaders, likely related to Human Resources actions, but said Virginia Beach has also already made important changes such as consolidating parts of the HR department.
"They have an interest in solving these issues as well and making their own judgments about what in the HR process might have been misinterpreted," he said.
The interim report details the organization and leadership changes of the commission, the investigation reviews and briefings they've covered so far, and an "initial question and answer session" with Virginia Beach City Manager Patrick Duhaney, Police Paul Neudigate and other city leaders.
Bracknell said the goal is to produce a summary that helps cities and companies prevent workplace violence and implement crisis mitigation strategies.
"We're trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle that is comprised of documents and photographs and expert opinions - trying to assemble all those into a giant Jenga puzzle that we hope will stand up on its own when we’re done," he said.
The State Commission has a June 2022 deadline for a final report.
However, at its most recent meeting, commissioners said they could ask state lawmakers for a six-month extension to the end of 2022 to produce better results.