page_title: 2019 Virginia Beach shooting
section_title: Perpetrator
hierarchical_section_title: 2019 Virginia Beach shooting / Perpetrator
caption_attribution_description: HK USP CT, .45 ACP
context_page_description: The 2019 Virginia Beach shooting occurred on the afternoon of May 31, 2019, when DeWayne Craddock, a disgruntled city employee fatally shot 12 people and wounded four others in a mass shooting at a municipal building in the Princess Anne area of Virginia Beach, Virginia. He was shot dead by responding police officers.
context_section_description: The perpetrator was identified by the police as 40-year-old DeWayne Antonio Craddock (born DeWayne Antonio Hamilton; October 15, 1978 – May 31, 2019) He worked as an engineer in the city's public utilities department until tendering his resignation in an email he sent to city management a few hours before the attack. Having resigned "within good standing in his department", Craddock still possessed a security pass to enter employee work spaces within the building at the time of the attack. In the days prior to the shooting, he was alleged to have been involved in physical scuffles with fellow city employees and threatened with disciplinary action. However, the city manager said that when Craddock resigned, he "had no issues of discipline ongoing".
  Within the span of at least three years prior to the shooting, Craddock had legally acquired six firearms, five of which are chambered in .45 ACP. Two .45-caliber pistols (a Glock 21 and an H&K USP Compact Tactical equipped with a suppressor) were used in the shooting and three more weapons were found at his home, including one Bond Arms Backup Derringer in .45-caliber, one Just Right Carbine in .45-caliber, and another Glock 21 pistol in .45-caliber. The sixth weapon, an unidentified Ruger rifle the suspect purchased on April 12, is still being checked by authorities.
  Craddock graduated in 1996 from Denbigh High School in Newport News. Between 1996 and 2002, he served in the Virginia Army National Guard in Norfolk as a cannon crew member with the First Battalion, 111th Field Artillery Regiment. At the time of his discharge he held the rank of Specialist (E-4) and had not been deployed for combat service. In 2002, he graduated from Old Dominion University with a degree in civil engineering.
  Prior to the shooting, Craddock did not have a criminal record with the exception of minor traffic violations.
caption: H&K USP Compact Tactical
exif: {}