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CRIME

Businesses reopening at scene of on-air shootings; gunman remembered for bizarre outbursts

Associated Press
Published | Updated
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    Roanoke City Council member Anita Price, right, is comforted by friend Jan DeVries as they gather at a candlelight vigil in front of the WDBJ-TV station in Roanoke, Va., Thursday, Aug. 27, 2015, a day after reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward from the station were killed during a live broadcast. Vester Flanagan filmed himself gunning down the journalists and posted the video on social media after fleeing the scene. (AP Photo/Don Petersen) (The Associated Press)

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    People attend a vigil in front of the WDBJ-TV station in Roanoke, Va., Thursday, Aug. 27, 2015, a day after reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward from the station were killed during a live broadcast. Vester Flanagan filmed himself gunning down the journalists and posted the video on social media after fleeing the scene. (AP Photo/Don Petersen) (The Associated Press)

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    Dan Dennison, a former news director at WDBJ-TV in Roanoke, Va., speaks in Honolulu, Thursday, Aug. 27, 2015. Dennison said Thursday the former employee, Vester Flanagan, who shot two ex-colleagues on live television had a long history of being a "professional victim." (AP Photo/Audrey McAvoy) (The Associated Press)

ROANOKE, Va. – Businesses are reopening in Virginia at the scene of this week's on-air shooting as more details surface of the gunman's long history of confronting and bullying co-workers at a succession of television and customer-service jobs.

Friday's reopening of Bridgewater Plaza comes two days after 41-year-old Vester Flanagan killed two journalists from a Roanoke TV station where he once worked, and wounded the Smith Mountain Lake Regional Chamber of Commerce official they were interviewing.

Flanagan's hair-trigger temper became evident at least 15 years ago at WTWC-TV in Tallahassee, Florida, said Don Shafer, who hired him there in 1999. Shafer recalled Flanagan as a good reporter and a "clever, funny guy" — but said he also had conflicts with co-workers "to the point where he was threatening people."