Humanizing Bryce Williams aka Vester Flanagan

Roanoke, VA — Tragedy this morning as Bryce Williams aka Vester Lee Flanagan shot two WDBJ7 journalists at Smith Mountain Lake. Williams was described as a disgruntled employee by the media and as a terrorist by Black Lives Matter advocate Deray McKesson, of course under the faulty assumption that the still-unidentified shooter was probably a white man. Williams was in fact a black man who tweeted that his victims were racist in the workplace. He also once sued for racism in the workplace when he anchored NBC News 40 in Tallahassee.

Now as the community suffers the loss of two journalists who were engaged to be married and Williams is reportedly on the run from my hometown of Roanoke, I have screenshots of Bryce’s twitter feed that tell something quite far from the horrific snuff video. The video contained a terrible meaning more than incredible gore or violence and after making a copy I deleted it. Watching from that man’s point of view in that moment was unbearable.

I don’t know what I would think if I was a black man and saw Donald Trump’s racist horde assembling with pitchforks and all the fleets of big confederate flags on big racist trucks riding around Roanoke, because I’m not a black man.