Walmart Shooting Survivor Files a Big Lawsuit

Donya Prioleau wants the company to pay $50M in damages
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 29, 2022 2:21 PM CST
Walmart Shooting Survivor Files a Big Lawsuit
Robin Fisher of Chesapeake, Va., prays at a makeshift memorial in the parking lot of the Walmart Supercenter in Chesapeake on Sunday, Nov. 27, 2022.   (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

In the aftermath of the mass shooting at a Walmart in Virginia last week, store employee Donya Prioleau was widely quoted in the media as making this jarring statement: "I just watched three of my friends killed in front of me," she said. Now Prioleau wants Walmart to compensate her for that trauma. On Tuesday, she filed a $50 million lawsuit against the company for employing the gunman, who, according to her suit, "had known propensities for violence, threats, and strange behavior," per the AP. In fact, Prioleau says she filed a written complaint herself against him about two months prior to the shooting, reports WTKR. The gunman, a store supervisor, killed six employees and wounded several others in a breakroom before dying of what is believed to be a self-inflicted gunshot.

Among the details in the suit filed in Chesapeake County Court:

  • “Ms. Prioleau looked at one of her coworkers in the eyes right after she had been shot in the neck," it states. "Ms. Prioleau saw the bullet wound in her coworker’s neck, the blood rushing out of it, and the shocked look on her coworker’s helpless face.”
  • “Bullets whizzed by Plaintiff Donya Prioleau’s face and left side, barely missing her,” the lawsuit states. “She witnessed several of her coworkers being brutally murdered on either side of her.”
  • “Despite Mr. [Andre] Bing’s long-standing pattern of disturbing and threatening behavior, Walmart ... failed to terminate Mr. Bing, restrict his access to common areas, conduct a thorough background investigation, or subject him to a mental health examination," the lawsuit states.
  • Prioleau maintains that the gunman had harassed her with statements like, "Isn't your lady clock ticking?" regarding her lack of children, and she says she informed Walmart that he had called her a "b----." She also said he would ask co-workers if they had received their active-shooter training.
  • Prioleau says she has been suffering from PTSD since the assault.
(More Walmart stories.)

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