/merlin_217264383_319b0029-5fc5-4516-8440-f83586ddc608-superJumbo.webp "A memorial outside the Walmart in Chesapeake, Va., where a gunman fatally shot six people. Credit...Kenny Holston for The New York Times")
Every night, as they clocked in for the overnight shift around 10 p.m., the employees of a Walmart in Chesapeake gathered in the break room.
They chatted and prepared for the long shift ahead, then got to work cleaning and restocking the store for the next day. The hours ran late and the work could be tiring, but members of the team — some of whom had worked there for years — said they were often buoyed by the camaraderie they found.
“Our overnight crew, we were a family when I was there,” said Shaundrayia Reese, 27, who worked at the Walmart in a Chesapeake strip mall for several years, from around 2015 to 2018. “Everyone loved each other,” she recalled.
On Tuesday night, six Walmart employees, many of whom were part of that tight-knit team, were fatally shot, the authorities say, by a longtime night crew supervisor who opened fire in the break room where the team had gathered so often.
