williams. he was fired in 2013, roughly a year later. the station s general manager said the day he was let go he became agitated and threatening. police were called. he was escorted from the building but roanoke police say no arrest was made. flanagan was asked to seek mental health assistance and he complied. we made it mandatory that he seek help from our employee assistance program. many employees have them an they provide counselling and other services and we made it mandatory that he do that. reporter: the station s former news director said flanagan handed him a wooden cross in 2013 saying, you ll need this. wdbj is over there. this is the apartment complex where vester flanagan lived, just a block away. right now it is under 24/7 security. his neighbors didn t want to go on camera but said after the shooting they were made to to evacuate their units as police in bomb squad teams moved in.
trying to come to grips with what happened. one of the anchors kimberly mcbroom said she didn t realize the sound during the live broadcast was gunfire. you have to understand they were doing a feature at beautiful smith mountain lake, it was a beautiful morning, this was not a standoff, this was not a hard news story, this was a morning feature. so when we heard those sounds, when i heard those sounds i do not think gunshots. as time went on, as people in the control room were trying to get in touch with them through texting and the longer it was that we didn t get a response from either of them, the more it was very, very clear that something had happened. that something was very wrong. again terry mcauliffe arrived at wdbj late this morning to meet with family members and colleagues. cnn correspondent polo sandoval is joining us from outside that station in roanoke, virginia.
terms with that. i know that alison and adam would want us to keep doing. this is what we do. we are wdbj 7. adam s twitter handle was do work. he believed in that. this morning, we were looking at each other going, do work, do work. we are doing it for adam and alison. it s why we are here. remarkable it is hard. we can only imagine. it is ma remarkable to any of us you were able to do a newscast. it seemed like the right answer. just that you could get through it. what was it like when the lights went on yesterday morning without your colleagues? it was unbelievably sad. there was a big hole there in our morning family, there was. but, you know, i had my partner by my side. i hadley owe with me and all our
that she was. listen. she was a nerd at heart and yet displayed a beauty that i had never seen before in person and i was lucky enough that she loved me back. she was also a fantastic journalist, an excellent storyteller and she had so many more stories to tell that unfortunately won t be able to be told. now we have decided we need to share her story and adam s story needs on the shared, as well. exactly 24 hours thaf double murder, the morning news crew at wdbj paid an emotional tribute on air to parker and ward. approaching a moment that none of us will forget. it was yesterday around this time that we went live to ailson parker and photojournalist adam ward, reporting on our hometown at bridge water plaza to report on a happy event. the 50th anniversary of the lake.
the staff at wdbj is, of course, struggling with the loss of their family members. and you know, you and i, we came up in local news. these are small families. they lost family members. as you say, many of them worked daily with parker and ward. thursday morning, just 24 hours after that shooting, the morning news crew gave an emotional tribute with a moment of silence at the time the pair was killed. later the station s news director explained how the staff is coping with what happened. listen. i have watched anchors and reporters half an hour before a newscast be crying in the newsroom and then get on that set and deliver the news to the people of southwest and central virginia. they have had to talk about their colleagues and you know, deal with some difficult situations. i give you the example of our meteorologist this morning. found a candy wrapper, while on