Two days after his wife was killed in Virginia Beach, Va.’s mass shooting, Jason Nixon heard words that would launch him on a one-man mission for answers about the case, reports the Washington Post. “To my knowledge, the perpetrator’s performance was satisfactory,” City Manager Dave Hansen said of the gunman, DeWayne Craddock. Months earlier, Nixon’s wife, Kate, had “written up” Craddock for poor work and for being “disrespectful toward her because she was a woman and higher powered,” he recalled. Kate Nixon was a manager in the city’s public utilities department, where Craddock was an engineer. “They … said he was satisfactory,” Jason Nixon said. “He was not. And if my wife was alive right now, she’d tell you that.”
The discrepancy has shaken Nixon’s faith in the ongoing police investigation into the May 31 mass shooting that killed 12 and has fueled his calls for an independent inquiry. With the city rejecting requests to disclose Craddock’s personnel records, Nixon has become its gadfly, hiring an attorney and urging others to follow his lead. “How many times was he written up? What did human resources do about it, and why wasn’t he let go a long time ago if he had these issues?” Nixon said. A city spokeswoman said requests for an outside inquiry “appear premature while the criminal investigation is ongoing.” At least two more victims’ families back Nixon’s demand for a new investigation, as have two state delegates. The City Council is expected to vote soon on a resolution to authorize a second inquiry. The city has suggested it could take as long as 10 months for the police to finish the investigation. Separately, a survivor of the mass shooting who doesn’t want to return to his workplace has been arrested on a “disturbing the peace” charge, the Associated Press reports.