On the morning of August 26, 2015, news reporter Alison Parker and photojournalist Adam Ward, both employees of CBS affiliate WDBJ in Roanoke, Virginia, United States, were fatally shot while conducting a live television interview near Smith Mountain Lake in Moneta.

[7][8][9] At the time of the shooting, Alison Parker and Adam Ward were conducting a live interview with Vicki Gardner at Moneta's Bridgewater Plaza about upcoming events for the 50th anniversary of Smith Mountain Lake, 26 miles (42 km) southeast of Roanoke.

[1][2] WDBJ then switched back to Mornin' anchor Kimberly McBroom at the station's news studio, seemingly confused by what had just happened.

[29][30] Vicki Gardner is originally from Union Springs, New York, and had been the executive director of the Smith Mountain Lake Regional Chamber of Commerce from 2002 until 2019.

[13] Vester Lee Flanagan II (October 8, 1973 – August 26, 2015) was known by the professional name Bryce Williams and was a native of Oakland, California.

He graduated from Skyline High School and attended San Francisco State University, earning a degree in radio and television in 1995.

He interned at CBS affiliate KPIX-TV in San Francisco in 1993, eventually working there as a production assistant and weekend news writer.

[35] Flanagan worked as a general assignment news reporter at CBS affiliate WTOC-TV in Savannah, Georgia, from February 1997 to March 1999.

WTWC's owner, Sinclair Broadcast Group, had shut down all the station's news operations in November 2000 due to poor ratings and budget reductions.

[40] Office memos from WDBJ showed that news director Dan Dennison ordered Flanagan to contact Health Advocate in July 2012 after receiving complaints that co-workers were "feeling threatened or uncomfortable" while working with him.

He claimed that Parker had made a coded racist remark during her internship at WDBJ regarding a friend of Flanagan's, and that Ward had filed a complaint against him to the station's human resources department after working with him on one occasion.

[48] At 11:14 a.m. on the day of the shooting, Flanagan uploaded a 56-second telephone camera video to his Twitter and Facebook accounts before they were suspended, shot from a first-person perspective of the incident.

[8][17][54] He claimed to have been provoked by the Charleston church shooting, two months before, and made threatening comments about Dylann Roof, the perpetrator of that crime.

[8] A spokesman for the Franklin County Sheriff's Office said that Flanagan "very closely identified" with "individuals who have committed domestic acts of violence and mass murder, as well as the September 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S."[55] Flanagan said that Jehovah had told him to act and expressed an admiration for Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who perpetrated the 1999 Columbine High School massacre; and Seung-Hui Cho, the perpetrator of the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting.

[58] Senator Mark Warner of Virginia gave his condolences to Parker and Ward's families, as well as to WDBJ and the first responders involved.

Andy Parker's comments were made against pressure from the National Rifle Association (NRA), whom he criticized for preventing lawmakers from passing such legislation in the past.

[30][61] The shooting led Alison Parker's boyfriend, Chris Hurst, to successfully run for a seat in the House of Delegates with a priority to pass gun control legislation.

Robot one week from its originally scheduled air date (the day of the murders) because the episode included a scene with similarities to the incident.

[64] Warner Bros. Records decided to pull a television commercial for Disturbed's album Immortalized, as it depicted an incident similar to the killings.

"[66] Users of Facebook and Twitter criticized the sites' autoplay option, which allowed opted-in viewers to see graphic images of the shooting without warning.

[71] The Guardian journalist C. Bennett criticized the media's use of frame shots and footage as "helping Flanagan achieve his vanity script".

[72] Ebony writer J. Lemieux[73] and D. Thomas of the Los Angeles Times[74] wrote that the American mainstream media were too selective about rebroadcasting the footage of Parker and Ward's deaths to white audiences, but have frequently shown content of many black people being killed.

Los Angeles Times writer M. McNamara wrote that reluctance to watch or share the graphic footage in order to prevent the fulfillment of "a killer's wish is not just absurd, it's agreeing to adopt a murderer's way of thinking".

[78] In sworn testimony before Congress in July 2019, Andy Parker credited the HONR Network in assisting him to combat offensive online material and hoaxes spread after the tragedy, saying He also added: On February 20, 2020, Andy Parker filed a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission alleging that YouTube had failed to enforce its own Terms of Service by keeping certain videos of the shooting on its website.