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Virginia Beach City Council members get update on response to mass shooting

Posted at 5:09 PM, Jan 14, 2020
and last updated 2020-01-14 17:50:34-05

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. -  Nearly eight months since the mass shooting in Virginia Beach, the city is still feeling a lot of impacts.

Tuesday, city council members got an update from city staff about the response to the shooting.

<p class="wp-caption-text" id="caption-attachment-723370">VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA - JUNE 02: People stop to pay their respects to those killed in a mass shooting at a makeshift memorial outside the City of Virginia Beach Operations Building June 02, 2019 in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Eleven city employees and one private contractor were shot to death Friday in the operations building by engineer DeWayne Craddock who had worked for the city for 15 years. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

They say more jobs are vacant than in the past following more retirements by city employees after the mass shooting.

In addition,nearly 500 workers filed workers compensation claims totaling almost $3 million in payouts, but the biggest impact continues to be to the workers themselves.

"We're in disillusionment. People are getting better but everybody gets triggers and as soon as someone gets a trigger, something happens to them, so they slow down and they have to go home," says Mark Johnson, Director of Public Works.

The acting city manager says they're also in the planning stages for a variety of events to mark the one-year anniversary.

Click here for our full coverage on the Virginia Beach mass shooting.