The night before Kate Nixon and 11 others were murdered by a disgruntled co-worker, the decade-long Virginia Beach city employee talked with her husband about bringing a gun to work for self-defense — a decision that was taken out of her hands by the city’s ban on employees carrying firearms at work, a Nixon family lawyer said.
Now, Nixon’s family is calling for an independent investigation into events leading up to the May 31 shooting and what could have been done differently before and during it, particularly given the explicit concerns about shooter DeWayne Craddock.
“Kate expressed to her husband concerns about this individual in particular, as well as one other person,” Nixon family attorney Kevin Martingayle told WHRV’s “HearSay with Cathy Lewis” radio show Monday. “In fact, they had a discussion the night before about whether or not she should take a pistol and hide it in her handbag — and decided not to, ultimately, because there’s a policy apparently against having any kind of weapons that are concealed in the building.”