The shooting occurred in the corridor area of the main post exchange at Fort Lewis at about 11:20 a.m. Wednesday when the post shopping center was jammed for the lunch hour. At least five shots reportedly were fired, sparking panic as shoppers and lunchgoers scrambled for cover.
The woman, a civilian vendor who worked at a kiosk in the corridor but was not an exchange employee, was pronounced dead after being rushed to Madigan Army Medical Center.
The News Tribune identified her as Sharlona White. Rose Braggs, White's mother, told the newspaper that she learned through news reports that her daughter, who was in her 30s, had died after being shot about 11:30 a.m. while working at her kiosk at the PX.
According to the News Tribune, Braggs in a telephone interview said “He killed my baby. My baby’s gone.”
Braggs told the News Tribune she believed the man who shot her daughter was a former boyfriend who White had left seven months ago.
“She didn’t want him,” Braggs told the reporter. “She was trying hard to get away from him. He just wouldn’t give her up.”
Braggs told the paper the ex-boyfriend had threatened her daughter before and had told her he was going to kill himself.
“We called the police and everything,” she was quoted as saying. “We kept on saying (to her) get a restraining order.”
Braggs said her daughter, a Foss High School graduate, worked “all the time, seven days a week” to support herself and her two children, ages 10 and 14, the paper reported.
“She was a wonderful person,” Braggs said.
The man, who retired from the Army in 1952, died at Madigan about 4 p.m. from a gunshot wound to the head.
The FBI is investigating with Fort Lewis law enforcement and the Army's Criminal Investigation Command participating.
The victim’s identities were withheld pending notification of their families.
Fort Lewis military police secured the scene, and people in the area were evacuated, post officials said. Loaded firearms are not allowed to be brought onto the post, Maj. Mike Garcia told the Seattle Times.
The News Tribune interviewed two who were there, Kathy Johnson and her mother, Kazui Miller, who were shopping on opposite sides of the PX when the shooting started.
According to the Tribune's story:
“Everyone ran in every direction,” said Johnson, a 44-year-old Tacoma native who now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. “Everyone was yelling, ‘Call 9-1-1!’ ”
Johnson dived under a rack of women’s clothes and tried calling the police. The line was busy. She tried again.
“It just rang and rang and rang,” she said. “So I called my husband back home, and he called 9-1-1 and was patched through to the Fort Lewis operator.”
A woman sat beside her under the rack, screaming and sobbing uncontrollably, Johnson said.
“Everyone in the store thought it was a mass shooting because of the number of gunshots,” she said. “My heart was racing. We weren’t sure if a gunman was coming for us.”
The woman next to Johnson was still in hysterics.
“She kept saying, ‘Oh, my God, I’m about to die,’ ” Johnson said, adding she shook her enough to run out of the store with her.
In a written statement, Fort Lewis officials expressed condolences to the victims’ families and commended the quick reaction by PX employees to evacuate the facility quickly without further injuries.
White also worked at McChord Air Force Base selling fashion accessories and jewelry.
The Tribune said she opened a custom fashion store in Fife named ZnZWear, named for her two children whose first names begin with Z. It closed last year but White retained a goal of one day owning several stores and entering manufacturing.
White also lent her talents to charities, helping the Boys & Girls Clubs with a fashion show every year, and assisting a Ugandan family by selling their handmade neckties in her store.
Fort Lewis is the nation's largest Army installation west of the Mississippi, with 30,000 soldiers. It is home to the nation's first Stryker brigades, which were first developed there in the late 1990s.
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