Virginia TV Shooter: 'I've Been a Human Powder Keg for a While...Just Waiting to Go BOOM!!!!'

Before a former reporter in Virginia gunned down two journalists Wednesday during a live TV interview, he wrote a rambling, disjointed, contradictory, 23-page suicide letter that complained that he was bullied for being black and gay.

And when a white gunman killed nine people in a Charleston church in June, he wrote, he was pushed over the edge.

Wednesday’s shooter has been identified as Vester Lee Flanagan, a former on-air reporter with WDBJ in Roanoke, VA. Authorities say Flanagan fatally shot reporter Alison Parker, 24, and cameraman Adam Ward, 27, as they broadcast live. Flanagan killed himself when fleeing from Virginia State Police.

ABC News says it received a faxed 23-page document allegedly from Flanagan following the shootings that outlined his anger at former co-workers and life in general. He wrote that his anger had built for some time, and described himself as a human powder keg.

“Yes, it will sound like I am angry...I am,” Flanagan’s suicide letter said. “And I have every right to be. But when I leave this Earth, the only emotion I want to feel is peace....”

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Signs of his deteriorating mental health, difficult relationships with co-workers and a seething anger were reflected in memos to Flanagan from managers three years ago, an early sign he was unraveling.

Station managers chastised Flanagan in May 2012 for “lashing out” at a colleague and for his “harsh language,” according to memos obtained by The Guardian. A couple months later he was ordered to contact employee assistance professionals for help or face termination.

Flanagan’s tumultuous experience at WDBJ was noted on Dec. 24, 2012, when then news director Dan Dennison told colleagues Flanagan had one last chance to save his job. Flanagan was fired three months later.

While Flanagan’s rant to ABC condemned the Charleston shootings of nine members of an African-American church by a white gunman, he praised Virginia Tech mass killer Seung Hui Cho, who killed 32 people, and offered either praise or ridicule — the interpretation is open — to Eric Harris and Dylann Kleobold, who were responsible for the 1999 mass killings of high school students in Columbine, CO.

Flanagan called Cho “his boy,” and wrote, “I was influenced by Seung–Hui Cho. That’s my boy right there. He got NEARLY double the amount that Eric Harris and Dylann Klebold got…just sayin.’”

Dylann Storm Roof, 21, of Columbia, S.C., was arrested June 18 for the Charleston mass killings, which Flanagan said prompted him to buy a gun the next day.

“What sent me over the top was the church shooting. And my hollow point bullets have the victims’ initials on them,” he wrote.

ABC reports that in the suicide note, Flanagan claims:

• He suffered racial discrimination, sexual harassment and bullying at work
• He was attacked by black men and white women
• He was attacked for being a gay, black man

»Photo of Vester Flanagan II, courtesy of Franklin County Sheriff’s Office