?Suddenly, a kind of hole exploded in my wall.? Pop-pops and then duck for cover.

The boss, Bob Montague, ended a meeting in his office a little before 4 p.m. and turned to some last-minute paperwork.It was right then, near quitting time, that Craddock, who had been on the city payroll for about 15 years, opened fire on his colleagues with a .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun, police said, spraying bullets around the second floor of a three-story, red-brick building on the campus of the Virginia Beach municipal center.[Gunman kills 12 at Va. Beach municipal center]“I heard rapid pop pops, but they weren’t very loud,” Montague said. I had no idea what was going on, other than realizing these were gunshots.”A fire alarm began blaring.He called 911 and texted his staff to shelter in place.Montague hunkered down himself, scanning his office for anything he might use as a weapon if the shooter barged in.He did all the things he had been taught to do — what countless Americans have learned to do in recent years — during active-shooter training.As for Craddock, his motive isn’t publicly known.Neighbors said he was quiet, unobtrusive. “I don’t remember now exactly what he said, but it was something to the effect of: He was barricaded in a room and the door wouldn’t lock, but he was leaning up against the door and there’s someone shooting out there.” He told her he was all right and was waiting for help.“It didn’t sound like gunshots,” Cheryl Benn said, quoting her husband, who didn’t want to be interviewed. Because Craddock’s weapon was equipped with a noise suppressor, Benn told his wife, the shots “sounded like a nail gun up on the roof.”A Virginia Beach planning commissioner, George Alcaraz, said Building 2 houses planning offices on the first floor, public utilities on the second floor and permitting on the third floor. They said one detective’s life was saved when his protective vest stopped a bullet from Craddock’s gun.Shelia Cook, whose workplace on the campus is near police and fire headquarters, a few blocks from Building 2, said “we could kind of hear what was going on.”As she and fellow employees were getting ready to leave for the weekend, the crack of gunfire reached them.