MONETA, VA. — Two television journalists were killed during a live broadcast in Virginia on Wednesday, shot by a suspect who was a former employee of the TV station and who called himself a “powder keg” of anger over what he saw as racial discrimination at work and elsewhere in the United States.

The suspect, 41-year-old Vester Flanagan, shot himself as police pursued him on a Virginia highway hours after the shooting. Flanagan, who was African American, died later at a hospital, police said.

The journalists who were killed were reporter Alison Parker, 24, and cameraman Adam Ward, 27. Both journalists were White, as is a woman they were interviewing. The woman was wounded and was in stable condition, a hospital spokesman said.

Social media postings by a person who appeared to be Flanagan indicated the suspect had grievances against the station, CBS affiliate WDBJ7 in Roanoke, Virginia, which let him go two years ago. The person also posted video that appeared to show the attack filmed from the shooter’s vantage point.

Flanagan sent ABC News a 23-page fax about two hours after the shooting, saying his attack was triggered by the June 17 mass shooting at a Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, the network said. Nine people were killed, and a White man has been charged in that rampage.

The network cited Flanagan as saying he had suffered racial discrimination, sexual harassment and bullying at work. He had been attacked by Black men and White women, and for being a gay Black man, he said.

The on-air shooting occurred at about 6:45 a.m. at Bridgewater Plaza, a Smith Mountain Lake recreation site about 200 miles (320 km) southwest of Washington.

The broadcast was abruptly interrupted by the sound of gunshots as Parker and the woman being interviewed, Vicki Gardner, executive director of the Smith Mountain Lake Regional Chamber of Commerce, screamed and ducked for cover.

Hours after the shooting, someone claiming to have filmed it posted video online. The videos were posted to a Twitter account and on Facebook by a man identifying himself as Bryce Williams, which was Flanagan’s on-air name.

The person purporting to be Williams also posted, “I filmed the shooting see Facebook” as well as saying one of the victims had “made racist comments.”

Flanagan shot himself as Virginia State Police were closing in on a rental car on Interstate 66 in Fauquier County, WDBJ7 said. Virginia state police said the suspect refused to stop when spotted by troopers and sped away.

Minutes later, the suspect’s vehicle ran off the road and crashed, police said in a statement, adding the troopers approached the vehicle and found the driver with a gunshot wound. He was taken to Inova Fairfax Hospital near Washington, where he died.

The station described the two dead journalists as an ambitious reporter-and-cameraman team who often produced light and breezy feature stories for the morning program.

“I cannot tell you how much they were loved,” general manager Jeff Marks said.

They were both engaged to be married to other people at the station.

The White House said the shooting was another example of gun violence that is “becoming all too common.”

White House spokesman Josh Earnest, reflecting frustration that President Obama has expressed over his inability to push through laws to tighten gun laws, told reporters that Congress could pass legislation that would have a “tangible impact on reducing gun violence in this country.”