ROANOKE, Va. — Businesses are reopening at the scene of this week’s on-air shooting as more details surface of the gunman’s long history of confronting and bullying co-workers at a succession of television and customer-service jobs.

Friday’s reopening of Bridgewater Plaza comes two days after Vester Flanagan, 41, killed two journalists from a Roanoke TV station where he once worked, and wounded the Smith Mountain Lake Regional Chamber of Commerce official they were interviewing. The chamber’s lakeshore visitor center is set among tourist shops and restaurants in the strip mall in Moneta, about 20 miles southeast of Roanoke.

Flanagan’s hair-trigger temper became evident at least 15 years ago at WTWC-TV in Tallahassee, Florida, said Don Shafer, who hired him there in 1999. Shafer recalled Flanagan as a good reporter and a “clever, funny guy” — but said he also had conflicts with co-workers “to the point where he was threatening people.”

“Had some physical confrontations with a couple of people, and at one point became such a distraction that we finally had to terminate him,” said Shafer, now news director with XETV in San Diego.

After stints in California, Florida and North Carolina, Flanagan’s last television job was at WDBJ in Roanoke. On the day he was fired in 2013, he pressed a wooden cross into his boss’ hand and said, “You’ll need this,” as two police officers escorted him out. Cameraman Adam Ward filmed Flanagan’s departure.