Thread: Six Dead After Man Opens Fire at Missouri Council Meeting; Gunman Killed by Police

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KIRKWOOD, Mo. —
Ten days after losing a federal lawsuit against this St. Louis suburb he insisted harassed him, a gunman stormed a council meeting and opened fire, killing two police officers and three city officials.

The gunman, identified as Charles Lee "Cookie" Thornton, critically injured the city's mayor and wounded a reporter Thursday night before law enforcers fatally shot him.

"The only way that I can put into context that you might understand is that my brother went to war tonight with the people, the government that was putting torment and strife into his life," Thornton's brother, Gerald Thornton, told St. Louis' KMOV-TV.

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Tracy Panus, a St. Louis County Police spokeswoman, said the names of the victims would not be released until a news conference Friday morning. But the wounded included Mayor Mike Swoboda, who was in critical condition late Thursday in the intensive-care unit of St. John's Mercy Hospital in Creve Coeur, hospital spokesman Bill McShane said. Another victim, Suburban Journals newspaper reporter Todd Smith, was in satisfactory condition, McShane said.

Panus said the gunman killed one officer outside City Hall, then walked into the council chambers, shot another and continued pulling the trigger. A witness said the gunman yelled "Shoot the mayor!" as he fired shots in the chambers, hitting Swoboda.

Janet McNichols, a reporter covering the meeting for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, told the newspaper the meeting had just started when the shooter rushed in and opened fire with at least one weapon. He started yelling about shooting the mayor while walking around and firing, hitting police Officer Tom Ballman in the head, she said.

The shooter then went after Public Works Director Kenneth Yost, who was sitting in front of Swoboda, and shot Yost in the head, McNichols said.

She also said the shooter fired at City Attorney John Hessel, who tried to fight off the attacker by throwing chairs. The shooter then moved behind the desk where the council sits and fired more shots at council members.

The newspaper quoted McNichols as saying Swoboda, and council members Michael H.T. Lynch and Connie Karr also were hit. She identified the gunman as Charles Thornton, whom she knows from covering the council.

Thornton was often a contentious presence at council meetings; he had twice been convicted of disorderly conduct for disrupting meetings in May 2006.

Most of his ire was directed at the mayor and Yost, McNichols said.

Thornton was well-known at City Hall, often making outrageous comments at public meetings, according to the weekly Webster-Kirkwood Times.

The newspaper quoted Swoboda as saying in June 2006 that Thornton's contentious remarks over the years created "one of the most embarrassing situations that I have experienced in my many years of public service."

Swoboda's comments came during a council meeting attended by Thornton two weeks after the man was forcibly removed from the chambers. The mayor said at the time that the council considered banning Thornton from future meetings but decided against it.

Thornton said during the meeting he had been issued more than 150 tickets.

When allowed to speak during one meeting, he approached the podium with a posterboard with a picture of a donkey and began making harassing remarks about Swoboda.

In a federal lawsuit stemming from his arrests during two meetings just weeks apart, Thornton, representing himself, insisted that Kirkwood officials violated his constitutional rights to free speech by barring him from speaking at the meetings.

But a judge in St. Louis tossed out the suit Jan. 28, writing that "any restrictions on Thornton's speech were reasonable, viewpoint neutral, and served important governmental interests."

Gerald Thornton told KMOV the legal setback may have been his brother's final straw. "He has (spoken) on it as best he could in the courts, and they denied all rights to the access of protection and he took it upon himself to go to war and end the issue," he said.

Kirkwood is about 20 miles southwest of downtown St. Louis. City Hall is in a quiet area filled with condominiums, eateries and shops, not far from a dance studio and train station.

The police department's chaplain said law enforcers from several agencies were anguished over the shootings.

"They're all just so sad, shocked by this," said Father Robert Osborne of St. Peter Catholic Church. "This doesn't happen in Kirkwood."

Despite its reputation locally for serenity, Kirkwood has grappled in recent years with crimes that brought it unwanted attention.

Down the street from City Hall is the Imo's pizzeria once managed by Michael Devlin, who kidnapped 11-year-old Shawn Hornbeck in 2002 and held him for four years before authorities rescued him in January 2007. Also rescued was Ben Ownby, another teenager Devlin abducted just days before Devlin's arrest.

Those crimes got Devlin life terms on state charges, as well as 170 years behind bars on federal charges that he made pornography.

City Hall also is about a block from a park now named for former Kirkwood police Sgt. William McEntee, who was a 43-year-old father of three when he was slain in 2005 by a man who witnesses said blamed police for the death of his 12-year-old half-brother two hours earlier.

Kevin Johnson was convicted in November of first-degree murder and last week was sentenced to death.

What a tragedy, supposedly the people in the city council chambers had to resort to throwing chairs at the gunman before he was shot and killed by police :(

2008 is looking to be bad a year for spree shootings and line of duty deaths for cops. In the month of January alone, 20 LEOs were killed/died while on duty which more then most countries lose in entire decades.