Charles Lee Thornton
KIRKWOOD, Missouri (CNN) -- A gunman killed five people and wounded two Thursday night at a police station and City Council meeting in suburban St. Louis before officers shot and killed him, police said.
Charles Lee Thornton, here in an undated photo, was identified by witnesses as the gunman who opened fire.
Two police officers were among the dead, said Tracy Panus, spokeswoman for the St. Louis County police.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported the dead included Councilwoman Connie Karr, Public Works Director Kenneth Yost and police officers Tom Ballman and William Biggs.
Mayor Mike Swoboda was wounded and in critical condition, and Suburban Journals newspaper reporter Todd Smith was in satisfactory condition, St. John's Mercy Hospital spokesman Bill McShane told The Associated Press.
The shootings began shortly after 7 p.m. just outside the Kirkwood City Hall when a man approached a police officer in the parking lot of the Kirkwood police station and fatally shot him, Panus said. The officer died at the scene.
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KMOV: Gunfire at City Council meeting
The suspect then went into the City Council chambers and killed a second police officer before fatally shooting three city officials who were attending the meeting, Panus said.
Kirkwood police officers returned fire, Panus said, killing the suspect.
A correspondent for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Janet McNichols, who was at the City Council meeting when the shootings took place, identified the gunman as Charles Lee Thornton, the newspaper reported.
Thornton sued the city of Kirkwood after he was arrested twice for disorderly conduct at two council meetings in 2006. He later was convicted, according to the First Amendment Center, a group that says it works to preserve First Amendment freedoms.
An eyewitness to the shootings told CNN that Thornton -- whose nickname was "Cookie" -- had disrupted City Council meetings frequently in the past.
"He would make inappropriate noises, heehawing like a donkey. He would make derogatory comments towards the director of public works, the city attorney and the mayor," Alan Hopefl said Friday. "None of it seemed to make any sense as far as him trying to make a point, as far as why he was really there and what his major complaints were."
Thornton's brother, Gerald, told CNN affiliate KMOV-TV in St. Louis that his brother had serious grievances with the city government.
"The only way that I can put it in a context that you might understand is that my brother went to war tonight with the people that were of the government that was putting torment and strife into his life," Thornton told KMOV.
Rather than discussing the subject at hand, Perry wrote, "Thornton engaged in personal attacks against the mayor, Kirkwood and the city council. ... Because Thornton does not have a First Amendment right to engage in irrelevant debate and to voice repetitive, personal, virulent attacks against Kirkwood and its city officials during the comment portion of a city council public hearing, his claim fails as a matter of law," according to the First Amendment Center.
Bill Reineke, a builder and acquaintance of Thornton's for 15 years, said he sensed a change in him starting three months ago.
"He seemed to feel lately that things were going wrong," Reineke said. "He would run into City Hall once in a while during meetings, and he would talk about the plantation mentality of the mayor and board."
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http://www.kspr.com/news/local/15438636.html
The suspect was apparently a disgruntled contractor who was shot and killed by police in Kirkwood.
Charles Lee Thornton, also called "Cookie," was well known at Kirkwood's city council meetings and had been convicted twice for disruptive appearances. His last words to his family before heading out for the final meeting he'd ever attend were "to God be the glory."
Last month a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit in which Thornton claimed the town's council had violated his free speech rights by preventing him from speaking out at their meetings.
Thornton would routinely bring signs to the meetings. One showed three monkeys and read “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.” Thornton said the monkeys represented Mayor Mike Swoboda, Public Works Director Kenneth Yost and City Attorney John Hessell, Wahlman said.
Last night, Yost was killed and Swoboda was shot in the head. He’s in critical condition this morning.
At other times, Wahlman saw Thornton call city officials “jackasses” and bray like a donkey.
In response to the disruptions, city officials took steps to rein Thornton in. They put up a velvet rope in front of the dais to keep him back from the council and installed a countdown clock — “like something from NASA” — to let Thornton when his time to address the council was up.
“The steps they took to discourage him just made him more angry,” Wahlman said.
Wahlman also said she believed the city stepped up its police presence at meetings due to concerns about Thornton. Two police officers, including one outside City Hall, were among those killed last night.
Council watchers were never able to pinpoint the exact nature of Thornton’s anger with the city, she said. She had heard that he racked up several thousand dollars in parking tickets and that he’d filed a suit against the city, but wasn’t sure how that correlated to his outbursts.
“We used to kid around that someday he’d come into City Council with guns a-blazing, but we never really thought it would happen,” she said.
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http://suburbanjournals.stltoday.com/artic...6b033009367.txt
Suburban journals (MO)
Charles "Cookie" Thornton, is well-known in the area as an ardent supporter of the rights of residents in Meacham Park, a traditionally African-American neighborhood in Kirkwood.
---blog comments on site:
" How hard would it be for Kirkwood voters to UN-ANNEX Mecham Park? It's time to give it some thought. "
...
" I hate to break it to you, but "UN-ANNEXING" Meacham Park would make no difference. For that matter, bulldozing Meacham Park (as I've seen suggested in the last 12 hours) would only increase hostility throughout the St. Louis area. Maybe we should try to think of solutions that don't involve overt hostility? "
...
"This guy got $18,000.00 in "parking" tickets alone, aside from being inundated with a multitude of traffic tickets! "
...
" Well thornton really sent us a message about what meacham park is all about."
...
" I believe the horrific incidents that have occured in Kirkwood were caused by on going racial tension which will probably continue to be ignored. "
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http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,329786,00.html
City Council Gunman Lost Lawsuit Against City Mere Days Before Rampage
...
The TV station, citing a local newspaper, reported Thursday that Thornton, a contractor and a black man, had complained for years of racism and discrimination by city officials in citing him for unlicensed work.
Then on May 18, 2006, during public hearing on two local businesses, Thornton became disruptive and was asked by the mayor to sit down, according to the federal judge’s ruling. Thornton sat on the floor at the podium, refused to leave and was arrested.
Federal court documents describe a similar scene at the June 15, 2006, city council meeting.
During the public comment portion, Thornton rose and began by saying, “Jackass, jackass, jackass,” and denounced Kirkwood’s “plantation-like mentality.” When the scene escalated, he was arrested.
Thornton sued the city in 2007 alleging civil rights violations.
Judge Catherine Perry ruled against Thornton, saying didn’t have a first amendment right “to engage in irrelevant debate and to voice repetitive, personal, virulent attacks against Kirkwood and its city officials” during public hearings and meetings.
MyFOXStLouis.com interviewed a woman identified as Thornton’s mother who said he hadn’t come to her with his problems, but she was aware of her son’s complaints against the city.
“He has gone through this for so many years, and they just kept giving him tickets for every little thing they could,” the woman said, adding that she suspected Thornton targeted the city officials because he felt they had “done him harm.”
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It's sad to me that two cops and three city council members are dead over parking and traffic tickets and citations for unlicensed contractor work. I know some will "understand" his frustration...but it's a stretch I can't make.
I just saw the brother of the shooter interviewed on CNN and he called the shootings "War" and refused to call them murders...saying doing so accuses his brother. To anchor Tony Harris' credit he told the interviewer..."That's enough of that." Harris, a black man, couldn't believe the shooter's brother could alibi the murders and he cut the interview short. As I finished typing a news flash came on about a female student at La. Technical College in Baton Rouge shooting two women in a classroom to death and then killing herself...not further details yet...I guess violence isn't as local as I thought.
I wish the 100,000 additional COPS on the street program would come back.