 Five shot to death at City Council meeting in Missouri
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February 08, 2008
A gunman killed five people and wounded two at a police station and City Council meeting in suburban St. Louis on Thursday night before officers shot and killed him, police said. Two police officers are among the dead in Kirkwood, Missouri. Two of those killed were police officers, said Tracy Panus, spokeswoman for St. Louis County police. "We have what we believe to be our suspect," Panus said. "There's no reason for the Kirkwood residents to feel unsafe at this point." 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 said told The Associated Press. The shootings began shortly after 7 p.m. just outside the city hall in Kirkwood, Missouri, 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. The suspect then went into the City Council chambers, she said, and killed a second police officer, then fatally shot three city officials who were attending the meeting, Panus said. Kirkwood police officers returned fire, Panus said, killing the suspect. Police did not identify the suspect or victims. A correspondent for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Janet McNichols, who was in the City Council meeting when the shooting took place, identified the gunman as Charles Lee Thornton, the newspaper reported. Gunfire at City Council meeting Thornton sued the city of Kirkwood after he was arrested twice for disorderly conduct at two council meetings in 2006. He was later convicted, according to the First Amendment Center, a group that says it works to preserve First Amendment freedoms. According to a Thursday article written by the center -- before the shooting -- Thornton asked to speak during public-comment portions of 2006 meetings on specific topics, but instead spoke on what he alleged was harassment of him by city officials. In the lawsuit, Thornton said his First Amendment rights had been violated. However, U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry said in a January 28 ruling that the public-comment portion of a meeting could be reserved for certain groups and topics of discussion. 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," the ruling said, according to the First Amendment Center. Thornton's brother, Gerald, told CNN affiliate KMOV 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. Author: AncientAntiquity Keywords: Missouri Council Meeting Death Killed Shot Murdered Massacre Kirkwood Charles Lee 'Cookie' Thornton Panus Mike Swoboda Added: February 8, 2008
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