Six Dead In Missouri City Council Shooting

Mayor Critically Injured; 2 Police Officers, 3 Council Members Killed; Shooter Left Suicide Note

(CBS/AP)  A gunman carrying a grudge against City Hall left a suicide note on his bed warning "The truth will come out in the end," before he went on a deadly shooting spree at a council meeting, his brother told The Associated Press Friday.

Arthur Thornton, 42, said in an interview at the family's home that he knew his brother was responsible for the killings when he read the one-line note shortly after word of the shootings was broadcast.

"It looks like my brother is going crazy, but he's just trying to get people's attention," Thornton said, explaining he believed the note reflected his brother's growing frustration with local leaders. Police have the note, he said.

After storming the meeting and killing five people Thursday night, Charles Lee "Cookie" Thornton was fatally shot by law enforcers. Friends and relatives said he had a long-standing feud with the city, and he had lost a federal free-speech lawsuit against the St. Louis suburb just 10 days earlier. At earlier meetings, he said he had received 150 tickets against his business.

The victims were identified Friday as Public Works Director Kenneth Yost, Officer Tom Ballman, Officer William Biggs and council members Michael H.T. Lynch and Connie Karr. Flowers and balloons were placed outside City Hall Friday in their honor.

The city's mayor, Mike Swoboda, was in critical condition at an intensive care unit, St. John's Mercy Medical Center spokeswoman Lynne Beck said. Another victim, Suburban Journals newspaper reporter Todd Smith, was in satisfactory condition, Beck said.

"This is such an incredible shock to all of us. It's a tragedy of untold magnitude," Tim Griffin, Kirkwood's deputy mayor, said at a news conference. "The business of the city will continue and we will recover but we will never be the same."

St. Louis County Police spokeswoman Tracy Panus on Friday would not discuss what security measures, if any, were in place at City Hall at the time of the shootings.

The meeting had just started when the shooter opened fire, said Janet McNichols, a reporter covering the meeting for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The gunman killed Officer Biggs outside City Hall. CBS News correspondent Cynthia Bowers reports that Thronton then took the dead officer's gun and firing both weapons as he stormed the council chambers, killing a second officer, the two council members and the public works director. The mayor and a journalist were also injured in the barrage.

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

"We crawled under the chairs and just laid there," McNichols told ABC's "Good Morning America." "We heard Cookie shooting, and then we heard some shouting, and the police, the Kirkwood police had heard what was going on, and they ran in, and they shot him."

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

The city had ticketed Thornton's demolition and asphalt business, Cookco Construction, for parking his commercial vehicles in the neighborhood, said Ron Hodges, a friend who lives in the community. The tickets were "eating at him," Hodges said.

"He felt that as a black contractor he was being singled out," said Hodges, who is black. "I guess he thought mentally he had no more recourse. That's not an excuse."

Franklin McCallie, a retired Kirkwood High School principal who once attended Thornton's wedding, said his longtime friend once told him that the city would drop what had become thousands of dollars in fines if Thornton "would just follow the law."

"In our long talks, I begged him to do this," McCallie said in a statement e-mailed Friday to the AP. "But Cookie said it was a matter of principle with him and that he wanted to sue the city for millions of dollars."

McCallie called Thornton's deadly rampage "a brutal and inexcusable act, the act of a person who was not in his right mind when he did it."

The weekly Webster-Kirkwood Times 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."

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

In a federal lawsuit stemming from his arrests during two meetings just weeks apart, Thornton 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 lawsuit Jan. 28, writing that "any restrictions on Thornton's speech were reasonable, viewpoint neutral, and served important governmental interests."

Another brother, Gerald Thornton, said 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.

Prayer vigil is to be held Friday at noon at the Kirkwood United Methodist Church, reports CBS News affiliate KMOV-TV.

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.

In a neighborhood of modest, ranch-style homes, the gunman's house appears neatly landscaped with colorful mulch, the property's circle driveway lined by well-placed shrubs. There were two concrete sculptures of eagles on the front lawn, along with a large fountain.

Outside the house, a tattered U.S. flag flew at half-staff, not far from a handwritten sign reading simply, "RIP Cookie. Only God can judge you!!!!!"

[erasmus6]

gunownerdan said "schoollord, if you could somehow get your paws on a gun, would you kill yourself with it?"

I don''''t know. For some reason you come to mind!~ "LOL posted by schoollord

Hahahahahahaha, that is exactly what my thought was when I read that! Too funny!

[gunownerdan]

schoollord you are truly delusional if you think you can ban all handguns, and even more so if you think it will solve our problems.

[gunownerdan]

Stereotypes and generalizations, that''s all schoollord really has.

[gunownerdan]

schoollord, if you could somehow get your paws on a gun, would you kill yourself with it?

[gunownerdan]

"We have 30,000 gun deaths per year."

Most of these 30,000 gun deaths are SUICIDES. A majority of the murders happen in large cities, especially those with strict gun control laws. In Chicago for instance, statistics show that most murder victims are criminals killed by other criminals.
WHY are so many people choosing to kill themselves and others?

[erasmus6]

"I''''m an American and we''''re NEVER WRONG!" posted by gce65

GEEZ, don''t I know that!:)

[gce65]

erasmus:
I saw your name on a previous post with the other guy and didn''t read too far back. But I WON''T APOLOGIZE! I don''t have to. I''m an American and we''re NEVER WRONG! Wanna just go outside and settle this like Americans? (slap, slap with a glove across your cheek)I challenge you to a duel! Flintlock pistols at 20 paces?

[erasmus6]

"erasmus6 and speakinup: "...there is some protection in folks thinking that people may have a gun in their home. So yes, having guns does protect folks."

You people don''''t read much, do you? Or is it all NRA literature and Rush Limbaugh?

Guns in the home increase the likelihood of violent death. I know it''''s not something you, Rush, or the NRA want to admit, but it''''s the truth. Ask people who study this kind of thing for a living and publish in scientific journals.
posted by gce65

Is there a reason that you are addressing me? I am against having guns in the home or anywhere. Obviously you didn''t read my posts.

[gce65]

erasmus6 and speakinup: "...there is some protection in folks thinking that people may have a gun in their home. So yes, having guns does protect folks."

You people don''t read much, do you? Or is it all NRA literature and Rush Limbaugh?

Guns in the home increase the likelihood of violent death. I know it''s not something you, Rush, or the NRA want to admit, but it''s the truth. Ask people who study this kind of thing for a living and publish in scientific journals.

American Journal of Epidemiology (that means the study of factors behind widespread sickness):

http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/160/10/929

[gce65]

17,000 murders in the US in 2006 according to FBI stats. 70% were with firearms. Where else in the world were there that many murders, Iraq?

[ssm9451]

Read updates and get facts. See/Read: KSDK.COM or KMOV.COM. St. Louis news.

[rudy654-2009]

Posted by erasmus6 at 07:37 PM

You are soooooo right about where these people get their information. Canada doesn''t even compare to the US in murder rates. The US: 5.6 murders per 100,000 vs Canada 2.04 murders per 100,000 in 2005. 16,692 murders in the US in 2005 compared to 658 in Canada during the same year. Most of these people get their "info" from pre-canned sites on the internet.

[erasmus6]

"Yeah, and they have your best interests at heart, too!" posted by bhappy2-2

Yes, as a matter of fact they do. And if they didn''t the people would make sure that they were removed from office so fast their heads would spin. See unlike the U.S. the people here won''t sit back and let their government control them. We wouldn''t let 8 years go by with some ******** ruling over us and destroying our country.

[erasmus6]

"See this link for the recent shootings in ONE Canadian city." posted by bhappy2-2

That is ONE city and I bet it is Toronto. And again I didn''t say that we didn''t have any. Toronto is the worst. Can you say that for your country? That there is only one city that is the worst? Also becareful where you get your information because most of it is c-r-a-p. Every time one of you Americans tells me something they heard, it is usually wrong. Especially when it comes to healthcare. I don''t know where you guys get your information but 99.9% of the time you are wrong and you always say it is from a legitimate source.

[bhappy2-2]

erasmus6- See this link for the recent shootings in ONE Canadian city.
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.htm

Our government listens to us. Posted by erasmus6

Yeah, and they have your best interests at heart, too!

[erasmus6]

"If we had to wait until the police could do anything, thanks to the laws that have been placed in their way, we''''d all be dead." posted by speakinup

Sounds like your country needs a major overhaul.

[bhappy2-2]

bhappy2-2 it''''s four o clock HAPPY HOUR!!! = )

Posted by underdogus

Hey, underdogpoopus. How are you, you old ***! I see you still haven''t learned how to pay attention to what others have to say, you''re still twisting everything everyone else says! Good to know some things never change. Now you run along and enjoy happy hour, the grownups have important things to discuss.

[speakinup]

erasmus6 - I don''t have a gun in my home, yet there is some protection in folks thinking that people may have a gun in their home. So yes, having guns does protect folks.

If we had to wait until the police could do anything, thanks to the laws that have been placed in their way, we''d all be dead.

[erasmus6]

"Is it an age of reason? Or an age of destruction?" posted by hoygie2

An age of destruction.

[erasmus6]

bhappy2-2

There isn''t anyone here that wants to have guns! Why do you think there is a strict gun law? It is because the people want it! But please tell me why I would choose to have a gun when there is no need for a gun. If we all had guns we would end up like your country, killing each other. I have said many times that when everyone has a gun it changes the way you think. Looking at your country only proves my point.

In Canada, the government doesn''t rule over us like yours. We all have a say in what goes on here. Our government listens to us.