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Title: In Missouri, City Asks What Made Killer Snap (fiery opponent of City Hall snaps)
Source:
New York Times
URL Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/09/u ... i.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&fta=y
Published: Jul 2, 2008
Author: SUSAN SAULNY and MALCOLM GAY
Post Date: 2008-07-02 02:53:42 by Ferret Mike
Keywords: None
Views: 101
Comments: 5
KIRKWOOD, Mo. — The day after a gunman opened fire at City Hall, killing five people before the police fatally shot him, residents of this affluent suburb southwest of St. Louis struggled to come to terms with what they called the unthinkable. And the question on everyone’s mind was: What caused Charles Thornton, a friendly town gadfly known as Cookie, who for years had been a fiery opponent of City Hall, to snap? A contractor who routinely ran afoul of the authorities, Mr. Thornton was well-known and had an openly contentious relationship with the town government, particularly those who worked in code enforcement and zoning. Beyond that, however, people described him as affable. Mr. Thornton had hundreds of dollars worth of outstanding fines for violations and had twice been arrested for disorderly conduct at City Council meetings. He appeared to have hit a tipping point 10 days ago, when he lost a free-speech lawsuit against the city stemming from the two disorderly conduct arrests. “A lot of people are in denial; they can’t believe this has happened,” said David Bennett, senior pastor of Kirkwood United Methodist Church, after conducting a prayer vigil attended by roughly 500 people in this city of 27,000. “We needed to come together and remind ourselves that this is not who we are.” The authorities said Mr. Thornton arrived at City Hall around 7 p.m. on Thursday and encountered a police officer, Sgt. Bill Biggs, in a parking lot. Mr. Thornton shot Sergeant Biggs, then retrieved the fallen officer’s service revolver and entered the Council chambers yelling, “Shoot the mayor!” Once inside, he turned his guns on the assembled crowd. Three city officials — Councilwoman Connie Karr, Councilman Mike Lynch and Kenneth Yost, the public works director — and a police officer, Tom Ballman, were killed in the chamber. Sergeant Biggs died in the parking lot. Mayor Mike Swoboda was wounded and remains in critical condition at St. John’s Mercy Medical Center in Creve Coeur, Mo. A newspaper reporter, Todd Smith, was also wounded and was in stable condition at a hospital. Ms. Karr had been busy in recent weeks planning a mayoral bid and was regarded as a top contender. Mr. Lynch was a zoning specialist whom friends described as gentlemanly and sociable. Mr. Yost was responsible for enforcing the ordinances related to zoning. A former Kirkwood police chief, Dan Linza, said Officer Ballman was a polished young man with a positive attitude. Mr. Linza said he also knew Sergeant Biggs, a former professional cowboy, and said the sergeant had been looking forward to the day when he could raise cattle and have a quiet life in the outdoors. “You’ve just got to grieve with these people,” said State Representative Rick Stream, a Republican who represents this area, mirroring the disbelief of many. “I just couldn’t believe it was Cookie that had done this. He was such a friendly guy. Obviously, he had some problems with the city, and for whatever reason, he just snapped.” For years, Mr. Thornton had feuded with the city, saying it excessively ticketed his company’s vehicles and harassed him by saying he lacked proper permits. A former Kirkwood mayor, Herb Jones, said he knew Mr. Thornton from his tenure and had attended Mr. Thornton’s wedding reception. While he once admired Mr. Thornton, Mr. Jones said, he had noticed that Mr. Thornton was unwilling to play by the rules. “He was running a commercial building business in a residence with heavy equipment and running afoul of the law,” Mr. Jones said. “It escalated into all sorts of problems from that. He was not willing to abide by the rules that apply to the whole community.” To Mr. Thornton’s family, however, he was a persecuted man who felt he had been deeply disrespected by a city he loved. “He tried to peacefully resolve issues,” said Mr. Thornton’s brother, Gerald Thornton, 54. After the shootings, Mr. Thornton said he had found a note on his brother’s bed that read, “The truth will win in the end.” Just one line, unsigned. Only after growing frustrated did his brother become violent, Gerald Thornton said, adding “He chose to do a first strike against the enemy that would be overwhelming.” Mr. Thornton was black, and several residents of Kirkwood’s poor and mostly black Meacham Park neighborhood said Friday that the attack at City Hall was a sharp reminder of the racial division they say has plagued the city for decades. They were not willing to condemn Mr. Thornton, a Meacham Park resident, for what he had done. “We are grieved, we are sorry, but they share in the responsibility,” Ben Gordon, a black man from nearby Webster Groves, said of city officials. “Cookie Thornton is to me a hero. I don’t condone murder. But as long as there is this separation, you’ll see more of this.” Mr. Gordon spoke at a standing-room-only meeting in Meacham Park that had been called to talk about the killings. While no one else at the meeting was as outspoken as he, many expressed a frustration with what they called a double standard for black and white residents of Kirkwood. They said they thought Charles Thornton lost his tolerance of that reality. “Cookie had anguish built up in him for the neighborhood,” said Charles Reynolds, a childhood friend. Others in the city did not give the Meacham Park residents much support for their theory. “They were all dedicated public servants,” Mr. Jones, the former mayor, said of the victims. “They were all very caring people, and Mr. Thornton, who we’ve known since he was in high school, felt he was being ill-treated by the city. That was not the style of the city or the Council members. They did not go into these types of things heavy-handed. It was unbelievable that Cookie Thornton thought he was being persecuted.” Mr. Thornton had a long and troubled history with authority including one 2002 incident in which a St. Louis County judge found him guilty of the assault and battery of Mr. Yost, whom Mr. Thornton killed on Thursday. But most of Mr. Thornton’s legal battles involved violations of city ordinances. He is named in as many as 15 cases in St. Louis County for violating such ordinances, like operating his construction business without the proper permits, and for numerous traffic-related infractions. A longtime critic of City Hall, Mr. Thornton was often disruptive in Council meetings, referring to Kirkwood as “having a plantation mentality,” according to court filings. Though the Council considered banning him from future meetings, it decided against such a step. In May 2006, the police removed Mr. Thornton in handcuffs from a Council meeting and later charged him with disorderly conduct, according to court filings. He sued the city, saying his removal from the meeting had violated his civil rights. Last week, a federal judge ruled against Mr. Thornton.
Residents of Kirkwood, Mo., gathered Friday night for a prayer vigil across from City Hall.
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#1. To: Ferret Mike (#0)
(Edited)
I read this story some time ago. UPDATE, February 8, 2008: "Two Pictures Of Charles Cookie Thornton Emerge" As we learn more about Charles "Cookie" Thornton, a picture of two completely different people emerges about the man police say killed five people at Kirkwood City Hall Thursday night. Friends and family going back to the class of 74 describe Thornton as wonderful and outgoing. Yet, records show, he's been dragged from council meetings in handcuffs, issued thousands of dollars in citations and had more than 100 misdemeanor convictions from the city of Kirkwood. ________________ UPDATE, February 8, 2008: Shooter’s brother: "He mapped out his strategy for war and executed it." Standing across the street from the site of the killings, Gerald Thornton told reporters that his brother, Charles “Cookie” Thornton, had become “a country of himself” and was forced to “go to war” after the judicial system denied his claims of mistreatment. “He didn’t go out shooting random people,” Gerald Thornton said. “He mapped out his strategy for war and executed it.” Another brother, Arthur Thornton, told The Associated Press that his brother left a suicide note on his bed warning “The truth will come out in the end,” before he went on the deadly shooting spree. 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. “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. Gerald Thornton said his brother’s problems with the city stemmed from disagreements over building permits. Charles Thornton owned a construction company, Cook Co., that was frequently cited for performing work without the proper permits. Charles Thornton was cited for more than 126 violations totaling around $64,000, Gerald Thornton said. The city’s arguments were wrong, his brother said, but when Thornton challenged them in court, his arguments were overruled. It was those failures to find justice in the courts that led him to act last night. “I understand why he did it,” he said. “He declared war because of the actions done by the court.” ...“Those people he went after were the people listed in his problems with the city,” Thornton said. “Once he was abused by the people in that hall over there he stood up and tried to rectify it.” ...When asked if he felt for his brother’s victims, Thornton said: “No one wants to see loss of life over issues that should’ve been solved. We have educated people over there and they should’ve been able to see the things they were doing should’ve came to an end sooner.” Thornton also raised the issue of race, suggesting that African Americans have a more difficult time exerting their rights and that his brother’s race was a factor in his difficulties with the city and in the courts. This is absolutely sick. It is mind-boggling that Gerald Thornton is championing his brother Cookie's actions, rather than expressing sorrow and condemnation. _______________ Charles Lee 'Cookie' Thornton is seen in this undated photo provided by the Webster-Kirkwood Times. (AP Photo/Webster-Kirkwood Times) Charles Lee "Cookie" Thornton didn't believe in the rule of law. He took his selfish, "above the law" behavior to deadly heights. 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. Oh really? Thornton decided to go to war because the "government," the mayor, police officers, and city officials were tormenting him. So to deal with all that "strife," he killed five people. And he ended up dead. That's usually the way these things turn out. How was the reporter that Charles Thornton shot part of the torturing government? I don't know how Gerald Thornton can even attempt to supply a rationale for the shootings carried out by his brother. 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. What a terrifying scene! Thornton was on a mission to assassinate the mayor and anyone else who happened to be nearby. 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." Thornton was clearly disruptive and unreasonable. 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. Thornton wasn't a victim. Gerald Thornton seems to want to elevate him to martyr status, a free speech warrior. That's shameful. His brother was disorderly. He infringed on the rights of others. Free speech must be exercised responsibly, something Charles Thornton did not do. Thornton abused his rights. He wasn't stripped of them unfairly. This war waged by Charles Thornton was in no way justified. There is no way to rationalize what he did. He was a cold-blooded killer.
I'd bet that because he was a hard working and productive businessman he expected special consideration because he wasn't another "black on welfare". But, I know from personal experience that anyone who demands favors from small town governments in one breath and hurls charges of corruption in the next will get nothing, and the towns will do their worst to use their codes to prevail. He had options. He could have complied and paid or avoided fines and not get eaten up over favoritism either real or imagined, stayed in business and made a living. He could have relocated out in the county and without the town's jurisdiction. He chose to murder those he couldn't bully, and that says it all. Like OJ Simpson Charles "Cookie" Thornton had a warped sense of entitlement, and he was the product of a lifetime of hate rhetoric about whites. He expected a pedestal for succeeding to some degree as a businessman despite the "systemic racism" never willing to acknowledge that the system works even for minorities and he was no different than thousands of others who stay in business despite the ever increasing fees for permits, regulatory schemes and taxes. "I'll kill those white bastards before I pay those fines!" And, right on cue other blacks make excuses for the inexcusable which provides more fuel for the fires of hatred. And if they decide to flip out and go on murder sprees they'll be shot, too. And eventually there will be no more angry black men to terrorize and "third world" our once beautiful America.
Interesting comment.
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#2. To: noone222, Ferret Mike, Jethro Tull (#1)
#3. To: HOUNDDAWG (#2)
“He chose to do a first strike against the enemy that would be overwhelming.”
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