This is truly an unfortunate and tragic event...I know people have and will come down hard on Cookie for carrying out this act of aggression...And rightfully so...Some may call it cold blooded murder...Some may call it cowardice...Some may call it an act of insanity...
But his brother and family spokesman Gerald Thornton stated that his late brother saw this as "an act of war"...In wars, as we should all know by now, there are no such things as rules or morality...
Also it is funny how the mainstream news tried to frame this as a random act of violence...This brother has had this anger pent up in him over years and years of what he probably deemed as being disrespected by the system...There is even a literal paper trail to prove it...Over 150 parking tickets equaling to hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines...
That's alot of money...
In some ways the system can be blamed for his act...He tried to appeal to logic and reason by taking his case before the Federal Courts...They let him down...
He tried to at first work with the system, but then he decided for his final act to work outside it...He became an outlaw...But maybe he felt the law or powers that be made him an outlaw not by his own will, but by their refusal to recognize his human and civil rights in particular his First Amendment Right...
Maybe he felt that he was the Invisible Man that Ralph Ellison wrote so poetically and insightfully about those 50 plus years ago...
Maybe he felt that regardless of his success in this life that the world didn't see him or rather saw him only as a second class citizen, an afterthought to be dismissed and ridiculed...
I don't know the answer just as much as forecasters don't know the weather...
When I first heard and read this story it reminded me of the brilliant movie Ragtime starring the late great Howard Rollins (the cat who starred In The Heat of the Night television show and was the lead in the star studded movie A Soldier's Story)...When the racist White firemen vandalized his car, Rollins' character tried to get legal redress through the courts and the system...Instead of getting his day in court, however, the legal system gave him the run around and denied him justice by delaying it, indefinitely...Then after his wife (played by Debbie Allen) is literally beaten to death for no other reason than being a Black woman in the wrong place at the wrong time, he finally snaps and picks up the gun...Now the system hears him and his grievances a.k.a. gunshot blasts...
But why must people go to extremes to be heard in our society???
I bet you when Cookie was going to court trying to find justice, none of the media covered it...It's funny how the media loves negativity...They are like flies attracted to sh8t on a hot steamy August afternoon, laying their eggs in nature's guacamole dip to create more flies or shall I say lies...
Sensationalizing people lives...Using tragedies as cannon fodder to retrieve more advertising dollars...
This is a sick world we live in...
Just looking at his pics he seemed like an affable and rather cheerful guy...He was a successful entrepreneur so he had some sense as well as money and he was until the moment of his infamous act, a functional member of society...Also his nickname was Cookie...If a grown man can let you call him cookie, something sugary sweet and popular, then I don't think he would be considered the type trying to pick a random fight...
Remember the man and his victims had a history over several years...
I would also suggest that people not be afraid to think about the man's motives and what not...
These are my thoughts now...More later...
Also my condolences to the victims involved in this tragedy and yes I do consider Bro. Cookie a victim...
One thing I would suggest to all of us is that we need to love each other as well as ourselves more...Like the late great Sam Cooke sang tenderness goes a long, long way...
A crime scene tape cordons off Kirkwood City Hall in Missouri February 8, 2008. A gunman killed two police officers and three city officials on Thursday night when he stormed into a city council meeting in a suburb of St. Louis, police said.
REUTERS/Tim Parker (UNITED STATES)
REUTERS/Tim Parker (UNITED STATES)
Gerald Thornton Defending His Brother
Gunman's Note: `The Truth Will Come Out'
Charles Lee "Cookie" Thornton
By CHRISTOPHER LEONARD, Associated Press
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 on Friday.
Arthur Thornton, 42, said in an interview at the family's home he knew when he read the one-line note that Charles Lee "Cookie" Thornton was the man who stormed the meeting Thursday night and killed five people before police shot him dead.
"I want to say for my family that I'm am truly, truly sorry," Arthur Thornton said, breaking into tears. "I'm so sorry. This didn't have to happen."
Friends and relatives said the dead gunman 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.
At a midday prayer vigil at the local United Methodist Church, a bell tolled six times — once for each of the dead — as hundreds of mourners held white candles honoring them.
"As far too often, violence divides us," the Rev. David Bemmett told the throng. "Let us not let the actions of one man define who we are. We are for more than this."
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."
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 one officer outside City Hall, then walked into the council chambers, shot another and continued pulling the trigger, St. Louis County Police spokeswoman Tracy Panus said Friday. A witness said the gunman yelled "Shoot the mayor!" as he fired shots in the chambers.
Police said he first fired with a handgun he brought, then used one of the slain officer's pistols to continue the rampage.
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 longtime friend of Thornton's, said Thornton once told him that the city would drop the fines, which totaled in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, if he "would just follow the law."
"In our long talks, I begged him to do this," McCallie said in an e-mail to the AP on Friday. "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."
Thornton had been forcibly removed from chambers before. 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.
___
Associated Press writers Jim Suhr and Betsy Taylor and Cheryl Wittenauer in St. Louis contributed to this report.
By CHRISTOPHER LEONARD, Associated Press
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 on Friday.
Arthur Thornton, 42, said in an interview at the family's home he knew when he read the one-line note that Charles Lee "Cookie" Thornton was the man who stormed the meeting Thursday night and killed five people before police shot him dead.
"I want to say for my family that I'm am truly, truly sorry," Arthur Thornton said, breaking into tears. "I'm so sorry. This didn't have to happen."
Friends and relatives said the dead gunman 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.
At a midday prayer vigil at the local United Methodist Church, a bell tolled six times — once for each of the dead — as hundreds of mourners held white candles honoring them.
"As far too often, violence divides us," the Rev. David Bemmett told the throng. "Let us not let the actions of one man define who we are. We are for more than this."
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."
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 one officer outside City Hall, then walked into the council chambers, shot another and continued pulling the trigger, St. Louis County Police spokeswoman Tracy Panus said Friday. A witness said the gunman yelled "Shoot the mayor!" as he fired shots in the chambers.
Police said he first fired with a handgun he brought, then used one of the slain officer's pistols to continue the rampage.
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 longtime friend of Thornton's, said Thornton once told him that the city would drop the fines, which totaled in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, if he "would just follow the law."
"In our long talks, I begged him to do this," McCallie said in an e-mail to the AP on Friday. "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."
Thornton had been forcibly removed from chambers before. 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.
___
Associated Press writers Jim Suhr and Betsy Taylor and Cheryl Wittenauer in St. Louis contributed to this report.
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