Insanity in the Heartland

As reported in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Washington Post, the story of last night’s shooting at a Kirkwood, Mo., city council meeting struck terribly close to home for me.

I currently live about 14 miles north and west of Kirkwood, a suburban St. Louis community. Twenty years ago, I worked for the Suburban Journals of St. Louis, covering municipal meetings in other locations. At last night’s shooting, a reporter from the Journals sustained a minor injury:

Dave Bundy, the editorial director for the Suburban Journals, said that one of the newspaper’s reporters, Todd Smith, was injured in the attack.

“We don’t know if it was a ricochet or what, but it hit him in the hand and shattered a bone or two,” said Bundy, who spoke with Smith in the emergency room at St. John’s. Smith was in satisfactory condition Friday morning.

All things considered, Smith was one of the lucky ones. Six others including the assailant, Charles Lee “Cookie” Thornton, were killed. But a random step to the left or right might have produced a different outcome for Smith or the other “lucky ones” attending. Consider this personal account from the Post-Dispatch’s reporter at the meeting:

I looked up and saw Officer (Tom) Ballman shot in the head and then Mr. (Kenneth) Yost shot in the head, too. Marty and I crawled under our chairs. I could hear Mr. Yost trying to breathe, heavily.

There was a lot of yelling going on, it was mostly Cookie.

It was loud, very loud. He was shouting ‘I’ve got a gun,’ and he started shooting people.

The gunshots were very loud. I could see Mr. Yost lying on the floor. I was watching him die. It was just dreadful.

Every reporter who currently covers or once covered municipal meetings knows several things about them: They’re long, drawn out, incredibly dry affairs. The rare drama typically involves nothing more significant than a personality conflict between one or more of the public officials present. By and large, the audience is comprised of older citizens, who sit politely in their seats, quietly honoring their sense of civic duty. And there’s always at least one confrontational soul who makes long, rambling, often spirited and sometimes pointed (if not outright rude) speeches during the public comments section of the meetings.

You’re annoyed by those confrontational souls, but you never expect one of them to start shooting. Last night, Cookie Thornton did. And try as I might to not think about his counterparts at the meetings I attended 20 years ago, I couldn’t avoid the memories, the “what ifs,” and the inevitable shudder that followed.

My thoughts and prayers go out to all of those who attended last night’s meeting and to the families of those who were killed.