Another City Council Shooting

Back in October, I wrote about one in Tennessee.

This time, however, a shooter in Kirkwood, Missouri got a couple of police officers, the Public Works Director and TWO City Council members before getting gunned down himself.

From the Cnn.com article:

A friend of (Charles Lee) Thornton's, Ron Hodges, told The Associated Press the city had ticketed Thornton's demolition and asphalt business for parking his commercial vehicles illegally. Thornton said he had received 150 tickets, Hodges told the AP, and the tickets were "eating at him."

Eating at him soo much that he "went to war tonight with the people that were of the Government" and opened fire.

"An eyewitness to the shootings said Thornton had disrupted City Council meetings frequently in the past.

"He would make inappropriate noises, heehawing like a donkey. He would make derogatory comments towards the director of public works, the city attorney and the mayor," Alan Hopefl said Friday. "None of it seemed to make any sense as far as him trying to make a point, as far as why he was really there and what his major complaints were."

and

"In his lawsuit (against the City for after he was arrested twice for disorderly conduct for speaking about his alleged harassment by city officials instead of specific topics during public comments at two City Council meetings in 2006), Thornton said his First Amendment rights had been violated. But in a January 28 ruling, U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry said that the public-comment portion of a meeting could be reserved for certain groups and topics of discussion."

All this sound kinda familiar?

During the Rehab fight between the City Council (specifically former Mayor Steve Rosansky) and the Anti-Rehab activists, Freedom of Speech issues and City Councilmen and City Staff related accusations were commonplace during the Public Comments sections, with a few speakers getting pushed off the microphone by the then-Mayor with threats of Police involvement (including one particular instance involving former Councilman Dick Nichols).

Fortunately, no arrests were ever made (unlike what Costa Mesa has dealt with) and Newport's new Mayor has been a bit more liberal with the time permitted than his predecessor (but to be fair, no one has been attacking the new Mayor as much as the old Mayor was getting attacked...regularly...), so the Public Comments section has cooled down a bit.

And fortunately, Newport's angry public comment speakers have taken the lawsuit route instead...

Anyway, another sad instance of how people's lives are affected by every level of Government, including even the local City Council...

......and perhaps our City Council should take note of how important the Public Comments section is to some Residents.