Newscoma

 This story is going to catch the eye of a lot of people. Including me.

 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.

You get some wackos at meetings sometimes. Mostly I’ve seen people be tolerant towards folks. The reason why I bring this up is this part of the story.

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 …

I guess this story is on my mind today because I’ve seen people get irrational at board meetings and in court. About three years ago, I was covering a trial and an officer moved me away from some guy who was acting very odd. I found out later that the guy had been calling the police not only on a couple of the folks that worked in court but on me as well. I didn’t know that at the time but the guy was telling with some pretty outrageous conspiracy theories.

And you just don’t know the inner workings of people’s minds.

Kirkwood, Mo has been in the news before. You may remember this.