On February 7, 2008 the unthinkable happened. The Kirkwood City Hall became the scene of one of the most horrific shootings the St. Louis metropolitan area had ever witnessed. Yet only five years later, such a rampage is sadly becoming commonplace. I
The anniversary of the Kirkwood tragedy comes in the midst of a national heated debate about gun control. Charles Thornton, known as Cookie, did not have a semi-automatic weapon or the carnage would have been far greater. He came to the scene with one revolver and also took the revolver of the police officer he killed outside city hall.
Before the bullets stopped flying, six people lay dead and two injured. Thornton had killed two police officers, the public works director, two council members and wounded the mayor and a reporter. The mayor died several months later of complications due to his injuries. Thornton was stopped by the lethal shots of police.
I have never seen the kind of vitriol aimed at white shooters as I did with Thornton. Some  hateful remarks were aimed at me because of my stance. Most of the fingers behind mass killings, in fact, are those of troubled white men.Â
I have written about Kirkwood and its black stepchild, Meacham Park, over the 20 years I’ve been involved in that community, mainly because of police violence. There is a chapter in my book entitled “What’s the Price of Selling Out Meacham Park?” So far, the price has been great.
Recently Chris Kyle was shot and killed. The name is unfamiliar to most but Kyle was a former Navy Seal and once called America’s deadliest sniper. He could shoot a target with accuracy from 21 football fields away. Since he left the military, Kyle had been working with troubled vets, sometimes taking them to the shooting range for therapy. While at the range, Eddie Ray Routh allegedly turned his semiautomatic on Kyle and another man, killing them instantly.
Wayne LaPierre of the National Rife Association claims the “only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun.” Even the world’s greatest marksman didn’t see the end coming.
Like America, the City of  Kirkwood has had a rough time facing up to the systemic reasons for citizen anger, despair and alienation, especially among its black citizens. These are the consequences of deep economic disparities and a basic disrespect for life. For people of color and poor folks, add police harassment and violence to that equation and you have a nearly perpetual state of combustion.
I always include the troubled shooter and his family as victims when these mass killings occur. No parent I know intentionally raises a mass murderer. Unless they too faced the wrath of their beloved, as in the Newtown tragedy, those families are forever haunted by the actions of their loved one.
Annie Mae Thornton, Cookie’s mother, was 85 years old when the city evicted her from the house a couple of years after the shooting. Could a community intervention have been a place for healing?
Each one of us is responsible for the kind of neighborhood, city and country we live in. It is not solely the obligation of government, police and policymakers. It’s certainly can’t be left up to lobbyists.
Cookie Thornton was once a star high school athlete, a college graduate, a man with dreams for himself and his family. He was a happy-go-lucky person with an infectious smile. If Kirkwood and the rest of the nation would take a look at how that Cookie Thornton became the Cookie Thornton on February 7, 2008, we may get closer to the root of the problem and see where interventions could have taken place.
While we figure it out, more Cookie Thorntons, Adam Lanzas and Jared Loughners are being created and our society remains less safe and less humane.
