“I still see the faces of the people…that died that day…”

Here at Bullet Counter Points we like to highlight the exceptional work that everyday Ameri Today we focus on the victim of a horrible shooting tragedy that has turned his grief and trauma into a determination to help others.

On the evening of February 7, 2008, Todd Smith, a reporter for the Kirkwood-Webster Journal, was covering a city council meeting at Kirkwood City Hall in Missouri. Just after the meeting began, Charles Lee "Cookie" Thornton—a local resident who had been embroiled in a long running property dispute with the City of Kirkwood—entered the chambers and opened fire with two handguns, a .44 Magnum revolver and a .40 caliber handgun (the latter of which had been taken from a police officer Thornton killed in the parking lot outside the meeting). Before he was stopped by police, Thornton killed a total of five people (two police officers, two city council members, and Kirkwood’s public works director) and wounded two others. One of the wounded was Kirkwood Mayor Mike Swoboda, who would finally succumb to his head injuries and pass away seven months later. Also wounded was Todd, who was seated in the front row at the meeting and shot in the hand. He told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “[Thornton] was completely possessed … He looked at me directly and I felt complete rage.”

Like most of those present at the meeting that night, Todd was familiar with Thornton and his grievances. “I had seen him before at other city council meetings, and on one occasion he decided to speak at a council meeting and I decided to ask him what his issues were,” he recalls. “I had trouble understanding him and what he was wanting—he seemed angry and I had just started on Kirkwood beat and did not know his whole history. Even at this particular meeting he was somewhat incoherent and erratic and wearing a sign on his body in protest of the Kirkwood City Council.”

Sadly, this was not the first time Todd had been a victim of gun violence. He describes another traumatic incident that occurred more than a decade earlier:

“I had moved to New Castle, Delaware. A few days after July 4, 1997, I went to a nearby 7-Eleven around 9:00 p.m. I purchased a soda and was walking through a shopping center when two teenagers came up behind me with guns in their hands. They asked for money. I ran, and one of them shot at me. They ran away. I kept walking, but noticed there was blood coming from the back of my leg. I made it to a gas station that was across the street. I told the clerk to call 911. A guy getting gas noticed me sitting down in front of the gas station and took off his shirt and it was used as a tourniquet to stop my bleeding. I never saw this man again, and wish I had the chance to thank him. About 30 minutes after the shooting, an ambulance arrived on the scene and took me to a nearby hospital. A doctor came to see me and studied the wound and decided to pull the bullet out. He did numb the area, but I remember it being a painful process. I was in the hospital for three days before being released. The African-American teenagers that committed the act were never found. A police officer did come by once, I looked at pictures, but it was hard to tell who it was. I only saw them briefly, it was dark out, and their faces were partially covered.”

Todd’s recovery from these violent episodes has been difficult. The injuries he sustained in the Kirkwood shooting required two surgeries, the second of which involved a joint replacement. “I will never fully recover from this incident,” he says. “Emotionally, I have come a long way, but have a ways to go. I still have a fear of being alone at night and have fears of being in a setting with a large group of people.”

Despite the trauma he has been through, however, Todd wants to create something positive from his experience. “I feel the need to be a spokesperson on gun control,” he says. “The victims in Kirkwood were expecting to leave the meeting to go home and be with their families, like any other night. Instead, they never had a chance to say goodbye to their loved ones. I think there is something to be said about stronger gun control measures so people can go on living with the people they care about.”

Todd notes, “I am not against guns. I grew up around guns. I lived in a rural area, where people hunted and worked at a gun club. I would not like to see people’s right to have a gun taken away. I just believe in properly screening those who want to purchase guns, and developing ways to identify guns so that we know where they came from and where they were originally purchased.”

He has contacted the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and become involved in their Program for Victims and Survivors. Todd will take part in legislative advocacy efforts at the federal and state level, and reach out to other journalists to educate them about gun violence prevention.

Still, some memories do not go away easily. “I still see the faces of the people that were friends of mine that died that day in Kirkwood,” Todd says. “One did her best to help people like Thornton. She worked to make sure that the council considered the views of constituents so their concerns were always heard and represented. I also will never forget Kirkwood Police Officer Tom Ballman. He stood up when Thornton pulled out his guns and in that instant he was killed. This image will haunt me for the rest of my life.

“The instantaneous ending of a human life—which guns allow for—should not be allowed.”

Homeland Absurdity

In June, the Supreme Court issued a 5-4 decision in the case of District of Columbia v. Heller, ruling that the District’s longstanding ban on handguns and safety & storage laws concerning firearms in the home violated the Second Amendment. D.C. lawmakers responded quickly by enacting emergency legislation to comply with the ruling. These temporary measures created a registration procedure for privately owned handguns and revised the city’s trigger-lock requirements to allow for self-defense in the home. Simultaneously, the D.C. Council announced they would enact permanent and comprehensive gun laws when they returned to work in the fall.

This good faith effort, however, was not good enough for the National Rifle Association (NRA), which saw an opportunity to turn the matter into a campaign issue. The NRA authored new legislation, H.R. 6691, which would go far beyond the stipulations of the Heller decision and eviscerate what’s left of the District’s gun laws. Their bill would repeal D.C.’s registration requirement for handguns, legalize semiautomatic assault weapons, allow individuals who have been voluntarily committed to psychiatric institutions within the last five years to own firearms, and prohibit the D.C. Council from enacting any gun-related legislation in the future. Most disturbingly, however, H.R. 6691 would allow individuals to carry loaded rifles and assault weapons in public.

During a September 8 hearing, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform called three law enforcement officials to testify about the potential impacts of H.R. 6691 on public safety and homeland security: D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier, Capitol Police Chief Phillip Morse and Deputy Chief of the Park Police Kevin Hay. All three voiced serious concerns about the bill. The Secret Service and the U.S. Marshals Service were also invited to testify, but were blocked by the Bush administration from doing so.

Chief Lanier stated that she had “grave concerns” about H.R. 6691 and opined that it would make her officers’ job to protect the public, government officials and visiting dignitaries “far more difficult.” She noted that over 4,000 special events occur in D.C. annually, including high-profile events such as the 4^th of July celebration on the National Mall and the Presidential Inauguration. In her words: “Imagine how difficult it will be for law enforcement to safeguard the public, not to mention the new president at the inaugural parade, if carrying semiautomatic rifles were to suddenly become legal in Washington.” Chief Morse echoed this sentiment, saying such a situation “becomes an officer safety issue, as well as a public safety issue.”

Even with D.C.’s current gun laws, there are innumerable dangers for law enforcement to manage in the nation’s capital. Members of Congress were reminded of this just last week when an individual armed with an AK-47, a homemade grenade, and three magazines of ammunition was apprehended one block from the U.S. Capitol. His explanation to officers on the scene was that he “wanted to provide more ‘manpower’ in case of a conflict with a secret society.”

Do we really want to put law enforcement in situations where they can’t arrest individuals who are carrying loaded rifles near federal buildings? Apparently, in their zeal to appease the gun lobby during election season, Members of Congress are ready to put even their own lives at risk (in addition to the lives of D.C. residents and visitors to the nation’s capital). Sadly, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has announced that she will let H.R. 6691 come to the floor for a vote.

The NRA, feeling haughty and attempting to redefine the standard for hypocrisy, has even chastised the members of the D.C. Council for “demonstrating their arrogant disregard for the Supreme Court’s decision and the safety and liberty of their own law-abiding constituents.” Given the current lunatic provisions of H.R. 6691, however, it is clear that the D.C. Council—working through a democratic process—would do a far better job of protecting Washingtonians than Wayne LaPierre and the extremist leadership of the gun lobby.

"We Have No Freedom"

The Washington Post ran an interesting article on Friday about the absence of law and order in Mogadishu, Somalia's capital. "Men draped with AK-47s" now walk the avenues of the capital, doing the bidding of local militias and warlords. These militias are a constant threat to the local populace, freely stealing and plundering from their countrymen. They also tightly restrict movement, manning an extensive series of roadblocks in the city that few are brave enough to navigate. The fledgling secular government of Somalia has been unable to establish control and guarantee the safety of their citizens.

In the meantime, frightened Somalis have taken to arming themselves for protection. It has, however, bought them little sense of security. "We are hostages right now," said Somali Mohamed Dere. "We have no freedom."

As we thought about this situation, we realized that in many ways it is the logical extension of the NRA dream for America. A gun in every home, citizens freely carrying these weapons on the streets for self defense, and a central government that is unable to regulate these firearms in any way, shape or form.

The problem, however, is that because everyone is armed and there is no system of justice or law enforcement in place, there is freedom only for those with the biggest (or most) guns at any given moment. And that sounds a lot like anarchy (or mobocracy, perhaps) to us.

We feel this story brings to light "America's First Freedom," the real one without which no others can exist: Public Safety. For a society lacking a functional government that can guarantee the safety and security of its people can guarantee no other individual rights, and is destined only for chaos and violence.