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http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/12/14/official-gunman-killed-fla-school-
meeting/
The wife of the man who took target practice on a school board in Florida on
Tuesday, described her husband as a gentle giant who was pushed over the
edge by the economy and frustrated over her losing her teaching job.
"He wanted to get me an answer," Rebecca Duke said of her husband Clay A.
Duke.
"The economy and the world just got the better of him," Duke said in a
rambling press conference to talk about the man she loved.
Duke calmly walked to a podium, spray painted a red "V'' with a circle
around it on a wall and opened fire at Panama City school board members,
sending people scrambling and diving for cover. A security guard exchanged
shots with and wounded the man who eventually killed himself, police said.
The Bay City Schools superintendent who calmly confronted the gunman who
threatened to shoot him during the meeting said God protected him when Clay
A. Duke opened fire
Officials said Clay A. Duke shot himself to death after exchanging gunfire
Tuesday with Bay District's security chief. Witnesses say Duke may have been
complaining that his wife had lost her job.
"It could have been a monumental tragedy," Superintendent Bill Husfelt said
late Tuesday, wearing a sweat shirt and pajama bottoms, surrounded by his
family. With a Christmas tree as backdrop, he said, "God was standing in
front of me and I will go to my grave believing that."
Despite several shots being fired, no one else was hit. In video of the
clash that lasted several minutes, Duke dispassionately confronts the Bay
District school board, telling everyone in the room to leave except the men
on the board. Duke, who was wearing a dark pullover coat, stands about eight
feet directly in front of the board with the gun at his side.
Husfelt tries to persuade him to drop the gun. Duke suggests that his wife
had been fired from the district, but won't tell Husfelt or the board who
she is or her job. Members promise to help her find a new job, but Duke just
shakes his head. Husfelt tells Duke he would be responsible for her
dismissal, so the board members should be allowed to leave.
"I've got a feeling you want the cops to come in and kill you because you
said you are going to die today," Husfelt tells Duke. He then tells him that
this isn't worth it.
The 56-year-old slowly and deliberately raises the gun and levels it at
Husfelt, who pleads "Please don't, please don't." Duke then fires two shots
that miss, followed by several others that didn't hit the half-dozen or so
people still left in the room.
Before he started shooting, member Ginger Littleton, who had left the room
as ordered, sneaks up behind Duke as he stands next to the long, beige desk
where the board was sitting and whacks him on the arm with her large, brown
purse made of an alligator-like material.
"In my mind, that was the last attempt or opportunity to divert him," she
told The Associated Press.
Duke, a large, heavyset man, got angry, turned around, and she fell to the
floor and board members pleaded with her to stop. Duke pointed the gun at
her head and said, "You stupid b----" but he didn't shoot her, she said.
She's not sure why.
"He had every opportunity to take me out," she said.
After Duke, an ex-convict, fired and missed Husfelt, district security chief
and former police officer Mike Jones ran in and shot Duke in the leg or his
side.
Duke then fatally shot himself, police Sgt. Jeff Becker said. The video
shows a distraught Jones, with his gun at his side, being comforted by
colleagues as he says he had never shot anyone before. SWAT officers then
storm the room and order everyone onto the ground.
School officials tell them that Duke is shot and appears dead. His feet can
be seen near the board's seats.
"It was so surreal. You couldn't believe it was going on. He said his wife
was fired, but we really don't know what he was talking about. I don't think
he knew what he was talking about," Husfelt told The Associated Press at his
Panama City home.
Minutes before Duke got up, the room had been filled with students receiving
awards, he said.
As for the V inside a circle that Duke painted, it's the same symbol used in
the graphic novel series and movie "V for Vendetta."
After everything stopped with Duke lying shot on the floor, some board
members speculated that the bullets weren't real. But police say Duke's gun
was real — and the video shows papers flying up on Husfelt's desk. He said
two bullet holes were found in the wall behind his seat.
State prison records show Duke was charged in Oct. 1999 with aggravated
stalking, shooting or throwing a missile into a building or vehicle and
obstructing justice. He was convicted and sentenced in Jan. 2000 to five
years in prison but was released in Jan. 2004. They also show that Duke was
a licensed massage therapist before his arrest.
Attorney Ben Bollinger, who represented Duke during his trial, told The News
Herald of Panama City that Duke was waiting in the woods for his wife with a
rifle, wearing a mask and a bulletproof vest. She confronted him and then
tried to leave in a vehicle, and Duke shot the tires. He said that as part
of his sentence, Duke was required to complete psychological counseling.
Bollinger did not immediately return a phone message from the AP.
News Herald reporter Daniel Carson told his paper that he had noticed the
man during the meeting and he didn't appear agitated.
"The guy obviously had a death wish," district spokeswoman Karen Tucker
said.
Tommy Lou Richardson, the school district's personnel director, who was at
the meeting, called Jones a hero for his actions. |
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