Kirkwood City Council shooting
| Kirkwood City Council shooting | |
|---|---|
Police responding to the Kirkwood City Council shooting. | |
| Location | Kirkwood, Missouri, U.S. |
| Coordinates | 38°34′48″N 90°24′25″W / 38.58009°N 90.40688°W |
| Date | February 7, 2008 c. 7:00 P.M. CST (UTC-6) |
| Target | Kirkwood City Council |
Attack type | Assassination, mass shooting, mass murder |
| Weapons | Smith & Wesson Model 29 .44 Magnum revolver; Smith & Wesson .40 caliber handgun |
| Deaths | 7 (including the perpetrator) |
| Injured | 1 (Todd Smith) |
| Perpetrator | Charles Lee "Cookie" Thornton |
| Motive | Not receiving construction contracts |
On February 7, 2008, a gunman went on a shooting rampage at a public meeting in the city hall, leaving six people dead and a seventh injured in Kirkwood, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. Charles Lee "Cookie" Thornton, aged 52, shot one police officer with a revolver across the side street from city hall and took the officer's handgun before entering city hall. Thornton reached council chambers with these two pistols shortly after the meeting began. There, he shot a police officer, the public works director, two council members, the mayor, and a reporter. The shooter died from two gunshot wounds in a shootout with police.