Part 1: Why Did Cookie Thornton Kill? >> Part 2: Kirkwood, Meacham Park and the Racial Divide >> Part 3: The Return to City Hall >> Part 4: The Man Who Threw Chairs
After the February 7 shootings at the Kirkwood City Hall, a few extremists angered the rest of the world by calling the shooter a hero. But there was plenty of real heroism at the Kirkwood City Hall, from the mystery of how the first man killed, Sgt. Bill Biggs, managed to press the alert button … to the officers who ran up to the chamber, straight into mortal danger … to city attorney John Hessel, whose lightning reflexes allowed him to stall Cookie Thornton before he managed to shoot anyone else.
“It was really hard at first,” Hessel says the week after the shootings, rubbing his face wearily. “The first day or two you are just like, ‘This can’t be real.’ You keep telling yourself it really didn’t happen. And you go to the wakes and funerals of all the friends you lost, and you have this rush of emotion that’s hard to describe. At certain times you think, ‘I don’t know why I’m alive.’ You close your eyes at night and try to make sense out of it, and as one counselor told me, you are trying to make sense out of nonsense. And then you feel the grief and wonder why you were so fortunate and think about all you would have lost. I remember being at Mike Lynch’s service: I was one of the pallbearers, so I was sitting next to Sally Lynch and her two children, and just over the casket I could see my entire family.”
At the start of the February 7 city council meeting, Hessel had his head down, reading exhibits into evidence, when he heard Thornton shout. “I looked to my left, and he was a few feet from [Kirkwood police officer] Tom Ballman, holding a placard. As I looked up, he dropped the placard and shot Tom Ballman in the chest. I thought, ‘This can’t be real.’ Tom’s head just slumped over. His arms were still crossed, and blood was streaming down his chest. I then saw Cookie turn toward [city engineer] Ken Yost. I jumped under the dais, and I heard two shots. I could see the mayor getting up—everything was in super–slow motion. I heard two more shots, saw blood, saw the mayor go down. Then I heard another shot over this way—” Hessel quickly sketches a diagram of the chamber and points across the dais—“and I knew he’d shot Connie Karr. I was down on one knee, pointed toward [mayoral candidate] Art McDonnell but looking the other way too. And then I heard a shot very close and knew it was [council member Mike] Lynch. I believe that his plan was to wipe out everybody on the city council, Ken Yost and me. And I wasn’t going to let him do it.”
Hessel’s father had died 10 years ago to the day; he is absolutely convinced his father was his guardian angel, because he’s had no military training and can’t even explain how he knew what to do next.
“When I heard him shoot Lynch, I got up and ran, ’cause I knew he was close, and he ran right at me. He was a few feet away with two guns aimed at me. I looked him right in the eye and said, ‘Cookie, don’t do it.’ I can’t describe the look in his eyes. Very menacing but no emotion. Shark eyes. I picked up a chair—plastic—I remember having it right in front of my eyes—and threw it, and I’ll be darned if I didn’t hit his arm.
“My life did flash,” Hessel confides, “but it wasn’t past life, it was future. My oldest daughter is getting married June 7, my youngest is graduating high school in May, and I thought, ‘I’m going to miss all that, and grandchildren, and my wife’—and it made me mad. So I picked up the next chair, stepped toward him and hit him with it as hard as I could. I think I said something to the effect of, ‘You may not have a life, but I do.’
“Then I picked up the next chair. Now I’m 2 feet away from him. I threw the third chair and thought, ‘I’m running out of chairs. Run!’ I turned and ran back the other way, and every row I went by, I threw another chair. I look up and see the door is closed. Aw, shit. OK, that ain’t gonna work. So I turn to run out the other door. I look to see where he is, and he falls down, right by Ken’s body. I thought, ‘This is my chance. It’ll take him longer to stand up and do a 180 and shoot me in the back.’ So I ran out the double doors in the back of the chamber. Longest run of my life.
“I got past the doors, thought of jumping over the railing and thought, ‘I’m not going to like that landing.’ It’s 20 feet down. On the stairs, I literally ran into the two officers running up. They said, ‘Where is he?’ and I looked at them like, ‘Are you guys kidding me? I have no idea, and I’m not staying around to answer that question!’”
Later, they played the tape. Exactly 1 minute and 13 seconds had passed between the shot that killed Tom Ballman and the shot that killed Cookie Thornton.
Part 1: Why Did Cookie Thornton Kill? >> Part 2: Kirkwood, Meacham Park and the Racial Divide >> Part 3: The Return to City Hall >> Part 4: The Man Who Threw Chairs
