School board shooting: gunman Clay Duke caught on camera taking potshots at terrified panel
A gunman took potshots at members of a school board in Florida before taking his own life.
8:39AM GMT 15 Dec 2010
Man opens fire at members of a Florida school board meeting.
Clay Duke calmly walked to the podium at the front of the room, spray painted a red "V" in a circle on a wall before opening fire at school board members.
Despite firing from a range of just 8ft he missed all his targets, before being shot and injured by a security guard. He later took his own life. 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. Two bullet holes were found in the wall behind the panel. In video of the clash that lasted several minutes, Duke dispassionately confronts the Bay District school board in Florida, telling everyone to leave except the men on the five-member panel.
Duke, who was wearing a dark pullover coat, stands directly in front of the board with the gun at his side. Superintendent Bill Husfelt tries to persuade him to drop the gun. Duke suggests that his wife had been fired from the district, but won't reveal 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.
The 56-year-old slowly 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 missed the half-dozen or so people still left in the room. Before he started shooting, the only woman board member, Ginger Littleton, sneaks up behind Duke as he stands next to the panel's desk and whacks him on the arm with her handbag.
"In my mind, that was the last attempt or opportunity to divert him," she told The Associated Press afterwards. Duke 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 -----" but he didn't shoot her. "He had every opportunity to take me out," she said.
After Duke, an ex-convict, fired and missed Husfelt, district security guard Mike Jones ran in and exchanged shots with Duke. 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.
Police 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," Husfelt said afterwards. "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."
Minutes before Duke got up, the room had been filled with students receiving awards, he said. "It could have been a monumental tragedy," Husfelt said. The V inside a circle that Duke painted is the same symbol used in the graphic novel series and movie "V for Vendetta."
State prison records show Duke was charged in October 1999 with aggravated stalking, shooting or throwing a missile into a building or vehicle and obstructing justice. He was convicted and sentenced in January 2000 to five years in prison but was released in January 2004. They also show that Duke was a licensed massage therapist before his arrest.
