My heart goes out today to my colleagues at the City of Kirkwood, Missouri where a resident killed six people at their City Council meeting last night. It’s a terrible, terrible tragedy. You can read more about the event at this link from CNN: “Six Dead as gunman goes to war with Missouri city“.
As soon as I heard the news this morning it took me immediately back to Mt. Pleasant, Iowa where I was the City Administrator from 1990-1996. In 1987 a resident named Ralph W. Davis walked into a Mt. Pleasant City Council meeting and shot Mayor Edd King three times and the Council Member on either side of the Mayor once each. Mayor King died at the scene. The two Council Members suffered serious injuries, but later recovered. Davis was later convicted of murder and died in an Iowa prison. The motive for his crime: he thought the City was intentionally filling up his basement with flood water.
As I said, I was not in Mt. Pleasant at the time of this event, but the mental, emotional and community trauma was still churning when I arrived in February 1990. There were lawsuits. There were workers’ compensation issues. The City had a tough time getting citizens to volunteer to serve in any capacity for the City. The City of Kirkwood will go through these issues too. It’s very difficult. In some ways, their city will never recover from this tragedy.
So I will say a prayer tonight for the citizens, City staff and elected officials of Kirkwood, Missouri tonight. They will need all the support they can get.
