Florida School Board Shooting Caught on Video
The Florida school board shooting video showing gunman Clay Duke shooting (and missing) at point-blank range is a chilling sight. The Panama City man repeatedly fired his gun at the Florida school board members. Amazingly, no one but he himself was killed.
In what could have been a massacre, the distraught gunman, 56-year-old Clay Duke said he wanted to kill the board members and then himself because they fired his wife from her job with the school district and the couple was broke.
The school board shooting video is chilling not just for the possible violence that could break lose at any moment, but for the calm exhibited by the Bay County School Board members and by Duke himself. According to the Guardian, the meeting was in progress and being filmed by local news station WJHG when Clay Duke stood up and said he had motion. After spray painting a red circle with a "V" on the wall, he turned to the board members, sitting behind their desks.
Duke calmly dismissed the female members of the board, and didn't notice when one, Ginger Littleton, snuck back into the room, as the Guardian reports. In a valiant but ineffective attempt to disarm Duke, she hits him over the head with her purse, then falls to the ground. Duke stands over her, and could have shot her then, but let her leave the room.
More than once, Duke tells the board "I'm going to die today." He then says, "You fired my wife. We're broke." More discussion about his wife's firing ended with the Superintendant Bill Husfelt asking that the other members be let go since he is the one who allegedly signed Mrs. Duke's termination papers. Then Duke fired, but hit no one. A security shot him before he took his own life, just like he predicted.
We are all far too familiar with how the school board shooting could have gone. For some reason, Clay Duke was not angry enough or just plain evil enough, to have shot as many people as he could have. Still, the loss of a job led to the loss of a life. And that is one too many.
Related Resources:
- School board shooting (Video) (Washington Post)
- Shooting, Hostages Reported at Discovery Channel Offices (FindLaw's Blotter)
- 2 Kids Shot at Kelly Elementary in Carlsbad, CA (FindLaw's Blotter)