Killer Not Hero

Charles Lee "Cookie" Thornton shot and killed five people on Thursday night.  His actions were cold-blooded, evil and unjustifiable.  It was mass murder, pure and simple.

I was shocked on Saturday to open up the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and read comments attributed to Ben Gordon of Webster Groves.  Gordon said, "To me, Charles Thornton is a hero.  He opened a business.  He went to court, but the system failed him.  . . . We are sorry, we grieve, but (Kirkwood officials) share in this responsibility."

The only person who bears responsibility for a madman storming into a city council meeting with guns blazing is the madman himself.  

Real heros are the men and women in the U.S. Military putting their lives on the line in Iraq and Afghanistan every day.

Listen to Harriet Patton, president of the Meacham Park Neighborhood Association, who was quoted by Sylvester Brown, Jr., in his column in today's Post-Dispatch, instead of Ben Gordon.  Patton said, "Some people are thinking it's OK to take justice in their own hands.  They aren't saying it outright, but they're thinking it.  It's not OK."

Apparently Harriet Patton hadn't heard Ben Gordon's comments.  But what he said and what others Patton knows are thinking is not in any way OK.  Cookie Thornton is not a hero.