15 December 2010

School Board shooter Clay Duke and his Facebook profile

A tragedy was narrowly avoided today here in Panama City. A mentally disturbed man, Clay Duke, took a gun into the Bay County School Board meeting and opened fire. Due to my involvement in politics, I know many of these folks personally or at least met them at least once. Thank God none of them were hurt. Watching the tape on Channel 7 was chilling to watch.
It was even stranger to me personally because a group I am the Vice-Chairman of, the Bay County Republican Party, meets in that very same room every month. The whole scene was surreal and I do feel that Mike Jones did the right thing. He saved the life of every one in that room.
Reports came back that Mr. Duke fired blanks so it would appear in my estimation to be a "suicide-by-cop" incident (UPDATE: He had real bullets). For whatever reason the man wanted to die. Like so many others these days, he was hit pretty hard by the economy. When times are bad financially, it can test men and women like nothing else, make them desperate and lose all sense of perspective.
I wanted to find out more about him, so I check the first place I can think of. His Facebook profile.
 No friends. A new profile, set up about a week ago, with a plan in mind. His page shows he was obsessed with "V for Vendetta". He even spray painted it on the wall before pulling out the pistol. I saw the movie. It was set in an alternate future of a post-apocalyptic fascist England. In the end the protagonist dies as Parliament is destroyed. Did he think he was striking a blow against the system with his acts of violence? From his page I might want to assume that, but in the end, who knows what someone's motivation truly is?
All I could find was this in the "about me" section.

My Testament: Some people (the government sponsored media) will say I was evil, a monster (V)… no… I was just born poor in a country where the Wealthy manipulate, use, abuse, and economically enslave 95% of the population. Rich Republicans, Rich Democrats… same-same… rich… they take turns fleecing us… our few dollars… pyramiding the wealth for themselves. The 95%… the us, in US of A, are the neo slaves of the Global South. Our Masters, the Wealthy, do, as they like to us…

“There’s class warfare, all right, but its my class, the rich class that’s making war and we’re winning”
- Warren Buffet

Rise like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number.
Shake your chains to earth like dew.
Which in sleep has fallen on you.
Ye are many – they are few.


He set the page to allow comments by everyone, and there are nearly 1000, mostly negative attacks peppered with " I saw this on CNN and now I'm commenting on his page" type-stuff. Why would anyone bother to insult a dead man? I thought it just seemed creepy in my opinion.
What are the lessons to be learned? Maybe police should have a physical presence at any future meetings. Metal detectors are expensive and whether the School Board will vote to install one at the meeting room, is unclear at this point. Regardless of what is decided as far as security is concerned, I am thankful and grateful that none of the men and women who were in the room when Clay Duke decided to end his life were harmed.

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