A man recently fired from a Target store barged into the Arkansas Democratic headquarters on Wednesday and fatally shot the state party chairman before speeding off in his pickup. Police later shot and killed the suspect after a 48km chase.
Police identified the suspect as 50-year-old Timothy Dale Johnson of Searcy, a town about 80km northeast of Little Rock. They said moments after the shooting, Johnson pointed a handgun at a worker at the nearby Arkansas Baptist headquarters. An official there said he told the worker, “I lost my job.”
Chairman Bill Gwatney died four hours after the shooting. The 48-year-old former state senator had been planning to travel to the Democratic National Convention later this month as a superdelegate.
PHOTO: AP
He had backed Hillary Rodham Clinton but endorsed Barack Obama after she dropped out of the race.
Clinton and her husband, former president and former Arkansas governor Bill Clinton, issued a statement saying Gwatney was “not only a strong chairman of Arkansas’ Democratic Party, but ... also a cherished friend and confidant.”
Conway police said a Target store 48km north of Little Rock had fired Johnson earlier on Wednesday because he had written graffiti on a store wall. The age and address provided by Conway officers matched those provided by Little Rock police for its suspect.
Witnesses said the gunman entered the party offices shortly before noon and said he wanted to see Gwatney.
“He said he was interested in volunteering, but that was obviously a lie,” 17-year-old party volunteer Sam Higginbotham said.
He said that when the suspect was refused a meeting with Gwatney, he pushed past employees to reach the chairman’s office.
Little Rock police spokesman Lieutenant Terry Hastings said the suspect and Gwatney introduced themselves to one another, at which time the suspect “pulled out a handgun and shot Gwatney several times.”
Hastings didn’t say what the two discussed, but said their discussion was not a heated one.
Police said after leaving the office, the suspect pointed a gun at a worker at the Baptist headquarters seven blocks away. When asked what was wrong, the man said “I lost my job,” said Dan Jordan, the group’s business manager.
After the suspect avoided spike strips and a roadblock along US 167 near Sheridan, police rammed his car, spinning it, Grant County Sheriff Lance Huey said. He got out of his truck and began shooting, and state police and sheriff’s deputies fired back, striking him several times, he said.
Hastings said investigators found at least two handguns in the suspect’s truck.
There was a busy signal on Wednesday night at a phone number listed under Johnson’s name. Little Rock police said they could find no criminal record for him.
Conway police spokeswoman Sharen Carter said Target fired Johnson before 8am on Wednesday because he had written on a wall. Other store employees said Johnson’s body shook as he turned in his ID badge. A Target manager had called police because of the incident but the wall had already been cleaned.
The state Capitol was locked down for about an hour until police got word the gunman had been captured, Arkansas State Capitol police Sergeant Charlie Brice said.
Governor Mike Beebe, a Democrat who served with Gwatney in the state Senate, had been on a flight to Springdale in northwestern Arkansas.
He returned to Little Rock and joined an impromptu vigil at University Hospital after what he called a “shocking and senseless attack.”
Gwatney had been Beebe’s finance chairman during the governor’s 2006 campaign.
“Arkansas has lost a great son, and I have lost a great friend. There is deep pain in Arkansas tonight because of the sheer number of people who knew, respected and loved Bill Gwatney,” Beebe said.
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