The person appeared to be a regular at the Denton City Council meetings, showing up during the public comment periods to discuss a conspiracy that echoed similarities to other conspiracies throughout the years — a behind-the-scenes puppetry to influence the masses.
Normal appearance, a relaxed dress with a backpack that hadn’t been checked, the person explained the conspiracy to the council. Passion fueled their words and their actions.
A council member was called out. The person’s ire seemed to be building. Several people appeared uneasy in the crowd and on council. “Did police check their backpack, their person?” were no doubt some of the thoughts that were occurring. A police officer, assigned to the council chamber, escorted the person away from the podium.
It was a comforting sight in the age of mass shootings. Several have occurred since the 2008 mass shooting at a Kirkwood (Missouri) City Council meeting that left five people dead and the mayor critically wounded. Churches, elementary and high schools, nightclubs, retail outlet stores, a movie theater, a school board meeting in Florida and a Las Vegas music festival — nowhere is safe, anymore.
Then, the Denton police officer allowed the person back into the Tuesday night council meeting. With the backpack in hand, the person appeared at the top of the stadium seating in the council chamber. Several people shifted nervously in their seats.
Thankfully, nothing occurred, no ill intent toward anyone.
But in the age of mass shootings, it’s difficult for people not to be concerned, especially after a gunman recently spent an hour in a classroom, shooting and killing 19 children and two teachers at a Uvalde elementary school with far more safety protocols than the Denton City Council meetings and far more police officers with far more firepower standing in the hallway.
Since the 2008 Kirkwood City Council shooting, municipal councils around the country have been enacting stricter security protocols for their chambers, implementing security screenings that include bag checks and metal detectors. In 2022, city councils in Ohio, California, Wyoming and Louisiana have enacted policies to implement screening for prohibited items before people enter council chambers.
The Denton City Council isn’t one of those councils.
“You do see governing bodies who do not implement those security measures,” said Stuart Birdseye, a Denton city spokesperson. “It’s unique to each council and governing bodies and how they want to approach access to their meetings.”
The Denton Record-Chronicle pointed out that firearms are prohibited at City Hall. “How do you know someone isn’t bringing one in? Do you check?”
“We do not check,” Birdseye replied.
The trigger
Kirkwood City Council members had just finished reciting the Pledge of Allegiance with 30 other people at a Tuesday night council meeting in 2008 when the unsuspected gunman crept into council chambers. He had concealed both of his weapons — a Smith & Wesson Model 29 .44 Magnum revolver and a Smith & Wesson .40-caliber pistol he’d taken from a police officer outside City Hall after the gunman had shot and killed him.
Most people knew Charles “Cookie” Thornton, former journalist Todd Smith said, as the beloved harmless but disgruntled resident who wore signs to the council meetings in protest of their actions. He had been accusing the council of lies, discrimination and exploitation and trying to gentrify his Black neighborhood. Similar to the Denton area, growth had hit the Kirkwood, Missouri, area, but on this Tuesday night in 2008, it was simply a regular council meeting with nothing controversial on the agenda, like most Denton City Council meetings.
Entering the chamber through the back, Thornton was upset about the tickets he’d been receiving for parking and debris violations — 100 tickets with a total fine of $20,000 — and the money he had spent on new equipment for a demolition contract he thought the mayor and council had promised him. He claimed a racist conspiracy was occurring, that council had a “plantation mentality,” and blamed them for destroying his business, according to an April 24, 2008, St. Louis Magazine report. He’d also been previously convicted for assaulting a city engineer, whom he would shoot and kill this Tuesday evening.
Smith, who was in the front row of the chambers that Tuesday evening, said Thornton had also lost a million-dollar lawsuit against the city that a federal judge had dismissed. The city had tried to keep Thornton out of the chambers, but a judge ruled against it, Smith said.
Approximately a minute after Thornton entered the council chambers, he shot and killed another police officer, the public works director, two council members and critically wounded the mayor. The city attorney threw a chair and escaped. Smith got shot in the hand and hid behind some chairs until Thornton’s shooting ended.
Thornton died in a shootout with police.
“Any time that I am in a group of people, in a church or something, I look for escape routes now,” said Smith, who was one of two people to survive Thornton’s rampage.
Enhanced protocols
A few weeks after the Kirkwood shooting, the City Council in Louisiana, Missouri, enacted stricter security protocols at council meetings, including security cameras and metal-detecting wands, ABC affiliate KHQA-TV reported on Feb. 25, 2008.
All doors in the council chambers were locked, and a police officer was placed outside council chambers to search with the metal-detecting wand.
“Unfortunately, it seems it’s the day and time we live in, and because of what happened in Kirkwood, which was a tragedy in itself,” then-Louisiana Mayor Don Giltner told KHQA news. “I considered it a wake-up call for all of us, and I just felt by taking these simple precautions it will be a protection for not only the city employees but to visitors who come to the council.”
Two years later, the Florida school board shooting occurred when a gunman, who thankfully was a terrible shot, fired four shots at school board members before a retired police officer shot him several times. The gunman committed suicide.
Four years later, the City Council in Wilmington, North Carolina, followed suit. Council members voted in favor of stationing police officers and implementing gateway metal detectors and wands and bag searches before people are allowed into the council chamber, according to an April 14, 2014, Port City Daily report.
Then-Mayor Bill Saffo told the Port City Daily that it was “just modern reality.”
“This is the world that we live in, unfortunately, and this is part of our daily routine,” Saffo said, the Port City Daily reported.
Several city councils have followed with their own enhanced security protocols. In late May, the Shreveport City Council in Louisiana discussed the need to implement stricter safety protocols, including more deputies and metal detectors due to a rash of mass shootings in the country and a series of aggressive behaviors toward City Hall employees, the Shreveport Times reported on May 26.
“We are the building that is least protected,” Shreveport City Council member Tabitha Taylor told the Shreveport Times.
Police escort a person out of the Denton City Council meeting on Tuesday night.
Some safety protocols
After that Tuesday evening Denton City Council meeting, the Record-Chronicle contacted the city spokespeople and council members about the security protocols to prepare for a probability that history indicates will continue to repeat due to the divisiveness of the gun control issue. In Texas, legislators have made it easier to carry firearms, also known as “constitutional carry,” and refuse to address whether an 18-year-old or anyone else should have access to a military-style rifle with a high-capacity magazine.
Instead, it is left up to cities, churches and school districts to prepare for not a “What if?” scenario but a “When?” one.
In a mid-June conversation, Denton spokespeople Birdseye and Ryan Adams mentioned that City Council members were going through an active shooter training, which they said was one part of their security protocols and another component to provide safety and security at city facilities.
“We’re continually looking at ways to provide a safe and welcoming council to people and continue to have an eye on and continue to evaluate and make improvements as time goes forward,” Birdseye said.
Denton Mayor Gerard Hudspeth echoed Birdseye’s comments in a prepared statement: “Our meetings are a place where we want the Council and community to feel safe, welcome, and comfortable. This training is one part of the security for our meetings and will keep us up to speed on what protocols we can expect to help keep people safe.”
Mayor Pro Tem Brian Beck said shortly before the active shooter training on June 24 that it wasn’t wise to discuss details about precise responses they have to a threat. He said he planned to remind everyone of what had occurred with the person being escorted out and allowed to return, as part of any discussions they may have about the issue.
“In the face of recent events like those you mentioned [the mass shootings], the City Manager is being proactive about active shooter training for the safety of the public, staff and Council,” Beck wrote in a June 21 email. “We will be discussing our specific Denton responses to the ongoing surge in gun violence particularly sweeping those states like ours with the minimums in regulation.”
Security threat
At the most recent Denton City Council meeting on Tuesday evening, the enhanced Denton police presence was on display inside and outside City Hall. A drone hovered overhead, while several officers wore SWAT gear. About a dozen police officers in their patrol uniforms with bulletproof vests lingered among the roughly 1,000 people who had gathered in response to council member Alison Maguire’s proposed abortion rights resolution, the first of its kind to pass in Texas.
Inside City Hall, several officers waited with a metal-detecting wand to screen each person entering the council’s chambers, asking people to empty their pockets and checking their bags before they were allowed to enter.
Though people’s tempers were flaring when news spread about council member Brandon McGee’s possible “no” vote, which would have killed supporters’ hopes, one couldn’t help but feel a sense of safety and security. At least, given the enhanced security and the checks, no one was entering the council chambers with a firearm.
This type of police presence hadn’t been seen downtown since the mayor’s father, Willie Hudspeth, had joined thousands of others several years earlier to protest the Confederate monument on the Square. Then, police officers were on the street corners around the Square and atop roofs of downtown businesses with sniper rifles as protesters descended on the Square.
On this Tuesday evening in late June, the enforcement at the City Council meeting felt less threatening to some who had gathered in front of City Hall. One former newspaper reporter commented that it reminded her of the days when police showed up in force to respond to residents who were attempting — and eventually succeeded — to get City Council members to ban fracking inside city limits.
Despite police having to detain someone early in the protest, no violence had erupted inside or outside City Hall, according to a Wednesday Record-Chronicle report.
The resolution passed 4-3, with only one irate individual who had to be escorted out shortly before the vote, when McGee led his supporters to believe he was voting against it. McGee denies that he would have voted “no.”
After the council meeting, the Record-Chronicle contacted Birdseye and Beck to find out if any safety-related discussions had been held. Beck said he did discuss it and mentioned including training for “regulars” such as the press and others. He also discussed a couple of exits that were available.
“We had a spoken, quick verbal presentation at the time,” Beck said. “The staff is going to get back to me about the feasibility [of] having a training that includes interested regulars.”
The Record-Chronicle also spoke with Kirkwood’s communications manager, Freddie Doss, to find out what kind of security protocols were implemented after the 2008 mass shooting inside the council chamber.
Doss said that for every council meeting and work session, several police officers are on hand inside and outside the council chambers. There is now a metal detector, and bags are checked as soon as someone enters the building, and the city regularly evaluates its security practices and also conducts active shooter training.
“A lot of government work involves the general public, and our council meeting is open to the public. And you want to make sure that the council members and staff are safe, and the people who are coming to watch it are safe,” Doss said. “Folks are very concerned about episodes of gun violence and the radicalization that is happening in our communities.
“It is something that city councils should be taking seriously.”
