By Xinhua
Washington : Two policemen and three other people were shot dead when a gunman stormed into a city council meeting in the U.S. state of Missouri before he was killed by police, television reports said on Thursday.
CNN said the gunman killed a police officer late on Thursday evening in a parking lot outside the St. Louis County police station, before breaking into Kirkwood city council chambers nearby where a meeting was going on.
Yelling “shoot the mayor,” he killed a second policeman and three other people at the meeting, and wounded two more attendees, including Kirkwood Mayor Mike Swoboda, a police spokeswoman said.
Police returned fire and shot the gunman dead, she added.
Janet McNichols, a correspondent covering the meeting for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch when the shootings took place, identified the gunman as Charles Lee Thornton.
According to McNichols, Thornton had a history of disrupting meetings and making outrageous comments at public meetings.
He sued Kirkwood city for violating his First Amendment rights after he was arrested and convicted twice for disorderly conduct at two council meetings in 2006.
Thornton’s brother, Gerald, told CNN that Thornton had serious grievances with the city government.