Loner shoots democratic party boss after losing job

POLICE were struggling yesterday to explain why a man described as a loner drove more than 50km to Arkansas’ Democratic Party headquarters and fatally shot its chairman — a close friend of Hillary and Bill Clinton — hours after getting fired from his job.

Police said Timothy Dale Johnson, 50, of Searcy, barged into Bill Gwatney’s office on Wednesday and shot him multiple times. There were no signs that Gwatney and Johnson, who was later shot dead by officers, knew each other.

A Target retail store in Conway had fired Johnson early on Wednesday because he had written graffiti on a wall, police said. Before noon, Johnson was in Gwatney’s office in Little Rock with a handgun.