Ex-con ‘planned’ school board shooting incident

POLICE say the ex-convict who held a Florida school board at gunpoint had been planning to do it for some time.

Panama City Police chief John Van Etten said Tuesday’s date was circled on a calendar found in the trailer where Clay Duke, 56, lived north of Panama City.

Duke shot himself after firing at school board members during the meeting. No one else was hurt. Before opening fire, he painted a red V on a wall and talked about his wife being fired.

Officials say she worked for the schools, but it wasn’t clear whether she resigned or had been fired or what her job was. She was apparently living with her mother in a nearby town.

Van Etten says the shooting was not “spur of the moment”. Police also found anti-government documents in Duke’s home.

The entire dramatic standoff was captured on film.

Officials said no one besides the gunman was injured in the episode.

“It was the most surreal thing I have ever been a part of,” said Bill Husfelt, chairman of the school board.

Husfelt described how the gunman calmly walked to the front of a meeting room that minutes earlier had been filled with students, spray-painted a red “V” with a circle around it on a wall, and then brandished his firearm.

“He almost had like a grimace, a smile. We knew it wasn’t going to end well.”

Minutes into the standoff, the footage showed the man opening fire on board members seated just a few feet away, pulling the trigger several times but miraculously, hitting no one.

Officials said videotaping of board meetings is done routinely for public record.

Eventually, a security guard opened fire on the man, wounding him, and the gunman turned his weapon on himself.