LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — A man who earlier in the day had been fired from a Target store barged into the Arkansas Democratic headquarters Wednesday and fatally shot the state party chairman before speeding off in his pickup, authorities said. Police later shot and killed the suspect after a 30-mile chase.
Police identified him as 50-year-old Timothy Dale Johnson of Searcy, a town about 50 miles northeast of Little Rock.
Democratic state party chairman Bill Gwatney died four hours after the shooting.
Conway police said a Target 30 miles north of Little Rock had fired Johnson earlier 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 their 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,” said 17-year-old party volunteer Sam Higginbotham. 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 Lt. Terry Hastings said the suspect and Gwatney introduced themselves to each other, 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 heated.
Police said that 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 U.S. 167 near Sheridan, police rammed his car, spinning it, said Grant County Sheriff Lance Huey. The suspect 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.
According to Conway police spokeswoman Sharen Carter, Target fired Johnson before 8 a.m. 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.
Johnson lived alone in a small home in Searcy and had never been married, said Helen Mowrer, who lived next door to the suspected gunman.
Mowrer said that both of Johnson’s parents lived at the house but had died in the past 10 years. Mowrer said Johnson kept to himself. “I never felt really comfortable with him,” she said. “He was just kind of different.”
The state Capitol was locked down for about an hour until police got word the gunman had been captured, said Capitol police Sgt. Charlie Brice.
Gov. Mike Beebe, a Democrat who served with Gwatney in the state Senate, 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,” Beebe said.
In November, a distraught man wearing what appeared to be a bomb walked into a Hillary Rodham Clinton campaign office in New Hampshire and demanded to speak to the candidate. A hostage drama dragged on for nearly six hours until he surrendered.
“A cherished friend”
Bill Gwatney was the chairman of the Arkansas Democratic Party. The 48-year-old former state senator, who owned three Little Rock-area General Motors dealerships, had been planning to travel to the Democratic National Convention in Denver this month as a superdelegate. He had backed Hillary Rodham Clinton but endorsed Barack Obama after she dropped out of the race. Clinton and her husband, Bill, the former president and former Arkansas governor, issued a statement saying Gwatney was “not only a strong chairman of Arkansas’ Democratic Party, but … also a cherished friend and confidant.”
