Fla. School Board Shooting Video: Shooter Clay Duke Left Facebook Suicide Note
PANAMA CITY, Fla. (CBS/AP) Clay Duke, the 56-year-old ex-convict who calmly fired point-blank at school board members before fatally shooting himself, apparently created a Facebook page that refers to class warfare and is laced with images from the movie "V for Vendetta," in which a mysterious figure battles a totalitarian government.
PICTURES: Fla. School Board Shooting
On the Facebook page under Duke's name, which was created Dec. 7, he left a cryptic message under the "About Me" section.
"My testament: Some people (the government sponsored media) will say I was evil, a monster (V) ... no ... I was just born poor in a country where the Wealthy manipulate, use, abuse, and economically enslave 95 percent of the population. Rich Republicans, Rich Democrats ... same-same ... rich ... they take turns fleecing us ... our few dollars ... pyramiding the wealth for themselves."
The Facebook page's profile picture shows the same red "V" symbol that Duke spray painted on the wall during the school board meeting. The page also shows photos from the film.
The page also uses a quote from billionaire Warren Buffett in the New York Times in 2006: "There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class that's making war and we're winning."
As the Bay City school board was in the midst of a discussion Tuesday, Duke walked to the front of the room, spray painted a red "V'' with a circle around it on the white wall, then turned and waved a handgun. He calmly ordered everyone to "hit the road" except the men on the board sitting behind a long beige desk.
"We could tell by the look in his eyes that this wasn't going to end well," Bay City Schools Superintendent Bill Husfelt told The Associated Press, who credited God for his escape late Tuesday.
Despite his shock, Husfelt mustered a calm voice and tried to persuade Duke to drop the gun, but Duke just shook his head, blaming officials for his wife being fired. Video showed him slowly raising the gun and leveling it at Husfelt, who pleaded "Please don't, please don't."
Duke shot twice at Husfelt from about 8 feet away and squeezed off several more rounds before security guard Mike Jones bolted in and, after exchanging gunfire with Duke, wounded him in the leg or side. Duke then fatally shot himself, police Sgt. Jeff Becker said.
Somehow, no one else who remained in the small board room was injured.
