Bill Gwatney, the chairman of the Arkansas Democratic Party, was shot in his office in Little Rock Wednesday morning and died a few hours later, police officials said.
The officials said a single gunman fired three shots at Mr. Gwatney, a former state legislator, in the party’s headquarters a few blocks from the state Capitol and then drove away.
Mr. Gwatney was rushed to the medical center of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, but a friend of the Gwatney family, who asked not to be identified, said doctors determined that his wounds were inoperable. He died several hours later, police officials confirmed.
The suspect, driving a Chevrolet pickup truck, was chased south for about 25 miles by police officers and was shot after he was stopped, said Lt. Terry Hastings of the Little Rock Police Department. The suspect was airlifted to a hospital and later died of his wounds.
The suspect was described as a white male in his 50s. About ten people were present in the party headquarters during the shooting. “The suspect turned and ran out the door,” Lieutenant Hastings said.
I wonder how many Sean Hannity and Michael Savage tomes they’ll find in the shooter’s hovel.
And how many more Democrats will be attacked by those who’ve succumbed to the siren’s song of GOP blame for what is wrong with their lives: It’s the gays. It’s the blacks. It’s the Muslims. It’s the liberals.
Deepest sympathy to the family of Bill Gwatney. Have we really come to this? A Unitarian Church gets shot up last week and now this? We should not jump to conclusions but have my paranoid fears of gun wielding republican white/straight supremacists shooting up the streets of America come to fruition? I often chide myself for being frightened when I drive by one of the many confederate flags around town. Perhaps the chiding is ill spent. There is that book, The Big Sort, about people moving to areas where they agree with everyone, and that it is not a good thing. Perhaps “the big sort” is a survival tactic.