- You'll never hear about this story on Fox News, NBC,
CBS, ABC, etc... Not to mention, in the fashion of the typically ignorant, the
shooter shot the wrong "Pete, thus he didn't even kill the right person."
-
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- Authorities Release Names Of Two Of The Dead
In Hospital Shooting
- By Daniel Yee
- Associated Press Writer
- 4-1-8
-
-
- COLUMBUS, Ga. -- Armed with
guns in his pockets and a three-year-old grudge against a nurse he only
knew by first name, a former substitute teacher set out for a west Georgia
hospital to find the man who treated his late mother.
-
- The aftermath left three dead, including the nurse the
man was seeking, and a community still trying to find out why the killings
happened.
-
- Authorities on Friday released the names of two of the
three killed at Doctors Hospital: Peter D. Wright, 44, a registered nurse
from Fortson, Ga., and James David Baker, 76, of Columbus.
-
- Officials have not yet released the name of a third victim,
a 44-year-old administrative assistant at the hospital.
-
- The gunman, 63-year-old Charles Johnston, was expected
to be released into police custody from The Medical Center in Columbus,
where he was undergoing treatment after being shot in his right shoulder
by a detective prior to his arrest. Upon his release, he is expected to
be charged with three counts of murder and four counts of aggravated assault,
said Columbus Police Chief Ricky Boren.
-
- Authorities say Johnston came to Doctors Hospital on
Thursday with a gun hidden in his waistband and other guns in his pants
and jacket pockets and went to the fifth-floor intensive care unit where
his mother had been treated in 2004. They said he blamed a male nurse there.
-
- Boren said Johnston was looking for a man named "Pete"
and followed Wright into a hospital room after hearing Wright's name called
out. Wright was shot in the chest and head after trying to leave the room,
Boren said.
-
- "He held a grudge against "Pete" because
he believed Pete to be an individual that did not properly take care of
his momma while she was in the hospital," Boren said. "It had
been bearing on his mind ... and yesterday he decided to do something about
it."
-
- Wright may have administered care to Johnston's mother,
Boren said.
-
- After shooting Wright and the administrative assistant
inside the hospital, Johnston got into his Ford station wagon in the parking
lot, Boren said. Another car pulled in facing Johnston's, and Baker was
shot in the head as he got out of the vehicle. Boren says Johnston may
have thought that Baker was a police officer trying to arrest him.
-
- A city deputy marshal arrived in the parking lot. Johnston
fired at her and she shot back, but neither was hit. A plainclothes detective
blocked the gunman's car, and when Johnston pulled a gun, the detective
shot him, Boren said.
-
- Authorities do not know why Johnston wanted to seek revenge
against his mother's nurse. A search of his Columbus home after the shootings
turned up a copy of his mother's obituary from the newspaper, Boren said.
Johnston did not appear to have any history of mental illness. He also
had a pistol permit, Boren said.
-
- Doctors Hospital spokesman Tom Titus said the hospital
has security officers but no metal detectors. He said the hospital is assessing
its security situation in the wake of the shooting.
-
- Kevin Bloye, spokesman for the Georgia Hospital Association,
said, "Nothing like this has happened in our recent memories."
There have been incidents involving upset visitors, but none this serious
he said.
-
- "Most hospitals have security on campus 24 hours
a day," he said. "You really can't plan for something like this.
You think of a hospital as a safe refuge for the community. I think we're
learning as a society there really are no places of safe refuge any more."
-
- Valerie Fuller, director of communications for Muscogee
County Schools, said Johnston was a teacher's aide from September 1973
to December 1973 at Rothschild Junior High School. She said he resigned
in 1973 for personal reasons.
-
- In 1997, she said, he enrolled in a class to train substitute
teachers. May 2007 is the last time the system has him on the payroll as
a substitute. Records do not indicate where he substitute.
-
- Fuller said the school system did routine background
checks in 2004 and 1996. Both came back clean.
-
- Johnston lived not far from the hospital where the shootings
occurred.
-
- A neighbor, Thelma Lutrella, 78, said he kept to himself.
-
- Lutrella said Charles Johnston and his brother Carl had
lived in Atlanta for many years, but returned to Columbus when their mother,
Lillie Mae Love, became sick and disabled by diabetes.
-
- She said Charles Johnston had little to do with his neighbors.
Although Lutrella knew his mother - and summoned her sons back to Columbus
when Love became ill - she said Charles Johnston seldom offered more than
a wave of hello to neighbors.
-
- "He didn't associate with nobody on this street.
He stayed to himself," Lutrella said.
-
- Information from: Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, http://www.ledger-enquirer.com
-
- http://curtmaynardsblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/black-man-shoots-and-kills-three-white.html
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