"I was very confident that I was going to get shot. I wasn't pulling for it, but I was ready if that was going to happen," Bay City Schools Superintendent Bill Husfelt said today on ABC's "Good Morning America." "I knew where I would go if I were to pass away. I was very prepared for that."
The gunman, Clay A. Duke, opened fire on Husfelt at a school board meeting Tuesday night in Panama City, but nobody was hit. A security officer, Mike Jones, exchanged fire with Duke, wounding him. Duke, 56, then fatally shot himself with a 9 mm handgun, the only casualty of the violence caught on videotape.
"He was pointing right at me," Husfelt recalled on CBS' "The Early Show." "God blocked the bullet. I really believe that."
Duke was reportedly upset about a tax increase and claimed his wife was fired by the school district, although police haven't commented on a motive.
"I think it's just safe to say at this point that obviously Mr. Duke had some mental health issues," Panama City Deputy Police Chief Robert Colbert said at a news conference.
Police said the attack was planned. Dec. 14, the date of the shooting, was circled on a calendar in Duke's trailer, Panama City Police Chief John Van Etten told The Associated Press.
"The family was as shocked as everyone else that this had occurred," Colbert told CNN.
He said Duke's wife was a teacher in the district who was let go within the year, CNN reported. She was not identified.
Before the shooting, Duke spray-painted a red, circled "V" on a wall. The symbol, used in the book series and movie "V for Vendetta," was also used for what's believed to be Duke's Facebook profile photo. Police said they were looking into the page.
Husfelt tried to calm Duke down and begged him not to shoot, but said he knew things wouldn't end well.
"He decided he was going to die," Husfelt said of Duke. "There's no doubt looking in his eyes that somebody was going to get killed."
Before opening fire, Duke ordered everyone but the men on the school board to leave the room, holding them at gunpoint, according to media reports. The sole woman on the board, Ginger Littleton, had been ordered to leave but sneaked back in, whacking Duke's gun arm with her large purse.
"I knew something bad was going to happen. I could leave and try to live with myself if it did, or go back and try to at least delay or divert until we could get some help," Littleton said on CBS.
"Their shield was a three-ring binder, and their lethal weapon was a ballpoint pen," she said on CBS. "They were lined up like ducks in a pond."
But her plan didn't work, and Duke forced her to the ground, although he didn't shoot at her. He then opened fire twice, first at Husfelt, who pleaded, "Please don't," then at the floor.
Jones, a former police detective, shot Duke in the leg, and as the gunman collapsed he fired three more shots, then fatally shot himself.
"His timing was perfect," Husfelt said of Jones. "The minute he heard that first shot, he came in," the superintendent told CBS.
Board member Jerry Register also praised Jones and said he was happy to be alive.
"Alive means a lot more today than it did yesterday," he said on NBC's "Today."
Duke had an extra magazine in his pocket and a box of ammunition believed to be holding another 50 rounds, Colbert told CNN.
Husfelt said today the school board would meet to discuss security.
"We don't want to overreact," he said at a news conference. "We don't want to have TSA checking people when they go in. That's not what this country is about."
Duke pleaded no contest after an October 1999 arrest on charges of aggravated stalking, shooting or throwing a missile into a building or vehicle and obstructing justice, and he was sentenced to five years in prison, according to Santa Rosa's Press Gazette. He was paroled in 2004, placed on 10 years' probation and ordered to complete psychological counseling.
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Speaking with The News Herald of Panama City, Ben Bollinger, the attorney who represented Duke, said the charges stem from accusations that Duke was stalking a former girlfriend. Duke, dressed in a bulletproof vest and a mask, allegedly confronted her with a rifle when she came out of her home. When she attempted to leave, he shot out the tires on her vehicle, the attorney said."The guy was, like, just out there," Bollinger told the Press Gazette. "He had some bad problems."
In January 2009, Duke wrote to his sentencing judge, Circuit Judge Dedee Costello, saying he was "a mentally ill man who had committed crimes." He also said he had been diagnosed with "adult-onset bipolar condition" and had received treatment in prison. Duke asked Costello to end his probation early, the News Herald reported, without indicating whether the request was granted.