On the evening of February 7, 2008, a routine Kirkwood City Council meeting at City Hall became a mass shooting. A gunman who had already confronted and fatally shot Sergeant William Biggs in the municipal parking lot entered the council chambers armed with two handguns and opened fire on city officials and officers present.

Officer Thomas Frederick Ballman, 37, a Marine Corps veteran who had served with the department for nine years, was seated near the front of the room as security for the meeting. The shooter approached Ballman and shot him in the head, killing him instantly. The attack also fatally wounded councilwoman Connie Karr, councilman Michael Lynch, and Public Works Director Kenneth Yost; Mayor Mike Swoboda was critically injured and later died from his wounds several months afterward. The shooter was identified as Charles Lee Cookie Thornton; he was shot multiple times by responding Kirkwood officers and died at the scene.

Ballman left behind a wife and two young children. Investigators reported Thornton had a long-standing grudge against the city tied to accumulated code-violation fines and disputes over his business. Does anyone have firsthand information about Officer Ballman’s service or the events that evening?