School board meeting crowd thwarts attack

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Police found a second rifle and two handguns in the truck of a school maintenance worker accused of shooting a teacher and dousing two other people with gasoline at a county school board meeting.

Several members of the audience at Thursday night's meeting of the Kanawha County Board of Education grabbed the suspect and knocked him to the ground.

Richard Dean "Rusty" Bright, 58, of Rand, W. Va., was jailed on charges of malicious wounding and wanton endangerment, both felonies, and faces a July 25 court hearing.

"He told us he was upset because some of the school board employees had been smoking around him," police chief Jerry Pauley said Friday. "The school board said they had taken some minor disciplinary action against him."

Capital High teacher Karen Taylor, 56, was in satisfactory condition at Charleston Area Medical Center's General Division after suffering a gunshot wound to the lower abdomen.

Maintenance supervisor Jeffery A. Allred and personnel official Karen Williams, who were doused with gasoline, were treated at the scene and released, police said.

"That was kind of shocking," said school board member John Luoni. "I immediately began to smell gasoline."

Bright had been on sick leave when he entered the board meeting shortly after it started. Witnesses said Bright was carrying three large plastic buckets.

After splashing Allred and Williams with the gas and trying without success to ignite it, Bright pulled from his overcoat a rifle wrapped in a black trash bag, police and witnesses said.

Charleston police Lt. R.E. Ingram said Friday the weapon was an AK-47 assault rifle.

Pauley said investigators do not believe the suspect was targeting Taylor when he opened fire. Luoni said audience members grabbed Bright before he could aim the weapon, which fired off several wild rounds before he was subdued.

"Their quick action really did help prevent fatalities," Luoni said.

Investigators seized Bright's 1987 Ford pickup truck, found parked outside. A bomb squad searched both it and the school board building for any incendiary devices but found nothing.

Pauley and Ingram both said they did not know what type of rifle was found in the truck. Ingram said the handguns were a semiautomatic pistol and a revolver.

The school board resumed and completed its meeting Friday morning without incident. Police sent an officer to attend.

"I'm sure everybody was kind of antsy going back after what happened," Pauley said.

Pauley said his department will meet with school officials to discuss security at future board meetings.

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Kanawha County schools: http://kcs.kana.k12.wv.us/