Police records: Man threatened ‘big boom’

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

The man suspected of killing three members of an Ohio family in their home including a 7-year-old boy was investigated six years ago for threatening a mass shooting, according to police records.

Barry Kirk threatened the shooting after getting upset with an employee at the Ohio governor’s office in July 2009 over an unemployment claim, the records show.

“I guess I’m going to have to make a big boom or start shooting people,” Kirk said, according to a copy of a state police report obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press.

“I don’t want to but I will get radical,” Kirk said, according to the report. “I just want you to know this so when it happens and hits the newspapers, you’ll know it was me.”

When an investigator went to Kirk’s house later that day and asked if he planned to shoot anyone, Kirk said he did, “without hesitation.”

A year later, in October 2010, Kirk pleaded guilty to a count of telephone harassment. He was fined and sentenced to a year’s probation.

Three police officers shot Kirk Monday night, moments after authorities say he shot his across-the-street neighbors in their house on the city’s west side. Kirk, 50, died a few hours later.

Police officers on patrol in the neighborhood heard the initial gunshots and responded to the scene at the same time 911 calls came in about the shooting.

Killed were John Anderson II, 31; his wife, Christina Anderson, 30; and their son Landon Anderson, 7.