East Texas Shooting: "Canton Mafia" ,Football, Boys Being Boys and Texas Bullies

GARY JOE KINNE
CANTON - The Canton High School athletic director was the apparent victim of a shooting on campus this morning, and just after 1:30 p.m. officials announced the suspect, Jeffery Doyle Robertson, had been captured.
Law enforcement officials responded to a report of shots fired Canton High School around 9:20 a.m., where Gary Joe Kinne, the Canton High athletic director and football coach, had been shot. He was transported by helicopter to a Tyler hospital. Kinne underwent surgery and came out of it at 1:40 p.m. His condition is critical but stable, according to Department of Public Safety officials.
Kinne was reportedly shot at the school's athletic field house in Canton. Police Chief Mike Echols said Kinne was shot in the chest.
The Governor's Office of Homeland Security identified the shooter as Jeffrey Doyle Robertson, father of a Canton High School student. According to the Associated Press, the suspect fired a high-powered rifle and fled the scene in a 2004 black Dodge pickup.
At mid-day police were searching an area around Garden Valley after a pickup was found abandoned on Farm to Market 1995.
Robertson had other weapons in his truck and had made a statement that he had a hit list and would not be taken alive, said Sophie Yanez, a spokesman for the state Homeland Security office.
With the suspect at large, Canton schools were immediately placed on lockdown.
Six Tyler schools were also placed on low-level lockdown as a precautionary measure, Tyler Independent School District officials. Those schools were John Tyler High School, Stewart Middle School, Boulter Middle School, and Dixie, Orr and Peete elementaries.
Police Chief Echols said Robertson was an original member of the "Canton Mafia" and had been warned off all school premises and not to attend any school functions.
Officers were originally told that the suspect may be headed toward Tyler where he has friends. Later, police issued a statewide alert.
According to the Tyler Police Department spokesman Don Martin, Robertson is driving a 2004 black Dodge pickup with license plate 64N XW1. Kinne is a former Baylor linebacker who signed as a free agent with the Philadelphia Eagles out of Baylor and also played one year in the old World League for the Orlando Thunder.
His post at Canton began two years ago, his first as head coach, after spending six years at Mesquite High School. He also spent one year at Allen and three at Kaufman. Kinne also has family ties to Tyler. His father, Gary Kinne Sr., played on Tyler Junior College's national championship football team. His mom Nancy, was an Apache Belle.
source: http://www.tylerpaper.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=14302095&BRD=1994&PAG=461&dept_id=226369&rfi=6
-------------------------
CANTON SHOOTING SUSPECT
"A TICKING BOMB"
By: ROY MAYNARD, News Reporter April 07, 2005
  Steve Smith says he's warned school authorities and the Canton police since the fall of 2003 that Jeffrey Doyle Robertson, the father of a Canton High School athlete, was a "ticking bomb."
"He's a very high-strung, hot-tempered individual," said Smith, a Canton business owner and the father of another athlete. "I had an encounter with him a year and a half ago, when I got a call from my son, who told me this guy had just threatened to kill him."
The threat arose from an incident on the field, Smith says. Robertson's son, a freshman football player then, was walking off the field, when some older students "razzed" him, "like kids do," said Smith.
"This guy blew up," Smith reports. "He thought some kids were picking on his son. My son wasn't even the one who said anything. But he threatened to kill him."
Smith went to the school to complain, and then to the Canton police.
"But the Canton police wouldn't press charges," Smith said. "I was very frustrated at that. Eventually I talked to the father (Robertson) himself, and I told him he had no business threatening kids. This isn't about winning game. This is about what we're teaching these boys."
Though the incident seemed to be resolved, Smith warned his son to avoid Robertson.
"I told him if he sees this guy, stay away," Smith said. "I do know that my son was very fearful."

source: Tyler Morning Telegraph
---------------------
Shooting shatters town's calm

Canton HS official in critical condition; some saw suspect as 'time bomb'
08:42 AM CDT on Friday, April 8, 2005
By MICHAEL GRABELL / The Dallas Morning News
CANTON, Texas – Jeffrey Doyle Robertson has long been known by some in this East Texas town as a hothead, bullying his way through life with an ill temper and a violent manner.
When Mr. Robertson was in high school, he and his friends were such scrappers that police issued a town curfew. More recently, the self-employed air-conditioning repairman was known as a man who went around looking for fights and often meddling in the affairs of his son's high school football team.
So some in the town of 3,200 were not surprised Thursday when, according to authorities, Mr. Robertson took a gun to Canton High School and shot the head football coach.

Gary Joe Kinne
Gary Joe Kinne, also Canton's athletic director, remained in critical condition Friday at Trinity Mother Frances Health System in Tyler. Mr. Kinne, 37, was shot once in the chest, police said.
"The family, they're in each other's arms," said Truman Oakley, Canton High's assistant principal. "Canton is a small town, a close-knit town. ... That support is really holding them up right now."
Mr. Oakley said pastors, friends, colleagues and others had rushed to the Tyler hospital to be with the coach's family.
Several hours after the shooting, Mr. Robertson's abandoned, black extended-cab pickup was found near a golf course east of Canton. Numerous guns and knives were scattered beside his vehicle and the nearby woods, including two .45-caliber handguns.
A worker at the golf course saw Mr. Robertson hiding in the woods and alerted searchers who were combing the area.
Mr. Robertson was soon captured. He appeared to have wounded his forearms with a knife, police said. Police said several people in town told them that Mr. Robertson was celebrating his birthday party Wednesday night and named five people he wanted to kill.
"He was at a party last night, drinking heavy," Police Chief Michael Echols said. "We do know that he had certain people that he was very upset with."
Also Online
  Rebecca Lopez reports
Coaches say pressure from parents part of job
Coach brings out the best in players

Long-held grudge
The dispute between Mr. Robertson and the school had apparently boiled since August, getting so bad that he was banned from football games and practice, officials said.
Police and others in Canton, about 60 miles east of Dallas, said Mr. Robertson got into a shoving match with Mr. Kinne and an assistant coach after a football practice in August.
"It all started with his son," said parent Catherine Whitlock. She said Mr. Robertson intervened in an argument between his son, Baron, and hers, Byron.
Baron Robertson "called his father, and his father came up to my son, and the coaches intervened. The parent was going to jump my son, and the coaches jumped in," Ms. Whitlock said.
Another player, Steve Smith Jr., said he once argued with Baron Robertson. Mr. Robertson later grabbed him by the shirt, pushed him against a fence and threatened to kill him and his family if he ever messed with his son again, the student said.

His father, Steve Smith Sr., said he told his son to avoid Mr. Robertson.
"I said, 'He's a walking time bomb,' " the father said.
Mr. Smith said he complained to the school and to police, but Mr. Robertson was never charged with a crime.
Mr. Smith said that when he arrived at the school Thursday, he told the superintendent: "Stevie was threatened by this guy and y'all chose to do nothing about it."
Canton school district Superintendent Larry Davis declined to comment on Mr. Smith's statements or complaints from other parents. "I have no personal knowledge of that," Mr. Davis said.
Four years ago, Mr. Robertson was tossed out of at least two baseball games for yelling at umpires and players, Canton resident Bobby Williamson said.
"He was a real hothead," Mr. Williamson said. "He's the type that went looking for trouble."
Different opinions
But some who know Mr. Robertson disagree, calling him kind and compassionate, despite his temper.

"He does anything for me," said Rhonda Miller, a cousin of Mr. Robertson's wife. "I suspect he was pushed to the edge in some way."
Karen Johnson, whose husband worked with Mr. Robertson at the Dallas Plumbing Co., also praised him.
"About a year ago, my best friend died of cancer," she said. "All the time he was going there to the church and the hospital, Jeff would come and visit and look after the family."
Ms. Miller said Mr. Robertson had reason to be angry.
"I don't want him portrayed as a lunatic," she said. "A lot of parents want to take action and get things done, and it's very frustrating when you don't get a response from the administration."
Cathy Scallions, who works at Peace Pharmacy, said that after a recent fatal accident, Mr. Robertson tried to console the victim's son, even following the ambulance to Dallas to be at his side.
Another time, he bought an air conditioner for a friend who had no cooling system in her home during the summer. And when a friend was incarcerated in a West Texas prison, Mr. Robertson would take the man's children there to visit him, said Ms. Scallions, who used to work with his wife.
"He's always been there to help people. He's really a good person. I don't know what happened," she said. "You'll find out he's helped so many people. But, you just, you don't mess with his kids."
Reliable worker
Mr. Robertson commuted daily from his home in Canton to far northeast Dallas, where he co-owned Priority Heating & Air on Switzer Avenue.
He helped start the business in 2002 after leaving the nearby Dallas Plumbing Co, where he worked for six years installing air-conditioning systems. Before that, he worked in the oil field business, friends said.
His family had a long history working in Dallas; his father worked at Dallas Plumbing about four decades before moving to West Texas. He could not be reached for comment Thursday.
Business associates described Mr. Robertson as high-strung and a good worker. But his affinity for alcohol, fisticuffs and guns often got him into trouble on the weekends, they said.
"He didn't show up that way to work," said John Downs, who co-owns Dallas Plumbing. "He was a good employee for us. It surprises me that he went to this extreme."
He said Mr. Robertson seemed to be a good father to his two children.
"He took his son hunting and fishing," Mr. Downs said.
He said the police contacted him Thursday morning, advising him to lock his business's doors and stay away from the office while Mr. Robertson remained at large. A Dallas police patrol car was parked nearby most of the day.
Mr. Downs said the police didn't mention a hit list but added, "I guess they were calling everyone who Jeff knew."
He said one of the last times he saw Mr. Robertson, he had a cast on his leg. Mr. Robertson told him and others that he had gotten into a road-rage incident with a trucker on a local freeway and that it had ended in a brawl.
"He had bad bruises all over," Mr. Downs said. "He said the guy ran over him. I told him that if he didn't get in control of his temper, he'd be in trouble."
Rickey Morgan, who manages the office warehouse complex on Switzer Avenue and leases space to Mr. Robertson and his business partner, called the shooting suspect "pretty high-strung."
"He had a thing for guns," Mr. Morgan said. "He would say he always carried a couple of guns with him for personal protection. That kind of concerned me. He always seemed to have a lot of enemies."
'Shelter in place!'
Jenie Addison, a 10th-grader at Canton High, said she was in speech class when a secretary yelled over the intercom: "Shelter in place! Shelter in place!" a warning given when someone is on school grounds who should not be.
The teacher locked the door, closed the blinds, turned off the lights and told the 20 students to sit and be quiet in the corner, the 17-year-old said. Then the teacher led them in prayer.
They sat that way about 90 minutes.
Students reached for their cell phones, calling their parents and trading text messages with friends elsewhere in the building to find out what had happened.
Canton City Manager Charles Fenner said police got a call about 9:15 a.m. from someone in the school who had taken a call from the field house. Mr. Kinne, though wounded, was able to call for help.
Chief Echols said Mr. Kinne was shot with a high-caliber handgun at close range.
The chief said Mr. Robertson had run-ins with the law in the past. After the shoving match last year with Mr. Kinne, Mr. Robertson was charged with disorderly conduct. However, the charges were dropped, the chief said.
"We haven't had any problems from him in quite a while," Chief Echols said. "It seems like he's been upset with the coaching system at the school for quite a while."
Staff writers Kimberly Durnan, Lee Hancock and Jason Trahan and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

source: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/040805dntexshooting.1b4dafba4.html