http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1833748/posts
The passer-by who confronted and killed the gunman in last Friday's police shooting was an expert marksman who used to alarm his neighbors by firing guns on his own property, court records show.
"I am an ex-Marine and an expert shot. I don't miss what I shoot at," Gregory Floyd, 49, told police officers who searched his home in 1997.
Authorities have decided not to charge Floyd in Friday's shooting, ruling he was justified when he fired at Liko Kenney, 24, just moments after watching Kenney shoot and kill Franconia Police Cpl. Bruce McKay.
Kenney's uncle, Bill, said he is not angry at Floyd.
"I thank him," Bill Kenney said yesterday. "He did an amazing thing."
A "loner" by reputation, Floyd has declined to speak with reporters since the shootings. A woman who answered the phone at his house Sunday said, "This is a private, unlisted, unpublished number. Please don't call again."
Residents in the rural White Mountains town of Easton, home to about 280 people, said they tend to keep away from Floyd, just as he keeps away from them. His property on the southern edge of town is said to be guarded by Rottweilers.
"He's the type of person I'd be very leery of," said Bob Every, the town's former police chief.
Court records show Floyd has had several run-ins with the law over the years. His record includes a 1998 conviction for attempting to knee a police trooper in the groin and a 1997 indictment, later dismissed, for being a felon in possession of weapons.
Authorities searched Floyd's cabin exactly 10 years ago this week after neighbors told then-chief Every they thought Floyd was discharging "fully automatic weapons" on his property, according to documents on file in Littleton District Court.
Floyd at one point apologized for shooting a gun, telling neighbors he was "shooting to scare off bears so his son could sleep," the documents say.
A search of his house turned up six guns, including a Glock 9mm pistol, an Ithaca 12-gauge shotgun and a Rugar Black Hawk handgun, but no automatics.
Floyd and his wife, Michelle, had moved to the area from Townsend, Mass., about six months before that. A record check in that state showed that while there had been arrests for assault with a dangerous weapon, the charges were dismissed.
One day after the May 1997 search, Floyd was charged with criminally threatening a contracted meter reader from the New Hampshire Electric Coop. Floyd allegedly instructed his son, "Go inside and get the pouch." His son, according to the report, said, "Mom is awake. I could not get the gun."
Investigating troopers claimed Floyd told them he could have given them a "third eye."
"I know you wear vests, so I could have put it right between the eyes," he said, according to the papers. "I was sitting on my Ruger."
The case was twice continued that summer. One time was because the troopers would be attending the funeral of two state troopers killed in Colebrook on Aug. 19, 1997.
Minutes before the trial was to have started in October, the case was dropped. There was a heavy police presence in the court that day.
Also in June 1997, Floyd was charged with, and later indicted for, being a felon in possession of weapons, after a records search in Georgia turned up a 1981 felony conviction for selling marijuana.
Those charges were dismissed after Floyd's attorney, Gerry Boyle, successfully argued that the Georgia conviction would not have constituted a felony in New Hampshire in 1981.
He was also charged with simple assault for attempting to knee a trooper in the groin and was given a suspended one- to three-year sentence in the New Hampshire State Prison, according to an order issued on May 28, 1998. He was placed on probation for three years, with the stipulation that he not possess any firearms.
In motions seeking the return of the firearms in August 1998, court papers noted that the guns belonged to Floyd's wife. She reportedly intended to sell some of them and have the others secured in a locked safe in Manchester.
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Boston.com THIS STORY HAS BEEN FORMATTED FOR EASY PRINTING
ReplyDeleteThe Boston Globe
Ex-Marine in N.H. lived by his own code
By Maria Cramer, Globe Staff | May 20, 2007
FRANCONIA, N.H. -- Judging from his history of gunplay and boasting about violence, detailed in court records, Gregory W. Floyd was a tinderbox waiting for a spark.
The moment came last Friday, when the 49-year-old former Marine jumped into the middle of a deadly shooting, grabbed the gun from a dying policeman, and killed the man , Liko Kenney, 24, who had shot the officer.
Now Floyd is being hailed as a hero. But police reports, neighbors, and acquaintances paint a more complex portrait of a man who lived by his own code, and whose past, as much as his fast thinking in a critical situation on country road in Franconia, led him to such a bloody juncture.
When Floyd picked up the service weapon of Officer Bruce McKay, 48, and aimed it at Kenney, Floyd knew what he was doing.
In 1997, soon after Floyd moved from Townsend, Mass. , to Easton, N.H. , a residential community of about 300 next to Franconia, state troopers went to his house after neighbors complained of gunfire near his property. According to court docu ments, he told police he was trying to scare off bears that were keeping his son awake.
"I am an ex-Marine and expert shot," Floyd said when police searched the home and found six firearms, according to the police report. "I don't miss what I shoot."
Police contacted Floyd a couple of weeks later, this time because of a report from a Campton man who said Floyd threatened to beat him up. The charge was later dismissed.
That time, Floyd told the officers he could have given them "a third eye," according to records filed in Littleton District Court.
"I know you wear vests, so I would have put it right between the eyes," he said.
He was indicted for the gun charges, but they were later dismissed. Floyd was allowed to keep the weapons. But in 1998, Floyd pleaded guilty to simple assault after he tried to strike a state trooper in the groin with his knee.
Floyd, a tall, broad-shouldered man with thinning gray hair and an accent that hints at his childhood in New Orleans, has shunned reporters who have tried to interview him.
His house, a log cabin deep in the woods, is cordoned off by a rusty chain and four "No Trespassing" signs. A Globe reporter who approached his house yesterday was ordered off the property by a young man with a barking Rottweiler on a leash.
Until last week, few in Franconia, a close-knit ski resort town of about 900, had heard of Floyd, who moved to Easton with his wife, Michelle, and son, Gregory.
The state Attorney General's Office has said it will not press charges against Floyd, pointing out that he used justifiable deadly force.
Sergeant Robert Terhune , a New Hampshire state trooper, praised Floyd's lack of hesitation.
"I wasn't in Mr. Floyd's shoes," said Terhune, who helped coordinate memorial services for McKay on Thursday. "But Mr. Floyd did what he needed to do. He risked his life to save the lives of others."
But some remain shaken by Floyd's actions.
"I can't imagine that type of situation and coming in like that," said Pamela Yarosh , 59, owner of Franconia Business Connection, where Floyd and his 19-year-old son regularly drop off packages to be mailed.
"I would think most people would leave and go for help," she said.
Ellie Lovett , 72, saw Floyd the day after the fatal shootings, when he came into Franconia Village Market on Main Street, where she is a cashier. He asked for a newspaper and said, "I'm the guy who shot the kid," according to Lovett.
"It totally freaked me out," she said. "He said it like he killed a rabbit."
Floyd was born in Germany, according to court records. It is unknown when he came to the United States, but Robert Warden , owner of Bob's Mobil in Franconia, where Floyd takes his Chevy for repairs, said Floyd once told him he was raised in a strict New Orleans household.
"Cajun New Orleans," Warden said. "He is a man of strong character, [with] a real sense of right and wrong."
In 1976, Floyd joined the Marines. After serving in Okinawa, Japan, and Camp Lejeune , N.C., he left the service in February 1979 and received the Good Conduct Medal, awarded to Marines who depart with a clean record.
As a civilian, however, Floyd had trouble with authorities. In April 1981 he sold marijuana to an undercover officer in Georgia and was fined $1,000, according to records filed in Grafton Superior Court.
Around 1990, he moved his family to a three-building condominium complex in Townsend called Country Estates. It was teeming with families, but the Floyds did not socialize, said Calvin Robbins , 56, a former trustee who still maintains the property.
Once, Floyd tried to chop down the trees behind the 23-unit apartment building, so his condo would get more light, Robbins recalled. He used to crank up the heat in the common halls of the building and open his door to let the warm air waft into his unit.
When the men argued, Floyd would wave his silver cane, which he acquired after a back injury at work, neighbors said.
"He was too tough to talk to," Robbins said.
In New Hampshire, Floyd is polite, but taciturn, Yarosh said.
"His son does all the talking," she said.
Warden said he would like to visit Floyd and shake his hand for shooting Kenney. "I admire him," he said. "I'd want him in my corner if I got in a jam."
But he said he will not cross the " No Trespassing " signs without Floyd's permission.
Maria Cramer can be reached at mcramer@globe.com. Globe Correspondent Erin Conroy contributed to this report.
(Correction: Because of an editing error, a story in yesterday's City & Region section about Gregory W. Floyd, a former Marine being hailed as a hero in New Hampshire for his role in a double shooting on May 11, incorrectly stated the day a Globe reporter tried to approach the Floyd residence. The correct day was May 12.)
© Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
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