I've been following this story for a few days, (everyone here has) then this bombshell today:
From the San Antonio Express-News
www.mysa.com
Ex-Zachry employee dies from self-inflicted gunshot
Web Posted: 02/02/2006 02:08 PM CST
Brian Chasnoff
Express-News Staff Writer
A former employee of Zachry Construction Corp. died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head this morning -- the same week he was fired for sending an e-mail from the company's server to a city councilwoman deemed "very racial and very discriminatory."
George Dickerson, 52, was pronounced dead around 9 a.m. in the backyard of his home in the 600 block of Glencrest. Police said the death was a suicide.
His suicide occurred the same day that the Express-News ran an article detailing Dickerson's e-mail to Councilwoman Elena Guajardo, in which Dickerson complained about Graham Central Station, a large nightclub across from Oak Hills, the North Side subdivision where Dickerson and his wife lived.
In a short note left behind on a desk, Dickerson wrote, "Due to past and current events, I've decided to end my life," said John Oberman, a cousin of Dickerson's.
"I don't think media coverage was an issue (in the suicide)," Oberman said, speaking Thursday morning outside Dickerson's home. "I think he was mostly upset over losing his job."
The San Antonio Express-News generally does not report on suicides unless they or the circumstances surrounding them are public.
In his e-mail to Guajardo, Dickerson had railed against the "undesirable, low-class elements from bad parts of the city" that the club attracts "into our upper class part of the city for which we pay a very large tax burden in which to live to be safe and away from such elements."
He also wrote that entertainment at the club was of a "lude, lascivious, low class, debaucheristic, criminalistic, riot insistic, anarchistic nature."
Dickerson had lived in the Oak Hills subdivision for about eight years and recently had met with the neighborhood association to discuss problems with the nightclub. His e-mail to Guajardo was meant to rectify long-standing safety concerns related to the nightclub, Oberman said.
Dickerson "was not racist," Oberman said. "He was concerned about beer bottles, fast drivers and a lot of ruckus going on that was not good for his neighborhood."
Vicky Waddy, a spokeswoman for Zachry, said Dickerson was fired for violating the company's computer use policy.
"The policy prohibits the use of the company's e-mail for personal messages or for sending material that is harassing, embarrassing, obscene, intimidating, inflammatory or otherwise inappropriate," Waddy said.
Dickerson's wife told police her husband was "very depressed" after being fired from Zachry, where he had worked for 27 years, according to a police report.