Republican Tom Schweich is Republican State Auditor.
He has busted at least 30 state officials for embezzlement.
This is horrible news.
Tom Schweich was hospitalized today with a gunshot wound.
KY3 reported:
Missouri Auditor Tom Schweich is at a hospital after experiencing what his staff is describing as a “medical situation.”
Auditor’s spokesman Spence Jackson said Schweich “experienced a medical situation at his home” in Clayton on Thursday morning and is being treated at a St. Louis area hospital.
Jackson declined to release any other details about Schweich’s ailment or condition.
Schweich is a Republican who won re-election to a second, four-year term in November. He announced a month ago that he is seeking the Republican nomination for governor in 2016.
Auditor Schweich experienced a medical situation at his home this morning. He is receiving treatment at a local hospital.
— FOX2now (@FOX2now) February 26, 2015
The Post Dispatch said it was a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
State Auditor Tom Schweich was taken to a St. Louis-area hospital Thursday after what his office described as “a medical situation” that occurred at his home in Clayton.
“He is receiving treatment at a local hospital,” the statement said. “We ask for respect and privacy for him and his family during this time.”
A police source said Schweich had sustained a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Schweich, a lawyer, was re-elected last November to a second term as auditor. He announced last month that he is seeking the Republican nomination for governor. He faces Catherine Hanaway, a former House speaker and former U.S. attorney, in what has become an increasingly bitter campaign.
UPDATE: MO Auditor Tom Schweich in critical condition following self-inflicting gunshot wound to the head: http://t.co/KC6unRvM2y
— 550 KTRS St. Louis (@550KTRS) February 26, 2015
Radio host Jamie Allman says Tom has passed away.
We are sad to report Missouri State Auditor and Candidate for Governor Tom Schweich has passed away. We will have more today at 5 and 10.
— The Allman Report (@AllmanReport) February 26, 2015
UPDATE: Just confirmed from Tom’s office. Auditor Tom Schweich has passed away.
Today we lost a good one.
Update: Tom was a great friend.
I traveled with him and Ambassador Bolton across Missouri back in April.
In Springfield, MO with conservatives Tom Schweich, his wife Kathy and Ambassador John Bolton.
Missouri Lt. Governor Peter Kinder just posted this.
Rep. Ann Wagner released this statement.
Congresswoman Ann Wagner release the statement about @AuditorSchweich's death pic.twitter.com/scwcIOcsCj
— FOX2now (@FOX2now) February 26, 2015
UPDATE: The AP said Schweich had talked with one of their reporters 13 minutes before he shot himself.
He complained of anti-Semitic attacks by the state GOP leader.
Schweich was 54. He had been in office since January 2011 and had easily won election in November to a second, four-year term. He announced a month ago that he was seeking the Republican nomination for governor in 2016, and was gearing up for an expected primary fight against Catherine Hanaway, a former U.S. attorney and Missouri House speaker.
Naturally high-strung, Schweich seemed unusually agitated — his voice sometimes quivering and his legs and hands shaking — when he told an AP reporter on Monday that he wanted to hold a press conference to allege that Missouri Republican Party Chairman John Hancock had made anti-Semitic remarks about him.
Schweich postponed a planned press conference Tuesday. But he called the AP at 9:16 a.m. Thursday inviting an AP reporter to his home for a 2:30 p.m. interview and noting that a reporter from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch also had been invited. An AP reporter spoke with Schweich by phone again at 9:35 a.m. to confirm the upcoming interview.
Police say the emergency call to Schweich’s house was received at 9:48 a.m.
In conversations with the AP, Schweich said he had heard that Hancock had been making phone calls last fall in which he mentioned in an off-handed way that Schweich was Jewish. Schweich said he felt the comments were anti-Semitic and wanted Hancock to resign the party chairmanship to which he had been elected last Saturday.
Hancock told the AP on Thursday that Schweich had talked to him about the alleged comments last November, but not since then. Hancock, who is a political consultant, said he held meetings last fall with prospective donors for a project to register Catholic voters. Hancock said that if he had mentioned that Schweich was Jewish, it would have been in the context that Hanaway was Catholic but that was no indication of how Catholics were likely to vote.
“I don’t have a specific recollection of having said that, but it’s plausible that I would have told somebody that Tom was Jewish because I thought he was, but I wouldn’t have said it in a derogatory or demeaning fashion,” Hancock said.
UPDATE: Here’s the awful attack ad on Tom Schweich comparing him to Barney Fife.