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Kane’s frustration began at the local government level

Jerry Kane's high school yearbook picture. Contributed photo

Clark County Sheriff Gene Kelly displays one of several letters, Friday, May 21, he received from Jerry Kane in 2004 concerning Clark County Municipal Judge Denise Moody while he lived in Springfield. Staff photo by Marshall Gorby

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By Bridgette Outten, Staff Writer Updated 10:28 PM Saturday, May 22, 2010

SPRINGFIELD — Jerry Kane’s journey of extremism that ended in a shootout with Memphis police started in Springfield.

Kane, 45, has been traveling the country in recent years with his two dogs and 16-year-old son, Joseph Kane, giving seminars promising to reveal secrets to help foreclosed property owners stay in their homes.

Kane and his son were pulled over Thursday by two West Memphis, Ark., police officers Thursday, May 20, while traveling on Interstate 40.

The details of what happened are still being pieced together, but in the end the two police officers were shot to death and Jerry and Joseph Kane were surrounded to a local shopping center where they died in a fusillade of bullets from local law enforcement.

That Kane died while proselytizing against the evils of the mortgage industry and encouraging people to reject government control over their lives is a shocking evolution for people who knew him growing up in Springfield.

A 1982 graduate of South High School, Kane tried to become a part of the government as soon as he was old enough to vote, running for a seat on the Springfield city commission in 1983.

“I remember him at school as a nice young man,” said Roger Baker, who was mayor at the time and assistant principal of South when Kane was a student there.

But by the mid-1980s, Kane seemed to be straddling a line between wanting to participate in the traditional society and battling against it.

“Every time I’ve gone in the city building for anything at all,” he said in a 1985 interview “I’d always get upset by the bureaucrats. It’s a job and they get paid and I guess that’s the way they look at it. When it comes to where your hands are tied, they just won’t untie them.”

Keep reading: What pushed Kane to extremes?

In Arkansas shooting, echoes of local town’s past

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