On Monday afternoon, John Schultz, a longtime investigator with the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Air Pollution Control Bureau, entered the office of Ron Drumeller, the agency’s executive director, along with another staffer, Amber Boles, according to Drumeller. Schultz closed the door and set down a bag.
“He started talking about how upset he’s been over the last couple years and things have been bothering him, and it all boiled down to this,” Drumeller recalled. “And then he pulled out two pistols, one aiming at Amber and one at me.”
So began a harrowing incident that drew a massive rush of law enforcement and other emergency response personnel racing toward the CBL Center, an office complex just south of Hamilton Place mall, on Monday afternoon. They alerted the public to what they called a potential active shooter situation.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
In the end, police later told reporters, an assailant was dead by his own hand, no one else got shot, and all could resume normalcy in the surrounding area, which includes one of Chattanooga’s major shopping complexes.
As police cleared the scene, however, staffers from the office building where the incident occurred had to wait outside for police to fetch their belongings. Among them was Drumeller, the executive director of the air pollution agency since 2021, who, while he stood in the parking lot, described by phone what had just happened.
Schultz was an investigator at the agency for 27 years, Drumeller said. As of Monday evening, Schultz’s title on the pollution board website read investigation and asbestos coordinator.
Boss describes meeting
Recently, Drumeller said, Schultz had been sad because he wanted to have hip replacement surgery, but a doctor told him he couldn’t because of other health issues — but then, ultimately, Schultz was cleared to receive the procedure.
He was set to receive it July 1, Drumeller said. And at noon Monday, he, Schultz and others met to discuss duties during the coming work period.
“And I said, ‘Listen while you’re out, I want you to just concentrate on recovering, don’t worry about work,’” Drumeller recalled telling Schultz. “He said, ‘No, I want to do the asbestos and help you out.’ I said, ‘No.’
“Well, he didn’t like that answer,” Drumeller said, “and he was really belligerent and disrespectful and rude in the meeting.”
Drumeller suspects that it was after the meeting that Schultz went home to get the guns.
A couple hours later, he said, Boles, director of operations at the agency, came in to his office and told him Schultz was there — and he wanted to have a meeting in Drumeller’s office.
Drumeller recalled that he said OK; he said he figured Schultz was going to put in his two weeks notice or something.
Then, he said Schultz, pulled the pistols out of the bag, aimed them at him and Boles and told a distraught Boles to sit down.
Boles did not respond to a phone call or email Monday. According to Drumeller, she started yelling for office members to come help and they started to come down the hall.
“Once he knew that, he took one of the guns and came close to me and wanted to shoot me,” Drumeller said. “It misfired several times, thank goodness. And then, when that happened I got up and rushed toward him and hit him, shoved him out of the way.
“By that time, the other office workers opened the door, and we all were running for our lives, and Amber had stayed in my office and barricaded the room, and she said that he started reloading rounds of one of the pistols and started coming back into the room, and he couldn’t get in. She held him off.
“And then she heard gunfire went off. And I guess that’s when he ended his life. We didn’t know at the time until later, when the police came in.”
Police said they got the call just after 2 p.m.: There was a “potential active shooter situation” at 2034 Hamilton Place Blvd.
The office building just south of the Hamilton Place mall, part of the CBL Center, contains offices for a plastic surgery center and logistics companies. In suite 300, the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Air Pollution Control Bureau sits among them, seeking to administer and enforce local air pollution control laws. The agency was founded in 1969.
‘A tragedy’
The Chattanooga Times Free Press reached out Monday evening by social media and phone to people with connections to Schultz. By phone, one longtime neighbor who asked not to be named to avoid publicity said she and others in her Birchwood cul-de-sac knew Schultz as a reliable and bubbly presence, who hollered greetings to neighbors while they mowed their lawns and enlivened birthday parties with magic shows.
“John was a good guy,” she said. “That’s why we’re all in shock.”
Mike Mallen, a retired attorney who is on the air board, said he has known Schultz for his entire legal career.
“This is a tragedy for everyone involved,” Mallen said by phone Monday. “My heart goes out to each and every person touched by this terrible news. This is a tragic set of circumstances. I am shocked and saddened on so many levels.”
By 3 p.m., the police, EMS and other responders on scene around the office complex surpassed 100 personnel, according to a Chattanooga Times Free Press assessment of the scene. Law enforcement could be heard on a radio scanner moving through the office building, from floor to floor.
“There is not a fifth floor,” someone said over the scanner around 3:40 p.m. “We can all exit the building unless you are with the deceased.”
Soon, police said, Hamilton Place mall and the surrounding businesses started to lift lock-downs and resume normal operations.
At a nearby news conference, the Chattanooga Police Department spokesperson, Sgt. Victor Miller, praised the law enforcement response saying the investigation was ongoing and offered a general description of events. He did not identify the shooter or anyone involved in the incident.
Miller said police did not believe the shooter ever left the building or posed any threat outside the building. He said authorities did not believe the shooter had any accomplices.
“A shooter was inside the building and was attempting to execute a plan,” Miller said. “That failed. We found that he shot himself, and he is deceased.”
Note: Anyone anywhere in the United States experiencing a mental health crisis can call 988 and talk to a trained mental health counselor.
Chris Vass contributed to this story. Contact Andrew Schwartz at aschwartz@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6431.
Credit: Chattanooga Times Free Press
Credit: Chattanooga Times Free Press
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