Father Said: ‘I Came Here Today to Get Myself Killed’

COSTA MESA —  Michael P. Generakos drove to the Orange County Board of Education on Monday prepared to die.

He believed that taking two administrators hostage would call attention to his deaf son’s educational needs and confided to one of them: “I came here today to get myself killed, because I don’t have the guts to kill myself.”

Costa Mesa police hostage negotiators were hoping to talk Generakos, a 45-year-old Lakewood chemist, into surrendering peacefully, but he spurned all mediation efforts and instead accelerated the drama until a SWAT sniper had no choice but to shoot him, a department spokesman said Tuesday.

Lt. Ron Smith also said authorities are convinced that Generakos’ threats made inside the administration building were only general and not aimed specifically at any person.

“I don’t think he really wanted to hurt anybody,” Smith said.

The two school administrators Generakos held captive agreed that the gunman was veering toward self-destruction, and on Tuesday morning disclosed the details of the nearly three hours that Generakos held them at gunpoint in a small, second-story administrative office.

“The reality of it is, I think this came out the way he planned,” said Associate Supt. John Nelson, who was the last person to speak with the gunman. “He told us, ‘I lost my children, I have nothing left.’ ”

New details emerged less than 24 hours after Generakos walked calmly through the building, carrying a package and a handgun concealed under his sport coat. He slipped around the front receptionist and upstairs to the district administration office.

When he discovered Supt. John Dean’s office empty, he burst into the office of Deputy Supt. Lynn Hartline, a 26-year district veteran who was meeting with Nelson.

Generakos flashed his gun and held up what appeared to be a bomb, Hartline said, then wheeled around to face the two secretaries stationed outside in the lobby.

“He said, ‘You better call somebody. I’m serious,’ ” Hartline told reporters at a news conference Tuesday. “We could see that he had a gun. He racked it.”

Hartline described Generakos as tightly wound. Along with the gun, he showed his two hostages a crude-looking detonator. Both suspected that the device was a fake, but they had their doubts, having witnessed his many angry outbursts at school board meetings.

An hour passed before police hostage negotiators called the office. During that time, and throughout the standoff, Generakos rambled about the inadequate education the school district was providing for his deaf 16-year-old son, Nelson said.

But his sporadic venting always returned to the recent custody loss of the boy and his 12-year-old sister.

“He would go back to the issue,” Nelson said. “We tried to convince him he’s still their father, he could still be with them even though he didn’t have custody. It just didn’t work.”

After about two hours, the hostages talked Generakos into freeing Hartline, who convinced him she was sick.

After hours of negotiation on the telephone with the police, Generakos grew weary and decided to leave the building and bring the standoff to an end, Nelson said.

“I think he realized he was softening and, therefore, he ended it,” Nelson said.

Three hours into the ordeal, Generakos grabbed Nelson’s belt buckle and steered him out of the building. Nelson walked slowly and deliberately forward, with the handgun held to his back while police snipers watched nearby.

One sniper, positioned on the rooftop of a building east of where the drama was unfolding, fired one shot from a Remington .308-caliber hunting rifle, striking Generakos on the left side of the head.

“When the shot rang out, it was so loud . . . I thought maybe it was his gun going off,” Nelson said.

Also on Tuesday, Costa Mesa officers and Orange County sheriff’s deputies recovered four more fake pipe bombs that Generakos had hidden in bushes outside the Board of Education building. Police had recovered one of the devices Monday night.

Those who knew Generakos described him as a loving father who worked to build a stable world for his children but seemed to be losing a grip on his own.

He had changed teaching jobs repeatedly to accommodate his children’s school needs, scrimping by at times. He had battled with Long Beach Unified School officials and others on behalf of his son, whom he eventually transferred to an Irvine school to which he drove his boy from Lakewood daily.

“This man basically called himself ‘Mr. Supermom’ and devoted his life to his kids,” said Larry Belkin, director of special education services for the Orange County Department of Education.