Angry Father Killed After Hostage Siege

A devoted but troubled father, who had waged an increasingly hostile campaign against school authorities over the education of his deaf teenage son, was shot dead by a police sniper Monday after he stormed into the Orange County Board of Education offices and held two administrators hostage at gunpoint.

Michael P. Generakos, a 45-year-old chemist from Lakewood, recently had lost custody of his children and was locked in battle with his estranged wife and a school district he felt was ignoring his wishes over how his 16-year-old son should be taught.

When he walked into the board offices in Costa Mesa Monday afternoon, he was a familiar presence to those who had faced his public harangues and menacing voice-mail messages. But this time he had a gun.

At nightfall, after occupying an office building with 150 people inside for three hours, he walked out of the district offices with a gun pointed at the back of an associate superintendent, whose hands were raised.

SWAT team members, stationed on rooftops and sprawled on the grounds surrounding the offices, ordered Generakos to drop his weapon. When he moved to the side, a police marksman fired a shot that struck Generakos in the head.

The hostage, Deputy Supt. John Nelson, ran about 50 yards to the waiting arms of authorities.

Hours later, authorities detonated a pipe bomb outside the building and another device found inside, which they also believe also may have been a bomb. Generakos last communicated with district officials just weeks ago in an ominous precursor to Monday’s tragedy.

“I haven’t gone away, and you haven’t seen the end of me,” Generakos said on a voice-mail message left for district official Larry Belkin.

Sheila Meyers, a school board trustee, said: “It just makes me sick that this happened. The boy apparently is in a lot of physical pain, and now he’s lost his father.”

The tragedy began months before Monday’s fatal conclusion.

It was the discovery that Generakos’ son may be going blind that launched the dispute between his parents over educational services, officials said. His mother, Winifred Kordich, wanted him to learn Braille, said Eric H. Woolery, a member of the Orange County Board of Education. But Generakos fought the idea, claiming a new medical treatment would reverse his son’s deteriorating eyesight.

Woolery said county educators were forced to comply with the mother’s wishes under a court order, which also resulted in a special-education plan that she devised with school officials. That prompted Generakos to make appearances at every county board meeting for at least six months, where he would use his allotted three minutes to lash out at school officials and staff about his son’s care.

“He was gaveled down several times at meetings when he tried to disparage staff without any basis,” Woolery said.

At times, Generakos became so angry that police were called to the meetings, officials said. Security guards were also stationed at district headquarters, and at the son’s University High School campus in Irvine, he said.

But Generakos hadn’t showed up at a board meeting for the past two months, choosing instead to rail against county educators over the telephone, Belkin said. He left threatening messages on a dozen different voice mails, accusing officials of lying.

“He would say things like: ‘I have a gun . . . you guys need to watch out,’ ” Belkin said, adding that officials had hired an attorney to help them deal with the irate calls.

Dave Sherwood, Generakos’ next-door neighbor, said Generakos had had custody of his son and daughter for most of their lives. But this fall, he said, their mother won custody.

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Times staff writers Megan Garvey, Lisa Richardson, Jack Leonard, Ray Herndon, Nancy Wride, Liz Seymour, H.G. Reza, Jean O. Pasco, Tina Nguyen and librarian Sheila A. Kern contributed to this report.