Florida Shooter Clay Duke's Red 'V': A Refresher on the Ominous Symbol

(Dec. 15) -- Before Clay A. Duke opened fire on a school board meeting in Panama City, Fla., he left behind what to some was probably a cryptic symbol: a red, spray-painted "V" crossing a crude circle.

For others, however, the meaning behind that symbol was obvious. It comes from Alan Moore's dystopian graphic novel "V for Vendetta," later adapted into a 2006 blockbuster film starring Hugo Weaving and Natalie Portman. In the story, a mysterious revolutionary wearing a Guy Fawkes mask leads an anarchist revolt against a totalitarian regime in a fictional 1997 Britain.

The symbol itself is an adaptation of the anarchist "A."

Since the screen adaptation, both the "V" and the Guy Fawkes mask have taken on a whole new meaning in Internet culture. They're symbols of the Anonymous movement -- a pseudo-anarchist collection of hackers committed to free information and general wackiness.

Anonymous has been engaged in conflict with the Church of Scientology for years. Most recently, members of the group disabled the Visa and MasterCard websites as part of "Operation Payback," a retaliatory campaign against those companies for their refusal to process donations for WikiLeaks.

Duke's motivations remain unclear, but the shooting doesn't appear to be more than the actions of an extremely disturbed individual. But the incident touches on some of the darker themes in "V for Vendetta." In the novel, the protagonist dances between being an inspired revolutionary and a violent terrorist.

Nobody was harmed in the shooting except Duke himself, who took his own life.

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