Tennessee ? A barber who killed himself at a City Council meeting Thursday hadn’t seemed suicidal during a private meeting three weeks earlier, the mayor said Friday.

“It’s a sad situation,” Mayor Johnny Piper told Nashville’s WTVF-TV. “You don’t … know what people go through in life.”

Piper had met with Ronald “Bo” Ward and his wife after the barber requested a meeting about his rezoning request. When that request was denied by a 5-7 vote Thursday night, Ward pulled out a small handgun and shot himself in the head.

“Y’all have put me under … I’m out of here,” Ward said before firing.

Ward had said he needed his home to be rezoned as commercial to increase his property value. That would allow him to secure a loan to offset debt he incurred expanding his shop, which is in another location near the Fort Campbell Army post.

Missy Graham, the mayor’s spokeswoman, said Friday that part of the mayor’s discussion with Ward and his wife was about Ward’s financial situation, but he had not seemed suicidal.