Law Enforcement Officials Gunned Down In Possible White Supremacist Plot

[ProSense]

Law Enforcement Officials Gunned Down In Possible White Supremacist Plot

By Aviva Shen

A Texas district attorney and his wife were shot to death in their home just outside Dallas last night, the latest instance in a recent spate of suspicious shootings of law enforcement officials. The deaths of Mike and Cynthia McLelland follow the shooting of a Kaufman County assistant district attorney in January, which stoked suspicions of a conspiracy to target law enforcement officials by a white supremacist group.

The assistant district attorney was killed on the same day the Justice Department released a statement noting the Kaufman County district attorney’s involvement in a racketeering case against the Aryan Brotherhood, a white supremacist group based in Texas. The FBI had also begun investigating links between the Texas slaying and last week’s shooting of Colorado police chief Tom Clemons by a member of another white supremacist group.

The news of McLelland’s death broke shortly before the Sunday morning news shows. CNN’s State of the Union host Candy Crowley asked Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) if there was anything he thought could be done to protect law enforcement officials from the recent spate of violence. Graham said he would support measures within the “local community” to protect law enforcement, but stopped short of endorsing any federal action:

CROWLEY: Just off the top, let me ask you, when we see the death of the head of a prison official, two deaths of a D.A. and an assistant D.A. This is a dangerous business, i know prosecuting bad guys, incarcerating bad guys. do you think we need to look at the protection of these people?

GRAHAM: Well, anything that would make our law enforcement officers safer. Obviously yes, anything the local community can do to make life safer for those who carry out the law on our behalf, count me in. There’s clearly some kind of criminal vendetta against people who enforce the law.

As a possible conspiracy seems more and more likely, the FBI and ATF have gotten involved in the cases to bolster local investigations, which do not have access to the same resources as federal forces. Crowley then turned the discussion to the Senate’s gun violence prevention package, which Graham said would not pass as long as universal background checks on private gun sales were still included...Sen. Dick Blumenthal (D-CT), a former U.S. attorney, noted that because prosecutors and other law enforcement “face this kind of horror every day,” they strongly support measures curbing illegal gun trafficking and straw purchases like the one that may have enabled the murder of the Colorado police chief. included in the Senate’s plan. Thus far in 2013, 12 law enforcement officers have been killed by gunfire.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/03/31/1800201/law-enforcement-officials-gunned-down-in-possible-white-supremacist-plot/

[Phillip McCleod]

1. white supremacist movement is a cornered monstrosity.

they've been threatening civil war for decades and the recent influx of racists reacting to obama's election and reelection has been swept under the rug by the likes of lindsay graham.

universal background checks. universal registration.

and when do we start eyeballing regulation of the manufacture of handguns anyway?

[ProSense]

3. Another reason for the toughest gun laws possible. n/t

[Logical]

14. What do you think are the toughest ones possible? Actual ones that can be implemented? n-t

[ProSense]

15. Ban all guns. How about you? n/t

[Logical]

16. See, that is as unrealistic as what the gun nuts want. Why can't people be realistic? n-t

[ProSense]

17. What's "realistic"? n/t

[Logical]

18. Well, you know banning all guns will never happen. Why even suggest it? Unless funny to you. n-t

[ProSense]

19. What's "realistic"? You claim to know what that means, explain it. n/t

[Logical]

20. Maybe magazine limits. Maybe universal background checks. That is it. n-t

[kestrel91316]

2. Just more patriotic, responsible gun owners

working on a Second Amendment Solution to gubmint tyranny.

No need to do anything. Heck, repukes should give the perps a medal for doing what they say needs to be done.

[MineralMan]

4. And law-abiding, too, no doubt - until they are not. nt

[Arcanetrance]

5. These killing were meant to terrorize above all else

I'm curious since it's a group of white guys if they'll be called terrorists or just criminals

[dmr]

6. It doesn't help either to have politicians spouting off and

using gun metaphor language, like Sharon Angle's "2nd Amendment remedies", for example.

These very public people make it dangerous for us all because over time it "normalizes" this horrific behavior.

It also is a threat to democracy when it strikes fear in those who are entrusted to enforce the laws.

Weren't there White Supremacist arrests made in Alaska last year for plots to kill law enforcement and judges? What happened with that?

[starroute]

7. Is Graham actively trying to protect the Aryan Brotherhood?

Or is he just such a gun rights absolutist that he'd rather see local prosecutors shot down in cold blood than endorse coordinated federal action?

[Babel_17]

8. They have an ideology

but I wonder if that, sooner or later, that ideology isn't just an excuse and window dressing for a profitable life of crime.

Not stealing, they're liberating. Not murdering their competition, eliminating race traitors.

[jsr]

9. McLelland himself suspected a white supremacist gang

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_DISTRICT_ATTORNEY_DEAD_TEXAS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-03-31-14-13-53

McLelland himself, in an Associated Press interview, raised the possibility that Hasse was gunned down by a white supremacist gang. McLelland, elected DA in 2010, said that Hasse hadn't prosecuted any cases against white supremacists but that his office had handled several, and those gangs had a strong presence in the area.

"We put some real dents in the Aryan Brotherhood around here in the past year," McLelland said after Colorado's corrections director, Tom Clements, was shot to death March 19 when he answered the doorbell.

Kaufman Police Chief Chris Aulbaugh said recently the FBI was checking to see if Hasse's killing could be related to Clements'. Evan Spencer Ebel, a former Colorado inmate and white supremacist who authorities believe killed Clements, died in a March 21 shootout with Texas deputies about 100 miles from Kaufman.

McLelland, 63, said after Hasse's slaying that he carried a gun everywhere he went, even to walk his dog. He figured that was where assassins were more likely to try to get him. He said he had warned all his employees to be constantly on the alert.

[Comrade Grumpy]

10. Just so we're clear: This white supremacist stuff is all just speculation at this point, right?

No one has been arrested in either case.

[DLnyc]

13. True, Evan Ebel was killed before he could be arrested.

"All speculation" might be an overstatement though.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/28/justice/colorado-prison-chief-killed
-----
. . .
The corrections chief earned widespread recognition not only for prison reforms but also for a crackdown on prison gangs, including the white supremacist 211 Crew, who once counted Ebel among their ranks.
. . .
Authorities have said the bullets that killed Clements came from a gun that was found with Ebel, who had handwritten directions to the prison chief's house in his car.
Investigators also found a pizza box and a pizza delivery uniform jacket that they believe links Ebel to the death of Leon, who worked as pizza delivery driver.
Authorities have speculated that Ebel may have killed Leon for his uniform -- to use it as a disguise in the killing of Clements, who was gunned down after he opened his front door.
. . .
-----

[ljm2002]

11. Is it terrorism yet?

Oh, I forgot: it's white supremacists, so we don't get to call it that.

[etherealtruth]

12. White supremacists = the scariest "M-F"ers ever!

I have no doubt they have carefully amassed their arsenals ... yea second amendment