Thread: Vegas cop killers had anti-government view

Armed bystander died confronting gunman





Two slain Vegas officers mourned

In Walmart and carrying a weapon, Joseph Wilcox moved to confront the shooter, without realizing Jerad Miller wasn't alone. FULL STORY

• Note pinned to slain officer
• Bundy son: Couple was unwelcome
• Photos: Ambush in pizza shop
• Honor my brave friend, a good cop
• Killers' online posts | Details

Las Vegas cop-killing couple's message of hate

After storming a restaurant and killing two police officers, Jerad and Amanda Miller placed a swastika and a 'don't tread on me' flag on the officers' bodies before going to Walmart and taking more lives. VPC

Marisol Bello and Rick Jervis, USA TODAY 9:16 p.m. EDT June 9, 2014


(Photo: John Locher, AP)

Jerad Miller and his wife, Amanda, loved super villains.

They walked about their Las Vegas apartment complex dressed as Batman villains, the Joker and his vampy sidekick Harley Quinn.

Amanda Miller's Facebook profile photo shows the pair in their Joker costumes.

Police say it was a window into the couple's troubled lives. Underneath their painted faces, they were a homicidal rage against authority.

The couple opened fire Sunday in a Las Vegas pizza restaurant and killed two police officers, draping one body with a "don't tread on me" flag and a swastika. On another, they pinned a menacing note, authorities said Monday.

VEGAS RAMPAGE: Police release details

Then the couple fatally shot another man in a nearby Walmart before officers cornered them. At that point, police said, Amanda Miller, 22, shot her husband and then herself.

As the public reacts with horror, investigators are trying to piece together details on how the couple graduated from anti-government rhetoric to murder.

"To stop this oppression, I fear, can only be accomplished with bloodshed," Jerad Miller, 31, posted on Facebook on June 2. "I, however would rather die fighting for freedom, than live on my knees as a slave."

The couple's social media postings serve as an anatomy of their anti-government, pro-gun beliefs. Jerad Miller was particularly prolific about his hate against the government and police authority, often going on screeds against President Obama and gun restrictions.

HEARTBREAK: Slain Vegas officer leaves wife, 3 children

The couple were part of a growing far-right, anti-government movement that has exploded in followers in recent years, said Mark Potok, senior fellow of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups.

The center was not monitoring Jerad and Amanda Miller specifically.

But through the couple's Facebook postings and clues left at the bloody scene, it's clear they adhered to the anti-government "Patriot" movement," Potok said.

The Patriot movement, which was the name given to the militia trend of the 1990s, has seen its numbers soar from about 150 known groups before 2008 to more than 1,000 last year, he said. The election of President Obama in fall 2008 was a main catalyst for the rise of anti-government conspirators, Potok said.

"These are groups that believe the federal government is involved in a plot to impose martial law, take away people's weapons … and ultimately force the United States into becoming a socialist country," he said.

According to an analysis of Jerad Miller's Facebook postings by the center, the social media page was littered with signs of his allegiance to the Patriot movement: He cited Patriot guns right activist Adam Kokesh. He "liked" Three Percenter Nation, a Patriot group headed by a former Alabama militiaman, and his profile picture shows two knives and the word "Patriot," with a stars and stripes motif.

Also, the Gadsden flag left at the pizza parlor by Jerad Miller is an emblem of the Patriot movement, Potok said.

Patriot members today constitute one of the most dangerous threats monitored by the center, he said.

"The only terrorist threat we face is not just jihadist," Potok said. "We have a homegrown terrorist movement that poses a very serious threat."

Witnesses say the couple shouted, "this is a revolution" when they walked into the pizza restaurant. And they had sprinkled ominous warnings about their impending spree in the days – and hours – before their anti-government attack.

"The dawn of a new day," read a post on Jerad Miller's Facebook page from June 7. "May all of our coming sacrifices be worth it."

On the morning before they left home with a shopping cart of weapons and 100 rounds of ammunition, they had warned neighbors of their intentions, NBC News reported.

"We gotta do what we gotta do," Jerad Miller told Kelly Fielder, adding that he and his wife, Amanda, were departing for an "underground world."

Amanda Miller then embraced the neighbor and said, "I am so sorry,"
Fielder said she had heard Jerad Miller make anti-government statements in the past — including a desire to overthrow the government and President Obama and kill police officers — but was not alarmed by them, NBC News reported.

"I thought he was just all talk," Fielder, who described herself as Amanda's "best friend," told NBC Los Angeles.

It was talk the couple was not shy about sharing. They could be heard spewing racist and anti-government opinions, another neighbor told the Las Vegas Sun.

The duo told people they planned to commit a mass shooting, Brandon Moore, a resident of the complex, told the newspaper.

"They were handing out white-power propaganda and were talking about doing the next Columbine," Moore said.

The couple married in 2012 and lived in Lafayette, Indiana, where Amanda Miller's parents live. After they were evicted from their apartment, they moved to Las Vegas in January.

Jerad Miller had a troubled history that included a long record of arrests and convictions for drug offenses going back to 2007.

On Facebook, he professed support for Cliven Bundy, the cattle rancher cited for grazing his cattle on public land without a permit. He boasted of spending time at Bundy's ranch during a recent standoff there between armed militia members and federal government agents.

He railed against the landlord who evicted the couple in Indiana and against the prison system for incarcerating him.

"He was just weird, really weird," said Connie Kennedy, a neighbor in Lafayette. She said the first time she met Jerad Miller he rambled on about rampant pollution and America becoming a communist nation.

In July 2013, Jerad Miller posted teary videos on YouTube to his wife before he was sent back to jail for violating an in-house arrest.

"I wish the world was perfect and we could live happily without all this crap," he said.

The Lafayette Journal & Courier contributed to this report.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/n...ting/10248805/

Sheriff's office: Las Vegas couple saw police as oppressors

By Michael Pearson, Saeed Ahmed and Kevin Conlon, CNN
updated 8:29 AM EDT, Tue June 10, 2014
Your video will play in 0 sec
STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: "I should have called the cops," says a woman who knew the couple
• The citizen victim was carrying a weapon, said he was going to confront the suspects
• Couple in shootings put a "Don't Tread on Me" flag and swastika on one officer's body
• Jerad Miller and his wife also left note saying "this is the beginning of the revolution"

(CNN) VIDEO @ http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/09/justice/las-vegas-shooting/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

Las Vegas shooter Jerad Miller: petty criminal, 'Joker,' aspiring terrorist
Christian Science Monitor - 22 minutes ago

http://www.alipac.us/f19/las-vegas-p...vement-304385/

Teen gunman in Oregon school shooting got weapons from home

TROUTDALE Ore. Wed Jun 11, 2014 3:09pm EDT

Police officers enter the building after a shooting at Reynolds High School in Troutdale, Oregon June 10, 2014.
CREDIT: REUTERS/STEVE DIPAOLA

(Reuters) - The teenage gunman who killed a classmate at an Oregon high school on Tuesday was armed with a military-style rifle and a semi-automatic handgun that he obtained from his family's home, and had no apparent link to his victim, police said on Wednesday.

Police said an autopsy of the suspect, Jared Michael Padgett, 15, confirmed that he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after exchanging fire with police inside Reynolds High School in the town of Troutdale, a Portland suburb.

Troutdale Police Chief Scott Anderson declined at a news conference to offer any explanation for what may have driven Padgett to walk into a boy's locker room at the school and shoot a fellow freshman student, 14-year-old Emilio Hoffman.

"At this time it would be inappropriate to discuss a motive," Anderson said, adding that the investigation was continuing.

But he credited a school gym teacher, Todd Rispler, with preventing further loss of life. Rispler was grazed by gunfire as he encountered Padgett but made his way to the school office to warn administrators of the attack and initiate a lockdown, Anderson said.

Anderson said Padgett opened fire with an AR-15-style rifle and also was carrying a semi-automatic pistol that he did not use, as well as a knife and nine loaded ammunition magazines capable of holding several hundred rounds.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/...0EM27720140611

THURSDAY, JUN 12, 2014 08:21 AM PDT

Libertarian pundit Adam Kokesh defends Las Vegas shooters for “not necessarily unjustified violence”

The host of a talk-radio-style online show says killing cops isn't murder because sometimes police kill people too VIDEO

ELIAS ISQUITH

(Credit: Wikimedia/Dustin Sammann)

Speaking on his Internet show on Wednesday, libertarian pundit, gun rights activist, and former resident of a D.C. prison Adam Kokesh partially defended the actions of Jerad and Amanda Miller, the far-right extremists who recently killed two police officers, a civilian and themselves in a Las Vegas public shooting.

Railing against the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and USA Today for acknowledging how the Millers were influenced by Kokesh, the host swore vengeance, saying that the SPLC and USA Today are “not going to get away with it this time.”

He also argued that because America’s political institutions — including the police — have become “homicidal … against freedom,” it was wrong to see the Millers unprovoked killing spree as acts of murder rather than self-defense.

“Let’s say someone is going around stabbing people, like, just stabbing people,” Kokesh said. “It’s not murder to kill someone in that situation. And [as] has been pointed out about the Vegas shooting, when you have police officers that are going around and doing violent things all day long, and then they take a break for lunch, well, it doesn’t mean all of the sudden they’re innocent or they’re being peaceful because they’re taking a break from all of their other anti-freedom, rights-violating violence,” he continued.

Kokesh argued next that the Millers had, if anything, saved lives by murdering two police. “Think of how many lives might have been saved by this incident,” he urged his audience. “How many people would these cops have killed had they not been killed?”

“We can only hope that some of the officers in America are listening — if you care about your own safety — to understand that you are hurting people,” Kokesh threatened, “and you can only push them so far before they hit a breaking point.”

Ultimately calling the attack an example of “not necessarily unjustified violence,” Kokesh insinuated that the Millers’ killing spree was the government’s fault.

“Violence begets violence,” Kokesh said. “Turning to the institution of government to deal with these problems, an institution that is based on violence is guaranteed to make the problem worse.”

You can watch Kokesh explain why two deranged mass-murderers aren’t really so bad below, via the Raw Story:

http://www.salon.com/2014/06/12/libe...fied_violence/