Texas: Kaufman County shooting

[American Patriot]

Kaufman County prosecutor shot outside courthouse



by MATT GOODMAN
WFAA


Posted on January 31, 2013 at 9:30 AM
Updated today at 10:03 AM


Shooting near Kaufman County Courthouse

A Kaufman County prosecutor has reportedly been shot outside the courthouse, spurring a complete lockdown of the grounds and an active search for the two shooters.

Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Pat Laney said the suspects shot the individual "off grounds" at about 8:50 a.m. and fled. She did not specify where exactly the shooting occured, but said the entire courthouse has been locked down.

The Texas Department of Public Safety sent out an alert for troopers to be on lookout for a silver "older model" Ford Taurus. According to the alert, the two suspects are wearing all black and at least one is in a tactical vest.

Kaufman Independent School District Superintendent Todd Williams said all schools in the district are also locked down as authorities search for the shooters.

The victim has been taken to a hospital, although his or her condition is unknown. The county employee has not been identified, however multiple sources have confirmed to News 8 that the victim is a prosecutor.

We'll have more information as we learn it.

[American Patriot]

Kaufman County Courthouse Shooting: Two Suspects Open Fire On Prosecutor In Texas

Posted: 01/31/2013 11:52 am EST












Police in Texas are hunting for two suspects who allegedly opened fire on a county employee outside a courthouse early Thursday morning, Fox News reports.
The unnamed victim, a prosecutor at Kaufman County Courthouse, was fatally shot, according to sources including the Dallas Morning news.


Authorities are searching for two male suspects, dressed in all black and driving a silver, "older model" Ford Taurus, according to KLTV. One suspect is believed to be wearing a tactical vest.


The shooting took place in a parking lot around 9 a.m., KDFW reports.
The Dallas County District Attorney's Office sent an email to staff which confirmed that the victim was a prosecutor, according to KHOU.
The message reads:

"This message is not intended to scare anyone but please be advised. A Kaufman County prosecutor was fatally shot a few minutes ago outside the Kaufman County Courthouse in Kaufman. Two masked gunman are the suspects. They have not been apprehended yet.

Please be aware of your surroundings when leaving the building for your safety. This is probably a isolated incident but until further notice if you plan to work past dark today please be careful and ask security for assistance escorting you to your vehicles if needed. I will keep you informed as to the arrest of the suspects when I am notified. Don’t panic but please be aware of your environment when leaving the building."

All Kaufman County schools are on a precautionary lockdown.


This is a breaking news story. Check back for updates.

[American Patriot]

Manhunt underway after prosecutor killed in Texas

John Bacon, USA TODAY1:57p.m. EST January 31, 2013

Assistant DA gunned down while getting out of a car.

(Photo: David Woo AP)

A manhunt is underway for two suspects after an assistant district attorney was gunned down Thursday outside a courthouse in Kaufman, Texas.


The prosecutor was shot five times around 9 a.m. local time outside the Kaufman County Courthouse, ambushed while getting out of his car, KDFW-TV is reporting.


Sheriff David Byrnes said the killing was an attack on the criminal justice system."This is the next level (of crime)," he said.


The Dallas Morning News is reporting that "authorities with knowledge of the assistant DA's caseload say he had been heavily involved in the investigation of members of the Aryan Brotherhood."
A probe is underway to determine if the shooting is connected to that investigation, the Morning News says.


The victim was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. The identity has not been released because his family hasn't been notified, Kaufman County Sheriff David Byrnes said.


Security officers and deputies closed nearby streets in Kaufman, a North Texas town of about 6,700 residents less than 40 miles from Dallas. Kaufman schools were put on lockdown.


Kaufman County Judge Bruce Wood said the courthouse is closed today and it would be up to the sheriff to determine when it would reopen.
Wood told the Morning News he saw the victim every day in the courthouse hallways.


"He was revered and he did an outstanding job," Wood said. "We see each other every day. … It's a very small courthouse."


"It's a horrible situation," Wood told the Morning News. "None of us would have ever expected anything like this to ever happen in our county."
The shooting has resulted in warnings elsewhere. WFAA-TV in Dallas says the email below was sent by the Dallas County DA:


"This message is not intended to scare anyone but please be advised. A Kaufman County prosecutor was fatally shot a few minutes ago outside the Kaufman County Courthouse in Kaufman. Two masked gunman are the suspects. They have not been apprehended yet.



Please be aware of your surroundings when leaving the building for your safety. This is probably a isolated incident but until further notice if you plan to work past dark today please be careful and ask security for assistance escorting you to your vehicles if needed. I will keep you informed as to the arrest of the suspects when i am notified. Don't panic but please be aware of your environment when leaving the building."



Kaufman Police Chief Chris Aulbaugh said the shooting would have a major impact on his town and the county.


"Any loss of life, especially someone out there protecting the community, would have that effect," he said.

[American Patriot]

Texas prosecutor gunned down; manhunt for 2 suspects

John Bacon, USA TODAY2:12p.m. EST January 31, 2013

(Photo: David Woo AP)

A manhunt was underway for two suspects after an assistant district attorney was gunned down Thursday outside a courthouse in Kaufman, Texas.


The prosecutor was shot five times around 9 a.m. local time outside the Kaufman County Courthouse, ambushed while getting out of his car, KDFW-TV is reporting.


Sheriff David Byrnes said the killing was an attack on the criminal justice system."This is the next level (of crime)," he said.


The Dallas Morning News is reporting that "authorities with knowledge of the assistant DA's caseload say he had been heavily involved in the investigation of members of the Aryan Brotherhood."


A probe is underway to determine if the shooting is connected to that investigation, the Morning News says.


The victim was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. The identity has not been released because his family hasn't been notified, Kaufman County Sheriff David Byrnes said.


Security officers and deputies closed nearby streets in Kaufman, a North Texas town of about 6,700 residents less than 40 miles from Dallas. Kaufman schools were put on lockdown.


Kaufman County Judge Bruce Wood said the courthouse was closed and it would be up to the sheriff to determine when it would reopen.


Wood told the Morning News he saw the victim every day in the courthouse hallways.


"He was revered and he did an outstanding job," Wood said. "We see each other every day. … It's a very small courthouse."


"It's a horrible situation," Wood told the Morning News. "None of us would have ever expected anything like this to ever happen in our county."


The shooting has resulted in warnings elsewhere. WFAA-TV in Dallas says the email below was sent by the Dallas County DA:


"This message is not intended to scare anyone but please be advised. A Kaufman County prosecutor was fatally shot a few minutes ago outside the Kaufman County Courthouse in Kaufman. Two masked gunman are the suspects. They have not been apprehended yet.


Please be aware of your surroundings when leaving the building for your safety. This is probably a isolated incident but until further notice if you plan to work past dark today please be careful and ask security for assistance escorting you to your vehicles if needed. I will keep you informed as to the arrest of the suspects when i am notified. Don't panic but please be aware of your environment when leaving the building."


Kaufman Police Chief Chris Aulbaugh said the shooting would have a major impact on his town and the county.


"Any loss of life, especially someone out there protecting the community, would have that effect," he said.

[American Patriot]

Originally published March 31, 2013 at 8:28 PM | Page modified April 1, 2013 at 6:16 AM

Killing of Texas prosecutor, wife, raises fear of wider plot against law-enforcement officials

The killing of a second prosecutor — in a county of 106,000 people in the span of eight weeks — appeared to many officials to be more than coincidence.

By Matt Pearce

Los Angeles Times



Kaufman County Sheriff David Byrnes, center, walks away after a news conference in Kaufman, Texas, on Sunday. On Saturday, Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, were killed in their home.
Enlarge this photo

MIKE FUENTES / AP

Kaufman County Sheriff David Byrnes, center, walks away after a news conference in Kaufman, Texas, on Sunday. On Saturday, Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, were killed in their home.

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The last time a prosecutor was gunned down in Kaufman County, Texas, in January, District Attorney Mike McLelland vowed to carry on.

“We’ll still make the walk, and we’ll still show up,” McLelland said of the courthouse parking lot where one of his assistant district attorneys, Mark Hasse, was shot to death by an unknown assailant Jan. 31. “And we’ll still send bad guys out of Kaufman County every chance we get. We’re not stopping. We’re not slowing down.”

Two months later, on Saturday evening, McLelland, 63, and his wife, Cynthia, 65, were found shot dead in their home near Forney, east of Dallas. And once again, Kaufman County Sheriff David Burns had no answers as the attack raised fears of a plot to kill law- enforcement officials in Texas.

The authorities said it was too early to say if the deaths of McLelland and his wife were connected to Hasse’s shooting.

But the timing of the shootings — and the killings of two prosecutors in a county of 106,000 people in the span of eight weeks — appeared to many officials to be more than coincidence.

Burns wouldn’t say if there were signs of forced entry. And he wouldn’t say if there were any indications a white- supremacist group was involved, as McLelland had speculated in Hasse’s death.

Burns also said McLelland had not voiced any concerns about his safety, although the prosecutor told a slightly different story in an Associated Press interview two weeks ago: McLelland had started carrying a gun after his colleague’s death and had started answering the door more carefully.

“I’m ahead of everybody else because, basically, I’m a soldier,” said McLelland, a 23-year Army veteran.

The attack bore a slight similarity to the doorstep slaying of Colorado prisons director Tom Clements at his Colorado Springs home March 19.

Officials suspect Clements was killed by recently paroled inmate Evan Spencer Ebel, 28, who was reportedly a member of a Colorado-based white-supremacist prison gang known as the 211 Crew. Officials have not confirmed the 211 had anything to do with Clements’ slaying, however, and Ebel died after a highway shootout with police in Wise County, Texas, on March 21.

McLelland’s death brought federal and local police agencies to assist the Kaufman County Sheriff’s Department. Burns declined to say what security measures were being taken for other prosecutors and public officials, but said security at the courthouse would be visibly increased Monday.

In Hasse’s shooting, the authorities said one or two gunmen had gotten out of a gray or silver sedan, opened fire and fled.

Witnesses told investigators the suspect or suspects appeared to have had their faces covered and were wearing black clothing and tactical-style vests.

No arrests have been made, and investigators from nine agencies have been searching for leads.

One of several angles that investigators have been exploring is whether Hasse’s killing involved members of the Aryan Brotherhood, the white supremacists active in prisons. Prosecutors in McLelland’s office had assisted in investigations of the gang, including a recent case that had targeted the Brotherhood’s leadership.

In that case, federal authorities announced in November that a grand jury in Houston had indicted more than 30 senior Brotherhood leaders and other members of the gang on racketeering charges.

Federal officials said the defendants had agreed to commit killings, robberies, arsons and kidnappings and to traffic narcotics on behalf of the gang. The indictments stemmed from an investigation led by a multiagency task force that included prosecutors from Kaufman County and three other district attorney’s offices.

A month later, the Texas Department of Public Safety issued a statewide bulletin warning that the Aryan Brotherhood was planning to retaliate against officials who had helped secure the indictments.

Hasse was shot the same day that two Aryan Brotherhood members — Ben Christian Dillon, also known as “Tuff,” of Houston, and James Marshall Meldrum, who nickname is “Dirty,” of Dallas — pleaded guilty to racketeering charges in U.S. District Court in Houston.

A law-enforcement official said there was no evidence so far in the investigation of Hasse’s killing that pointed to the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was still continuing, said investigators believed the shootings of Hasse and McLelland were related but appeared to have been carried out by different people, perhaps from the same group or with the same affiliation.

But Byrnes said he had no indication the shootings of McLelland and his wife were the work of the Brotherhood.

McLelland was a 23-year veteran of the Army who served in the first Iraq war, according to a biography on the website of the Kaufman County district attorney’s office.

He also worked as a diagnostic psychologist for Texas government agencies.

He served for 18 years as a criminal defense attorney and special prosecutor for the Department of Family and Protective Services.

He and his wife had five children, including one son who is a Dallas police officer.

Information from The New York Times is included.

[American Patriot]

White supremacist group suspected in killing of Texas prosecutor


Texas D.A and wife found dead just weeks after fellow prosecutor was gunned down


Marice Richter Reuters

9:29 a.m. CDT, April 1, 2013


DALLAS(Reuters) - The white supremacist group Aryan Brotherhood may be behind the weekend killings of a Texas district attorney and his wife, which occurred months after an assistant prosecutor was shot dead in the same county, a Texas lawmaker said on Monday.

"I believe it is a group. It could possibly be the Aryan Brotherhood," Texas Congressman Ted Poe, a Republican and veteran former judge and prosecutor in his state, told CNN.



Poe did not elaborate on his hypothesis about the killings, or say what exactly his information was based on. But he stressed that only 13 prosecutors have been murdered across the United States in the last 30 years and said the Texas killings had all the hallmarks of a brazen campaign of fear and intimidation, "specifically aimed at certain people in particular roles in law enforcement."

Investigators have not named any suspects in the case.

"It seems to me that a scenario may be developing that the district attorney's office was investigating this gang, or another gang, and they wanted to prevent that investigation," Poe added.

Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, were discovered with fatal gunshot wounds at their home near Forney, Texas, on Saturday. Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse was gunned down in January.

Kaufman County Sheriff David Byrnes said on Sunday that the FBI, Texas Rangers and other law enforcement officials were investigating the double homicide.

The Kaufman County Sheriff's Office was notified shortly before 6 p.m. Saturday that the two bodies had been found in their rural home just outside Forney, about 20 miles from Dallas, Byrnes said.

While he would not discuss possible suspects in the case, law enforcement officials are widely believed to have focused on the prison-based Aryan Brotherhood in the still unsolved Hasse killing. Kaufman County is considered a regional stronghold of the gang, which Poe said was heavily involved in drugs and prostitution and "anything for money."

Hasse was shot and killed on January 31 in a gangland-style killing just outside the Kaufman County courthouse. The killing came on the same day the U.S. Justice Department released a statement saying the Kaufman County District Attorney's Office was involved in a racketeering case against the Aryan Brotherhood.

In an indictment unsealed in November, the Texas arm of the Aryan Brotherhood was described as a gang responsible for murders, arson, assault and other crimes, and prone to "extreme violence and threats of violence to maintain internal discipline and retaliate against those believed to be cooperating with law enforcement."

Kaufman County Judge Bruce Wood told Reuters the last known contact with the McLellands was about 7 p.m. on Friday.

Wood described McLelland as a friend and colleague and said he and McLelland had spoken regularly about Hasse and the investigation.

"This is not just an attack on two very fine people, but an attack on the justice system," Wood told Reuters.

'COMPLETELY SENSELESS'

"I can't fathom someone doing this," Wood said. "It is completely senseless, and completely out of the blue. Perhaps it is retaliation, but we won't know that until someone is caught."

McLelland, a 23-year U.S. Army veteran who served in Operation Desert Storm, had five children, including a son who is an officer with the Dallas Police Department, according to a county website.

Authorities have made no arrests in Hasse's killing. McLelland had vowed to bring his killer to justice.

Last month, the Hasse case took a turn when the Kaufman police chief said the FBI was looking for any link between Hasse's death and the March 19 shooting death of Colorado prisons chief Tom Clements.

Evan Spencer Ebel, 28, a Colorado prison parolee suspected of killing Clements, died in a shootout with police in Decatur, Texas, on March 21. Ebel was a member of a white supremacist prison gang called the 211 Crew and had a swastika tattoo, prison records indicate.

Wood said investigators found no link between the shooting death of Clements and the killing of Hasse.

The Dallas Morning News said the Texas Department of Public Safety had issued a statewide bulletin in December warning that authorities had received "credible information" the Aryan Brotherhood was "actively planning retaliation against law enforcement officials" who helped secure indictments in Houston against dozens of members, including the gang's leadership.

More recently, the Department of Public Safety had identified brutal Mexican drug cartels as threats to law enforcement officials in Texas.

"The Mexican cartels are the most significant organized crime threat to Texas, with six of the eight cartels having command and control networks operating in the state," the department said in a February report.

[American Patriot]

Texas On 'High Alert' After District Attorney's Killing

by Mark Memmott


April 01, 2013 9:53 AM

Enlarge image
In Forney, Texas, Kaufman County Sheriff's deputies are on the lookout after the killings of Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife in their Forney home.




Mike Fuentes/AP



"Security is high this morning for both elected officials and employees" in Kaufman County, Texas, after the shooting deaths of District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife Cynthina, KERA reports.


There's concern, as we reported Sunday, that the deaths may be related to the Jan. 31 killing of Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse.
That concern extends beyond Kaufman County, which is part of the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area. WFAA-TV says that "prosecutors across the state have been warned to be on guard."


Still, WFAA adds that while there has been speculation that the January killing (and now this weekend's) "might have been the work of a white supremacist prison gang in Texas," the 63-year-old McLelland had previously downplayed the supposed threat from such a group:

"He told News 8 in a recent e-mail that Hasse, '... had received no threats from any prison gang. ... he sure wasn't scared of anyone he prosecuted' and that 'his dealings with Aryan Brotherhood cases we handled was strictly peripheral.' "

From the NPR Newscast early Monday



And KERA's Bill Zeeble, who also reported Monday for Morning Edition, says that Kaufman County Sheriff David Byrnes wasn't ready Sunday "to tie the Kaufman County deaths together. In fact, this is the third killing of a prominent law official this year. In addition to the two Texas prosecutors, the chief of the Colorado prison system, Tom Clements, was shot at his front door two weeks ago."


Still, The Dallas Morning News says in a paywall-protected story that McLelland's killing "is likely to turn up the heat on the notorious Aryan Brotherhood of Texas prison gang," according to law enforcement sources.


The bodies of Mike and Cynthia McLelland were found in their home Saturday evening. According to The Associated Press, since his assistant's murder in January, "McLelland carried a gun everywhere, even when walking the dog."


KETR is among the other news outlets following developments.

[American Patriot]

Texas county 'on alert' over deaths of prosecutor, wife

Doug Stanglin, USA TODAY12:10p.m. EDT April 1, 2013

Investigators probe possible link to white supremacists, but so far have found no evidence.

(Photo: Tony Gutierrez, AP)

Story Highlights

• District attorney's office closed, security beefed up at Texas courthouse
• Weekend killings comes two months after shooting death of assistant DA
• District attorney in Houston also accepts extra protection

The district attorney's office in Kaufman, Texas, was closed Monday morning and the courthouse was under tight security following the weekend shooting deaths of Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife in their home.
The shootings on Saturday came two months after McLelland's assistant district attorney, Mark Hasse, was fatally shot in a parking lot a block from the courthouse on Jan. 31.
Authorities appear to be stymied in their investigations of both killings.
"We're still in shock," Kaufman County Judge Bruce Wood told reporters Monday. "I guess that's the best way to describe our feelings about this latest incident. I've searched all weekend to think of the right word to describe and I can't come up with a single word. 'Unbelievable, this really didn't happen,' but it did. This whole thing is shocking to all of us."
Wood said security protection had been ordered for several county officials.

Kaufman County Texas District Attorney Mike McLelland was shot and killed, along with his wife, Cynthia Woodward McLelland, in their home in Forney, Texas, on March 30.(Photo: Kaufman County website)

"We're very much on alert," he said. "We obviously have some folks that are out to do harm to elected officials."


Authorities have been investigating the possibility of a connection of both killings with the brutal Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, a prison gang of about 3,000 inmates.


Earlier this month, the Kaufman police chief said the FBI was looking for any connection between the attack on Hasse and the shooting death March 19 of Colorado prisons chief Tom Clements in his home.


Colorado authorities have noted that the suspect in that shooting, Evan Spencer Ebel, 28, was a member of a white supremacist prison gang called the 211 Crew when he served time in a Colorado prison.


Ebel later died in a shootout with Texas law enforcement officers northwest of Dallas.


McLelland himself, in an Associated Press interview shortly after the Colorado slaying, raised the possibility that Hasse was gunned down by a white supremacist gang.


McLelland, elected district attorney in 2010, said his office had prosecuted several cases against racist gangs, who have a strong presence around Kaufman County, a mostly rural area dotted with subdivisions, with a population of about 104,000.


Kaufman prosecutors were among scores in Texas who were strongly pursuing cases against the prison gangs.


However, there has been no evidence so far of a link to the white supremacist gangs in either of the Kaufman shootings, except for that fact that they appear to be a professional "hit."


Judge Wood has also said that Kaufman County investigators have found no link between the Clements shooting and the killing of Hasse.


Harris County District Attorney Mike Anderson said on Sunday that he had accepted the Houston sheriff's offer of 24-hour security for him and his family after learning about the slayings, mostly over concerns for his family's safety.


Anderson said he also would take precautions at his office, the largest one in Texas, which has more than 270 prosecutors.


"I think district attorneys across Texas are still in a state of shock," Anderson said Sunday.

[American Patriot]

Wife of ousted official arrested in Texas DA killings

Doug Stanglin, USA TODAY10:21 a.m. EDT April 17, 2013

Kim Williams is married to an ousted county official who had been convicted by the slain prosecutors for theft of public property.

(Photo: Kaufman County Sheriff's Office via AP)

The wife of a former Texas justice of the peace was arrested Wednesday on capital murder charges in the killings of the Kaufman County district attorney, his wife and a second prosecutor, The Dallas Morning News reports.


Kim Williams, 46, is the wife Eric Williams, the ousted justice of the peace who had been convicted by the two slain prosecutors in 2012 on charges of theft of public property. She was being held at the Kaufman County Jail on a $10 million bond, WFAA-TV reported.



Mike McLelland, 63,and his wife Cynthia, 65, were killed at their home March 30 almost exactly one month after assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse, 57, was shot and killed near the Kaufman County courthouse.


Eric Williams was arrested last week on charges of making a terrorist threats and is being held on $3 million bond. The News says he was arrested after a threatening email was allegedly traced to him.



Authorities searched the Williams' home last week. They also searched a storage locker linked to Williams and recovered at least 20 weapons and a white Ford similar to one reportedly shown on surveillance video the night of one of the McLelland killings.