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April 2, 2013 |
Is a white supremacist group called the Aryan Brotherhood linked to a
string of killings of state officials? That’s the burning question for
federal investigators as they seek to find out more about the
deaths of two Texas law enforcement officials in recent weeks, and whether those killings are linked to the murder of a Colorado state prison chief in late March.
The scrutiny on the white supremacist gang has prompted an ominous warning from a former prisoner, who
wrote anonymously in the Daily Beast why law enforcement “may have a real problem on their hands.”
The
prisoner, a black man who said he got on the Aryan Brotherhood’s good
side after assisting them with a legal request, says that law
enforcement should know about the danger of the prison gang because
“it’s something they should have been aware of for decades,” he writes.
“If
these recent killings represent the Brotherhood’s twisted form of
retribution, the fact that it has taken so long to begin is all the more
chilling. To me this would demonstrate a hard-nosed determination that
all citizens should find frightening,” the prisoner said in the Daily
Beast. “America’s harsh judicial system, coupled with a growing national
affinity for utilizing complete isolation at super-max prisons as a
corrections tactic of first choice, in many cases turns men into
monsters.”
The prisoner warned that “many of the first
men locked up when our nation embarked on a policy of for-profit mass
incarceration near the end of the last century are now returning into
society.” He also provided details on what motivates the members of the
Aryan Brotherhood gang.
"They were still mentally
fighting the Civil War (like so many other whites) and traced their
roots back to men like Confederate guerrilla William Clarke Quantrill,
whose Quantrill’s Raiders sacked the pro-abolitionist town of Lawrence, Kansas, at the beginning of the Civil War," the prisoner wrote.
Meanwhile,
security has been beefed up for courthouses and prosecutors in Texas,
especially near Kaufman County, the location of the two killings in the
state. Some fear more attacks. And a joint local, state and federal
investigation is probing whether the Aryan Brotherhood, a white
supremacist prison gang, is involved. Still, there is no hard evidence
that links the killings to the gang yet. The Southern Poverty Law Center
has stated that the Aryan Brotherhood is one of the most violent groups in the country.
Two
months ago, the first of the shootings under investigation took place.
Mark Hasse, a prosecutor in Texas, was gunned down in broad daylight by
men with their faces covered and who had black clothing and vests on. He
was killed the same day that that two members of the Aryan Brotherhood
pled guilty to racketeering charges in a case that Hasse handled.
The
other shooting in Texas occurred on Saturday. Texas district attorney
Mike McClelland and his wife, Cynthia, were found dead in their home.
Shell casings from a powerful rifle were found in the house, and the
district attorney was shot multiple times. The last of the shootings
that investigators are looking at to see whether they are linked
occurred in Colorado. There, Tom Clements, the Department of Corrections
head, was killed, and the lead suspect was a member of a white
supremacist gang. That suspect, Evan Ebel, was killed in a shootout with
police officers in Texas.
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