Another murder solved.
portland imc - 2002.11.28 - E-mail about cop-killing led to arrest (indymedia.org connection)author: Andy from Beaverton A person with connections to indymedia.org just got busted for killing a cop. An Arizona FReeper named Neil Wright, 50, said he had received an e-mail from "Mitch Stephens" at americanresistance@yahoo.com at about 6 p.m. Friday on his home computer in Lake Havasu City and called police an hour later. FREE REPUBLIC RULES!An Arizona man who received a "strange and mysterious" e-mail apologizing for the slaying of a Red Bluff cop launched investigators on the trail of an ex-Army private who was arrested four days later in New Hampshire.
Neil Wright, 50, said he had received an e-mail from "Mitch Stephens" at americanresistance@yahoo.com at about 6 p.m. Friday on his home computer in Lake Havasu City and called police an hour later.
"We apologize to the family and friends of the Police Officer that we killed in Red Bluff, California," stated the e-mail, posted from the Capitol Hill Internet Cafe in Seattle.
The e-mail included a "Declaration of a Renewed American Independence" that is the same as an anti-government diatribe posted Monday under the name Andrew McCrae, who is charged with the ambush murder of Officer David Mobilio on Nov. 19.
More than 20 versions of the declaration -- some with an apology, some with a bragging confession -- were posted on a series left-wing "alternative news" sites from Hawaii to Maine and Georgia under the umbrella indymedia.org.
An investigator in the case, who asked not to be named, confirmed late Wednesday that Wright's tip on Friday night had started police and FBI agents on the trail of the man later identified as McCrae. The investigator also confirmed that FBI agents on Saturday had downloaded the hard drives from the Seattle cafe based on Wright's tip.
"Mr. Wright was very helpful to us in the case," the investigator said. "If you want to measure his assistance, just look at the result. We arrested that same guy."
Wright, a right-wing activist who writes for the conservative Web site freerepublic.com, said he had no idea what crime the sender was referring to when he received the message -- but felt compelled to check it out.
"The death of the police officer there in Red Bluff wasn't national news then," Wright said Wednesday night. "I had no idea what this e-mail was about.
. . . After I read some background on this case, I realized this person was confessing to an unsolved murder. I immediately called police in Red Bluff."
Investigators would reveal few other details about the investigation that led to McCrae, 23, who was found at a Holiday Inn in Concord, N.H., around 2 a. m. Tuesday. The arrest warrant for McCrae, who usually goes by the name Andrew Hampton Mickel, remains under seal in Tehama County Superior Court.
McCrae, who is jailed without bail in New Hampshire pending extradition to California, is charged in Tehama County with the murder of a police officer -- which, if he is convicted, could land him a life sentence without parole.
Red Bluff Police Chief Robert Petitt said authorities were trying to locate McCrae's car, a 1992 maroon Ford Mustang with Washington state license plate 595 NAB. It is believed that he used the car the night Mobilio was killed.
"We don't run into this kind of situation in a small town in rural America, " Petitt said. "We have tapped resources of the state criminal bureau of investigation and the federal FBI. We have a lot of work to do." Investigators said they were curious about McCrae's actions before the killing.
McCrae grew up in Springfield, Ohio, as Andrew Mickel, according to his family. His mother, Karen Mickel, said she didn't know why he was using the name McCrae.
His father, Stan Mickel, a professor of East Asian studies at Wittenberg University, said his son had attended Springfield North High School before joining the Army in 1998.
Springfield police records show that Karen Mickel reported her son missing on Oct. 28, 1997, and that he had left a runaway note and refused to take his medication for depression. The next night, she called police to say her son had been found in a nearby town.
In the Army, he was a private stationed at Fort Campbell, Ky. until his discharge in 2001. That fall, McCrae enrolled in college at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash. He was arrested there in April for obstructing a sidewalk, apparently at a political protest, police said.
Stan Mickel said his son had visited Ohio in March and given no hint anything was wrong.
"This is a shock to us," he said.
Chronicle wire services contributed to this report. / E-mail Jim Zamora at jzamora@sfchronicle.com.
Which reminds me, there is still the unsolved murder of Lorenzo Okaruru, a.k.a., Loni Kai here in loony, homophobic, racist Washington County, Oregon.
More info for the residents of Washington County concerning crazy fanatics running around loose here. Special thanks to Lewis Loflin who provided the following information. I strongly recommend his website. It has tons of information about violent groups both in the U.S. and abroad.
Identity is a movement fueled by religious fanaticism and racism. Its adherents are heavily armed and have been willing to take violent action. Members of Identity are capable of becoming Americanized versions of the anti-government religious extremists seen abroad, a full-scale terrorist underground.
Identity groups such as The Covenant, Sword and Arm of The Lord (CSA), the White Patriot Party, the Posse Comitatus, Aryan Nations and the Order have been responsible for the racist right's most violent incidents over the past 20 years. Convicted members of the Order committed murders and armed robberies. White Patriot Party members committed three murders. Posse Comitatus leader Gordon Kahl killed three law enforcement officers.
The man convicted in the Oklahoma City bombing reportedly was in contact with an Oklahoma Identity compound just days before the disaster. Telephone records reveal that Timothy McVeigh placed two calls to Elohim City, a 22-year-old armed Identity enclave headed by Robert Millar. Millar admitted these calls were made, but denied speaking to McVeigh personally.
Millar's strong ties to violent Identity adherents are well known. On April 20, 1995, Millar returned from Arkansas with the body of Richard Wayne Snell, an Identity adherent and former CSA member executed the day before for the 1983 murder of a pawnshop owner he had mistakenly thought to be Jewish. Snell had previously been convicted for the murder of a black Arkansas state trooper in 1984.
Snell's last words took the form of an extremist theological warning: "Governor Tucker, look over your shoulder. Justice is on the way. I won't trade places with you or any of your political cronies. Hail His victory. I am at peace." Millar was mentor to both Snell and CSA founder James Ellison. According to a former CSA member, Millar and his followers believe someone will soon be resurrected from the dead to lead the white Israelites in battle against the satanic federal government. After Millar recovered Snell's body, the casket was left open in the event that Snell should be this "savior."
Identity warriors have been in the forefront of the extremist paramilitary movement since the 1960s. William Potter Gale, a major U.S. guerrilla strategist during World War II, and Robert DePugh, founder of the ultra-rightist Minutemen, were fervent Identity followers and early proponents of "unorganized militias."
During the 1980s, their efforts were carried on by Louis Beam, former Klan Grand Dragon and founder of the paramilitary Texas Emergency Reserve, Glenn Miller and Stephen Miller, organizers of the White Patriot Party, CSA leader Jim Ellison, and James Wickstrom, the anti-Semitic firebrand of the Posse Comitatus.
Today, Beam and Wickstrom are heavily involved in the militia movement as strategists. Numerous other Identity adherents are also involved: Pete Peters, Dave Barley, John Trochmann, Eustace Mullins, Tom Stetson, James Bruggeman, Earl Jones, Robert Kelly and Paul Hall. Kelly and Hall publish two major Identity/Patriot newspapers; The American's Bulletin and The Jubilee, respectively.
In October 1992, Identity became firmly established at the vanguard of the growing militia/Patriot movement at an Estes Park, Colorado, meeting. The Estes Park conclave was a three-day strategy session involving 160 white activists convened by Pete Peters. This diverse gathering of Klansmen, neo-Nazis, Posse Comitatus partisans, anti-abortion zealots and tax protesters was united by the fatal stand-off at Randy Weaver's Idaho retreat that had occurred just 60 days prior to the meeting.
Non-Identity attendees such as Larry Pratt, director of Gun Owners of America, and Steve Graber, former regional director of the conservative Rutherford Institute, were featured speakers. But Identity leaders Peters, Beam, Richard Butler, Charles Weisman, Chris Temple, John Weaver and many others from "white Israel, dominated the Estes Park meeting.
In the years since the Estes Park meeting, the links between the Identity and militia movements have grown even stronger. Identity pastors and their followers have established active networks throughout the militia/ Patriot movement. At an April 1995 Identity gathering in Branson, Mo., where Gun Owners of America executive director Pratt appeared, attendees were urged to seek common ground with non-racist Christian fundamentalists through their shared beliefs on abortion, gay rights, home schooling and Bible-based laws.
Bo Gritz, a charismatic former Special Forces commander in Vietnam and one-time running mate on David Duke's Populist Party campaign for President, has been a regular on the Identity speaking circuit since 1990. Gritz denies being racist and anti-Semitic, yet he maintains associations with Identity figures such as Pete Peters, the Colorado-based racist who frequents Aryan Nations functions, Eustace Mullins and Col. Jack Mohr.
Gritz has spoken at Peters' Scriptures For America Identity "Bible Camps" on at least two occasions and was featured at the First National Identity-Christian Conference in North Carolina. At that 1991 gathering of Klansmen, neo-Nazis and other white supremacists, Gritz shared the podium with Confederate Knights of the Ku Klux Klan Imperial Wizard Terry Boyce and Identity leaders Richard K. Hoskins and Robert Weems.
Despite Gritz's track record on the white supremacist speaking circuit, he enjoys favorable publicity in the national media, where he is often portrayed as a crusty nonconformist. Gritz promotes real estate developments called "Almost Heaven" and "Shenandoah." He describes these developments as "Christian Covenant Communities." Given his relationship with Identity and his advocacy of paramilitary training, his "Covenant Communities" are likely to attract like-minded followers.
Whether Identity adherents band together in one location or pursue their apocalyptic beliefs within mainstream communities, the threat from the expanding sect is significant. As the year 2000 approaches, there is a risk that many in the growing Identity movement will attempt to bring their apocalyptic vision to reality through violence.
NOTE: I've got better things to do than erase the childish, immature, psychotic, obscene comments from looney Roger Weidner and his gang of illiterate morons, so just put your opinions at the Johnhays.net Forum.