Colorado prison chief shot dead on eve of gun laws signing

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Quigley_Sharps, Mar 20, 2013.


  1. Quigley_Sharps

    Quigley_Sharps The Badministrator Administrator Founding Member

    Colorado prison chief shot dead on eve of gun laws signing

    (Reuters) - The head of Colorado's prison system was shot dead at his home in what police said may have been a targeted killing, just hours before the governor on Wednesday signed new gun control laws spurred by a rash of deadly mass shootings in Colorado and elsewhere.

    Police said Tom Clements, 58, appointed two years ago as executive director of the Colorado Department of Corrections, was shot on Tuesday night at his home in a secluded wooded area near the picturesque town of Monument, 45 miles south of Denver.

    The killing did not appear to be linked to any break-in or robbery attempt, said El Paso County Sheriff's Department Lieutenant Jeff Kramer. He said the shooting did not appear to be random.

    "We are sensitive to the high-profile position in which Mr. Clements served and the fact there could be people who would target him based on his position," Kramer said in a statement.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...92J0K920130320
     
  2. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

    Here come the false flag conspiracies.
     
  3. HappyPuppy

    HappyPuppy Monkey

    Far more likely that he would be target for his role in the penal system them any gun control position. Assuming he was target at all and not just a random act of violence
     
  4. fmhuff

    fmhuff Monkey+++

    Harry Reed will be saying it's because of the Sequester and the Republicans fault for not spending more.
     
    Moatengator and oldawg like this.
  5. Brokor

    Brokor Live Free or Cry Moderator Site Supporter+++ Founding Member

    When police arrest and interrogate an individual based on suspicion and motive, it's called "due process". When the people point the finger at corruption in government based on eyewitness testimony, fact in law and a clear motive for them to profit, it's called "theory".

    Go figure. But yeah, there will be nutjobs who make outrageous claims with no evidence to support them.
     
  6. fmhuff

    fmhuff Monkey+++

    True or not I don't know but some other blogs are talking about a hit and that hit was related to a Saudi prisoner the chief refused to transfer and let serve out his sentence in a Saudi prison. Considering his job and the number of bangers and other perps converting to Islam in prison it is at least plausible.
     
  7. Quigley_Sharps

    Quigley_Sharps The Badministrator Administrator Founding Member

    Texas shootout may tie to Colo. prison chief death

    By ANGELA K. BROWN and NICHOLAS RICCARDI | Associated Press – 1 hr 8 mins agot

    • bb808b9aacafce092c0f6a706700d84a.
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      Associated Press/Wise County Messenger, Jimmy Alford - Emergency personnel are on the scene of a crash and shootout with police involving the driver of a black Cadillac with Colorado plates in Decatur, Texas, …more

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    DECATUR, Texas (AP) — A man who may be linked to the slaying of Colorado's state prison chief led authorities in Texas on a harrowing, 100 mph car chase Thursday that ended after he crashed into a semi and then opened fire before being shot down by his pursuers, authorities said.
    The man is still unidentified and is "basically legally deceased" while still hooked up to equipment for organ harvesting at a Fort Worth hospital, Wise County Sheriff David Walker said at an afternoon news conference in Decatur.
    The possible link to the Tuesday night slaying of Colorado prison director Tom Clements is tentative but intriguing enough to put Colorado investigators on a plane to Texas. The black Cadillac the man drove, with Colorado license plates, matches the description of a car spotted outside Clements' home just before the Department of Corrections chief was fatally shot while answering his front door.
    "We don't know yet exactly whether this is the guy," Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper told reporters Thursday afternoon. "There's some indication. I hope it is."
    Also heading to Texas were detectives from Denver and Golden who are investigating whether the man is linked to the shooting death of a pizza delivery driver in Colorado on Sunday, Denver police spokeswoman Raquel Lopez said. She said the agencies were working with El Paso County, Colo., sheriff's officials, who are investigating Clements' death, and she couldn't comment on evidence from the car that crashed in Texas.
    Montague County sheriff's deputy James Boyd tried to pull over the Cadillac at about 11 a.m. Thursday, though officials wouldn't elaborate on the reason.
    The driver opened fire on Boyd, wounding him, Walker said. He then fled south before crashing into a semi as he tried to elude his pursuers.
    Walker said Colorado investigators were heading to Texas to determine whether the man is connected to Clements' killing. Boyd was wearing a bulletproof vest and is at a Fort Worth hospital, authorities said. Officials had said he wasn't seriously injured but later said his condition was unknown.
    Decatur Police Chief Rex Hoskins said the man appeared to be a white man in his 30s. The man shot at Hoskins four times as the chief tried to set up a road block to halt him. The man left his car after it crashed and opened fire on the authorities around him, Hoskins said.
    "He wasn't planning on being taken alive," Hoskins said. In a brief interview, he added that the man had no identification on him.
    El Paso County sheriff's investigators have been looking for a dark, late-model car, possibly a Lincoln or a Cadillac, that a neighbor spotted near Clements' home around the time of the shooting. Lt. Jeff Kramer refused to say what other clues may have been found after officers canvassed Clements' neighborhood.
    Clements, 58, was killed as he answered the door to his home Tuesday night in Monument, a town of rolling hills and alpine trees north of Colorado Springs. His death stunned law enforcement colleagues in Colorado and Missouri, where he spent most of his career as a highly respected corrections official.
    Police haven't said if they think his death was linked to his job.
    Denver's KMGH-TV reported Thursday that Clements may have put a bicycle up for sale for $1,200 on Craigslist. Kramer told the station, "I can't speak to the efforts behind this tip, or the level we are giving it."
    In recent weeks, Clements had requested chemicals to plan for the execution of a convict on Colorado's death row and denied a Saudi national's request to serve out the remainder of a sentence in his home country. Officials refused to say whether they were looking at those actions as possible motives.
    Clements came to Colorado in 2011 after working three decades in the Missouri prison system. Missouri Department of Corrections spokeswoman Mandi Steele said Thursday the department was ready to help in the probe if asked.
    "Tom regularly commented that corrections is inherently a dangerous business, and that's all that I'll say," said Alison Morgan, a Colorado corrections spokeswoman who worked closely with Clements.
    Officials in positions like Clements' get a deluge of threats, according to people who monitor their safety. But it can be hard sorting out which ones could lead to violence. A U.S. Department of Justice study found that federal prosecutors and judges received 5,250 threats between 2003 and 2008, but there were only three attacks during that time period.
    The last public official killed in Colorado in the past 10 years was Sean May, a prosecutor in suburban Denver. An assailant killed May as he arrived home from work. Investigators examined May's court cases, but the case remains unsolved.
    ___
    Riccardi reported from Denver. Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers P. Solomon Banda, Colleen Slevin and Ivan Moreno in Denver, and Jordan Shapiro in Jefferson City, Mo.
     
  8. Brokor

    Brokor Live Free or Cry Moderator Site Supporter+++ Founding Member

    Well, whoever this guy was, at least he didn't run inside a house or he would have been burned alive.
     
    VisuTrac and Quigley_Sharps like this.
  9. Capt. Tyree

    Capt. Tyree Hawkeye

    Yep, that would have been the waste of a good house, and an increase in insurance premiums for the property owner. As it is society can count on a few harvested body parts when the perpetrator is claimed by the grim reaper.
     
  10. Quigley_Sharps

    Quigley_Sharps The Badministrator Administrator Founding Member

    Man in Texas shootout ID'd as Colorado parolee

    By ANGELA K. BROWN and P. SOLOMON BANDA | Associated Press – 10 hrs ago

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    • e869912aa1c07f1ed8331df44832f23a Play Video
      Texas Shootout Might Be Tied to Colo. Slaying
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    DECATUR, Texas (AP) — A paroled Colorado inmate who may be linked to the slaying of the state's prison chief led Texas deputies on a 100 mph car chase that ended Thursday after he crashed into a semi and then opened fire before being shot down by his pursuers.
    Evan Spencer Ebel, 28, was driving a Cadillac in Texas that matched the description of the vehicle seen leaving the neighborhood where prisons chief Tom Clements was shot. Ebel was hooked up to equipment for organ harvesting and authorities say he is not expected to survive.
    Colorado investigators immediately headed to Texas to determine whether Ebel was linked to Clements' slaying and the killing Sunday of Nathan Leon, a Denver pizza delivery man. Police in Colorado would only say the connection to the Leon case is strong but would not elaborate or say if they believe Ebel killed Clements and Leon.
    The Denver Post first reported Ebel's name, and that he was in a white supremacist prison gang called the 211s. A federal law enforcement official confirmed his identity and gang affiliation to The Associated Press. The official was not authorized to speak publicly about the case and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
    The killing of Clements, 58, shocked his quiet neighborhood in Monument, a town of rolling hills north of Colorado Springs, for its brutality: He answered the door of his home Tuesday evening and was gunned down. Authorities wouldn't say if they thought the attack was related to his job, and all Clements' recent public activities and cases were scrutinized.
    The Texas car chase started when a sheriff's deputy in Montague County, James Boyd, tried to pull over the Cadillac around 11 a.m. Thursday, authorities there said. They wouldn't say exactly why he was stopped, but called it routine.
    The driver opened fire on Boyd, wounding him, Wise County Sheriff David Walker said at an afternoon news conference in Decatur. He then fled south before crashing into a semi as he tried to elude his pursuers.
    After the crash, he got out of the vehicle, shooting at deputies and troopers who had joined the chase. He shot at Decatur Police Chief Rex Hoskins four times as the chief tried to set up a roadblock.
    "He wasn't planning on being taken alive," Hoskins said.
    Boyd, the deputy who was shot, was wearing a bulletproof vest and was at a Fort Worth hospital, authorities said. Officials had said he wasn't seriously injured but later said his condition was unknown.
    The car is so far the main link authorities have given between the Colorado case and the Texas shootout. El Paso County sheriff's investigators have been looking for a dark, late-model car, possibly a Lincoln or a Cadillac, that a neighbor spotted near Clements' home around the time of the shooting.
    "We don't know yet exactly whether this is the guy," Gov. John Hickenlooper told reporters Thursday afternoon. "There's some indication. I hope it is."
    El Paso County sheriff's officials did not return repeated messages Thursday. In a statement, Lt. Jeff Kramer said investigators will inspect evidence in Texas and would need crime lab analysis before they're able to determine whether the suspect is linked to Clements' shooting.
    "These efforts take time," Kramer said.
    Other links between Ebel and the Colorado killings aren't clear. Legal records show he was convicted of several crimes in Colorado dating back to 2003, including assaulting a prison guard in 2008. He apparently was paroled, but Colorado Department of Corrections spokeswoman Alison Morgan said she could not release information on prisoners because of the ongoing investigation into Clements' death.
    Scott Robinson, a criminal defense attorney and media legal analyst, represented Ebel in 2003 and 2004. He said Ebel had been sentenced to a halfway house for a robbery charge in 2003 before he was accused in two additional robbery cases the following year that garnered prison sentences of three and eight years.
    "I thought he was a young man who was redeemable, otherwise I wouldn't have taken the case," Robinson said, saying he didn't recall the details of the case.
    Robinson said he knew Ebel before he got in trouble. He said Ebel was raised by a single father and had a younger sister who died in a car accident years ago.
    Vicky Bankey said Ebel was in his teens when she lived across from him in suburban Denver until his father moved a couple of years ago. She remembers seeing Ebel once jump off the roof of his house. "He was a handful. I'd see him do some pretty crazy things," she said.
    "He had a hair-trigger temper as a kid. But his dad was so nice," Bankey said.
    Ebel's father didn't return an after-hours phone message left at his business.
    Clements came to Colorado in 2011 after working three decades in the Missouri prison system. Missouri Department of Corrections spokeswoman Mandi Steele said Thursday the department was ready to help in the probe if asked.
    "Tom regularly commented that corrections is inherently a dangerous business, and that's all that I'll say," Morgan, who worked closely with Clements, said earlier.
    Officials in positions like Clements' get a deluge of threats, according to people who monitor their safety. But it can be hard sorting out which ones could lead to violence. A U.S. Department of Justice study found that federal prosecutors and judges received 5,250 threats between 2003 and 2008, but there were only three attacks during that time period.
    The last public official killed in Colorado in the past 10 years was Sean May, a prosecutor in suburban Denver. An assailant killed May as he arrived home from work. Investigators examined May's court cases, but the case remains unsolved.
    ___
     
  11. VHestin

    VHestin Farm Chick

    Hmmm...Ebel...first thing in my head when I saw the name was Abel. And how can a Cadillac crash into a semi at high speeds and have the driver still able to fire a gun is what I'd like to know...that and how come the semi he hit is not in the picture of the crash scene?
     
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