Official: Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, were "targeted" in killing
March 31, 2013, 11:20 AM Updated 2:40 p.m. ET
KAUFMAN, Texas Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland took no chances after one of his assistant prosecutors was assassinated two months ago. McLelland said he carried a gun everywhere he went and took extra care when answering the door at his home.
"I'm ahead of everybody else because, basically, I'm a soldier," the 23-year Army veteran boasted in an interview less than two weeks ago.
On Saturday, he and his wife were found dead in their home just outside the town of Forney, about 20 miles from Dallas, killed in an attack for which authorities have given no motive.
Sources told CBS affiliate KTVT in Dallas that the DA was shot multiple times with what is believed to be an assault rifle, while Cynthia McLelland was only shot once. Sources also say that there were no signs of forced entry.
"Everybody's a little on edge and a little shocked," Forney Mayor Darren Rozell told The Associated Press on Sunday. "It appears this was not a random act."
Rozell, whose suburban Dallas city is nearest the slaying scene, said earlier the attack "appears to be a targeted act," in an effort to calm the 40,000 residents in the area.
The killings came less than two weeks after Colorado's prison chief was gunned down at his front door by a white-supremacist ex-convict, and two months after Kaufman County Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse was shot to death in a parking lot a block from his office Jan. 31. No arrests have been made in Hasse's slaying.
Kaufman County Sheriff David Byrnes confirmed Sunday that the McLellands had been shot. As for whether their deaths were related to Hasse's slaying, Byrnes said there was nothing to indicate that "for sure," but declined to discuss it further during a news conference.
McLelland himself, in an Associated Press interview, raised the possibility that Hasse was gunned down by a white supremacist gang. McLelland, elected DA in 2010, said that Hasse hadn't prosecuted any cases against white supremacists but that his office had handled several, and those gangs had a strong presence in the area.
Kaufman Police Chief Chris Aulbaugh said recently the FBI was checking to see if Hasse's killing could be related to Clements'. Evan Spencer Ebel [ http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57576930/troubled-prison-time-for-colo-suspect-ebel/ ], a former Colorado inmate and white supremacist who authorities believe killed Clements, died in a March 21 shootout with Texas deputies about 100 miles from Kaufman.
McLelland, 63, said after Hasse's slaying that he carried a gun everywhere he went, even to walk his dog. He figured that was where assassins were more likely to try to get him. He said he had warned all his employees to be constantly on the alert.
"The people in my line of work are going to have to get better at it," he said of the danger, "because they're going to need it more in the future."
The number of attacks on prosecutors, judges and senior law enforcement officers in the U.S. has spiked in the past three years, according to Glenn McGovern, an investigator with the Santa Clara County, Calif., District Attorney's Office who tracks such cases.
But they're still rare. McLelland is the 13th prosecutor in the U.S. that the National Association of District Attorneys has recorded killed since the organization began keeping track in the 1960s.
For about a month after Hasse's slaying, sheriff's deputies were parked in the district attorney's driveway, said Sam Rosander, a McLelland neighbor.
The FBI and the Texas Rangers joined the investigation into the McLellands' deaths.
McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, were the parents of two daughters and three sons. One son is a police officer in Dallas. The couple had moved into the home a few years ago, Rozell said.
"Real friendly, became part of our community quickly," Rozell said. "They were a really pleasant happy couple."
Texas DA, wife killed 2 months after deputy's slaying
By Ed Lavandera, CNN Correspondent updated 4:24 PM EDT, Sun March 31, 2013
Kaufman, Texas (CNN) -- A Texas community is on edge after a district attorney who said he would put away the "scum" who killed a colleague two months ago was shot to death alongside his wife in his home Saturday night.
Kaufman County Judge Bruce Wood said he thought there was a "strong connection" between the slayings of Mike and Cynthia McLelland and the shooting death of Kaufman County Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse, who was killed on his way to work in January.
Hasse and McLelland "worked on similar cases very closely," said Wood, the county's top elected official.
And Kaufman Mayor William Fortner told CNN that he thought the men were targeted by people seeking revenge.
"That's the logical conclusion, and I don't have any information that directs me to think that's the case, but that's what you would assume under the circumstances, since they targeted two people from our prosecutors."
The Kaufman County sheriff's office, however, won't officially say the killings are connected.
"I can't say that," Kaufman County Sheriff David Byrnes told reporters. "No, we have nothing indicating that for sure."
Federal and state law enforcement descended rapidly on the crime scene to aid in the investigation.
Just two months ago, McLelland vowed to find the people who killed Hasse, one of his top deputies.
On Saturday, authorities found the McLellands' bodies in their home in Kaufman County, east of Dallas.
"I don't know of anyone who would want to cause him harm," Fortner said. "As far as I could tell, he was doing a really good job as a district attorney."
Fortner said he hoped the killer or killers were caught "before any more people are lost."
Wood and McLelland last spoke last week.
"He never stated to me that he was worried," Wood said. "But everybody that works in the courthouse has been on edge, but he never indicated any fear to me."
Authorities are providing extra security for others.
"We are taking precautions to protect other elected officials in the county," Byrnes told reporters Sunday. Byrnes said he couldn't comment on what those measures were.
Byrnes drew no connection between the cases and offered no details as to how the McLellands were killed.
A law enforcement official told The Dallas Morning News "there are shell casings everywhere."
Authorities have not identified a suspect.
McLelland was an Army veteran who later earned a master's degree in psychology and became a psychologist for the Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation, the district attorney's website said.
He was raised in the small town of Wortham, Texas, where his parents had a ranch. He joined the Army after attending the University of Texas and spent 23 years in the service.
He later earned his law degree and practiced as a defense attorney and mental health judge for 18 years before becoming the county's district attorney in 2010.
McLelland and his wife leave behind two daughters and three sons. One son is a Dallas police officer.
Another top prosecutor slain
The McLellands were killed almost exactly two months after Hasse was shot to death in broad daylight outside the county courthouse on January 31.
Hasse had feared for his life and carried a gun to work, said a Dallas attorney who described herself as his longtime friend.
Colleen A. Dunbar said she spoke with Hasse on January 24. She said the prosecutor told her he had begun carrying a gun in and out of the county courthouse daily.
"He told me he would use a different exit every day because he was fearful for his life," Dunbar told CNN.
She said that Hasse gave no specifics on why he felt threatened -- only that he did.
McLelland called Hasse "a stellar prosecutor" who knew that threats were part of the job.
He vowed after Hasse's slaying to put away the "scum" who killed his deputy.
"I hope that the people that did this are watching, because we're very confident that we're going to find you," McLelland told reporters.
"We're going to pull you out of whatever hole you're in, we're going to bring you back and let the people of Kaufman County prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law."
Attorney Pete Schulte told CNN affiliate WFAA that public servants are facing a new quandary.
"It's going to have a chilling effect on people who do want to step into those roles and (have to think about whether to) start arming themselves," he said. "I mean, that's the risk that we're going to face now because of this happening."
Schulte told the station that after someone shot through the windows of his Dallas offices in November, he began to carry a gun more often.
By CHRISTINE ARMARIO Associated Press MIAMI March 31, 2013
A 4-year-old girl was fatally shot while she sat in a car outside her grandfather's Miami home, and now detectives are trying to determine if another child who was in the vehicle pulled the trigger, police said Sunday.
The children were waiting in a white Mercedes-Benz Saturday evening as an adult stood nearby outside in an impoverished neighborhood with scattered storefront churches and boarded-up businesses on the northern edge of Miami-Dade County.
Rahquel Carr was shot in the upper body with a handgun believed to have been fired from inside the vehicle, Miami-Dade Police Detective Roy Rutland said. The owner of the weapon and the car was not present and has not been charged.
At least two other children were in the vehicle at the time, all believed to have been younger than 10, Rutland said. Investigators were speaking with those children, which Rutland said was a delicate process because of their age.
"We are interviewing those kids and we're trying to ascertain if one of the other children shot the kid," he said.
The Miami-Dade Office of the State Attorney will review the case to determine if any charges will be filed. An autopsy will also be done to determine how many times the girl was shot, and where.
The adult who was standing nearby was not identified and has also not been charged.
Armando Alvarado, 58, was sitting inside his home three doors down when he heard children screaming. He went outside and saw a woman crying for help on her cell phone.
"She was crying desperately," he said.
Police arrived within a minute, and a rescuer carried the girl into an ambulance, he said. Her limbs were limp and blood was on her face. The girl died a short time later after being airlifted to a hospital.
Rahquel's grandfather also was hospitalized because he was overcome with emotion. The two were very close, and he would sometimes watch the girl while she rode her bike outside.
"The grandfather just loved her so much," said Michael Hardaway, 55, who lives next door. "He couldn't take it."
On Sunday, the family gathered with a minister at the home but declined to comment. Police tape had been removed, with only a large, orange, spray-painted "X'' remaining in front of the driveway.
Armed TX Prosecutor & Wife Assassinated: NRA Silent on How This is Possible (Updated x3)
A mere two months after another TX prosecutor from the same jurisdiction had been shot dead, a district attorney for Kaufman County, TX (an area outside of Dallas) and his wife were shot dead in an apparent assassination. Due to the first murder, prosecutor Mike McCelland had taken a number of precautions to protect himself, including carrying a firearm, but apparently that did not prevent his murder or that of his wife, Cynthia - and there are no reports of there having been any exchange of gunfire, so it is unlikely he even had a chance to defend himself. The killings have been linked to white supremacist criminal organization and prison gang the Aryan Brotherhood, which had seen a number of its members recently indicted - an organization with intimate ties to gun and militia cultures throughout the United States.
There are two aspects of this story that bear highlighting:
1. McClelland was a trained former soldier who no doubt had the skills to use a firearm quickly and effectively, but that apparently had no impact whatsoever on the ability of his and his wife's murderer to get to them. The claims of the gun lobby that being armed is an effective deterrent or defense against murder are by now a laughable, sick joke discredited by a long and growing line of bodies, including those of bystanders shot in crossfire, as well as many people with in-depth firearms training. Now that one of the victims is a former soldier and Texas prosecutor acutely aware of a present danger, and surrounded by a community of similarly-armed people, the final nail has been hammered into the coffin of NRA Big Lies.
2. The fact that a white supremacist organized crime organization is so powerful and brazen in Texas, while it fits the Lone Star state's culture of violence and hate, still somehow manages to be shocking. Apparently the pervasive gun culture in the state has done nothing more than create terrorist groups who can murder public officials with impunity, and not one of the millions of firearms in the state stopped one or a handful of assailants from executing a prosecutor, and then two months later doing it again along with the second victim's wife in their own home.
This is what fascism looks like: A state that murders and imprisons people by the bushel (many of them innocent) out of sheer sadism, but can't and/or won't protect even its own prosecutors from the violence of murderous white supremacist terrorists. In fact, they won't even call it terrorism because the suspected perpetrators are part of the same extended political culture of racist, lawless, anti-government white conservative gun nuttery as the Republicans who control the state with an iron fist.
Apparently the Aryan Brotherhood has decided to exercise a "2nd Amendment solution" as the NRA routinely suggests, and its victim's own attempt to do so proved fruitless against superior firepower, superior malice, and the inherent advantage of the attack. Congratulations, Texas - you have now gone where only Sicily and Russia in all of Western civilization have gone in modern times: A state where public officials can be murdered with impunity. The difference is, Sicilians and Russians aren't proud of it.
3:22 PM PT: According to a Huffington Post report, the assassinations may be linked to another that occurred in Colorado two weeks ago by another suspected white supremacist who later died in a shootout with police in the same region of Texas.
3:29 PM PT: A quick perusal of media coverage of the murders doesn't find the word "terrorism" anywhere, and Texas media seem to be downplaying the fact that McClelland was armed.
4:11 PM PT: A number of sources are reporting that an assault rifle was used in the assassination.
5:33 PM PT: A comment below, attributed to a previous diary by another Kossack, makes a brilliant observation: "A gun will not protect you from bullets." Indeed, it seems gun anarchy is as stupid and insane a solution to criminals having guns than arming yourself with vials of smallpox would be if criminals had biological weapons.
5:45 PM PT: Remember when Republicans were outraged about the Homeland Security Department investigating right-wing domestic terrorism, and had the report suppressed? Many of the political leaders involved in the outcry were Texas Republicans. Now we see more of the fruits of their politics.
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