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Update on Killing of Legal Professionals and White Supremacist Prison Syndicates

Posted by Dave Emory ⋅ April 6, 2013Post a comment Email This Post Email This Post Print This Post Print This Post
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COMMENT: As inves­ti­ga­tions unfold into the mur­ders of Tom Clements (chief of the Col­orado cor­rec­tions depart­ment) and Kauf­man Coun­ty (TX) DA Tom McClel­land and his wife, a num­ber of inter­est­ing and/or strange devel­op­ments have sur­faced:

  • Reports have sur­faced that white suprema­cists may be attempting/contemplating an upris­ing along the lines of the sce­nario set forth in The Turn­er Diaries.
  • A Texas pros­e­cu­tor involved with pros­e­cut­ing the Aryan Broth­er­hood of Texas has quit the case. (The Aryan Broth­er­hood of Texas is autonomous from the Aryan Broth­erood as a whole.)
  • Kauf­man Coun­ty DA Tom McClel­land has deputies main­tain­ing secu­ri­ty at his home for some time after his assis­tant was mur­dered.
  • Reports have sur­faced of pos­si­ble coop­er­a­tion between the Texas Aryan Broth­er­hood and Mex­i­can drug car­tels, alleged­ly involv­ing metham­phet­a­mine dis­tri­b­u­tion. 
  • Two mem­bers of the 211 Crew (anoth­er white suprema­cist prison gang appar­ent­ly involved with metham­phet­a­mine deal­ing) are being sought in con­nec­tion of the mur­der of Tom Clements (alleged­ly by Evan Ebel, said to be a mem­ber of the 211 Crew.) This is indica­tive of a pos­si­ble con­spir­a­cy.
  • The chief sus­pect in the Clements mur­der, Evan Ebel was released from prison by mis­take! 
  • Short­ly after his release, his elec­tron­ic bracelet mal­func­tioned, short­ly before Clements was killed.

These devel­op­ments bring to mind a num­ber of con­sid­er­a­tions, sug­gest­ing that there may be more to this sto­ry than meets the eye:

  • Orga­ni­za­tions such as the Aryan Broth­er­hood and 211 Crew have been known to part­ner with oth­er crim­i­nal syn­di­cates. In FTR #297, the ele­ments of the Aryan Broth­er­hood scru­ti­nized in the inves­ti­ga­tion were breed­ing the Pre­sa Canario dogs for use by Mex­i­can drug car­tels, a type of rela­tion­ship implied in some of the arti­cles men­tioned below.
  • The Inter­na­tion­al Busi­ness Times arti­cle below dis­cuss­es the pos­si­bil­i­ty that the mur­ders of the legal pro­fes­sion­als might be the start of an “Aryan Uprising”–along the lines of what is por­trayed in The Turn­er Diaries. In FTR #297, we not­ed that there were reports in the late 1990’s that Aryan Broth­er­hood ele­ments were con­spir­ing to kill cor­rec­tions offi­cials in Ari­zona.
  • In 1998, the author of The Turn­er Diaries (William Luther Pierce), direct­ly fore­shad­owed the 9/11 attacks in a short­wave radio broad­cast. 
  • As dis­cussed in FTR #443 (among oth­er pro­grams), the cli­mac­tic episode of The Turn­er Diaries is a low-lev­el sui­cide aer­i­al attack on the Pen­ta­gon, com­mit­ted on Novem­ber 9th. (Novem­ber 9th is the Nazi Day of Des­tiny and would be writ­ten by a Ger­man as “9/11”.)

  • Andreas Strass­meier and com­pos­ite sketch of John Doe #2

    As dis­cussed in FTR #272, the Nazi ter­ror group The Order was financed by “Ger­man fam­i­lies” liv­ing in South Amer­i­ca.

  • The Turn­er Diaries was also the tem­plate used by Tim­o­thy McVeigh and asso­ciates in the Okla­homa City bomb­ing. Legal tes­ti­mo­ny from an ATF infor­mant alleges that Andreas Strass­meier was the mas­ter­mind of the attack, with McVeigh as a pro­tege. Strass­meier is the son of Gun­ther Strass­meier, Hel­mut Kohl’s chief of staff and the archi­tect of Ger­man reuni­fi­ca­tion. Gun­ther’s father was one of the found­ing mem­bers of the Nazi Par­ty under Hitler.
  • Andreas Strass­meier bears a strik­ing resem­blance to the com­pos­ite sketch of John Doe #2 in the Okla­homa City bombing–as can be seen at right.
  • Sau­di ele­ments have also been known to use neo-Nazi ele­ments, sug­gest­ing that the Sau­di link to the Clements killing should not be alto­geth­er dis­missed.

“Is the Aryan Broth­er­hood of Texas about to Launch a Neo-Nazi Counter-Rev­o­lu­tion?” by Umber­to Bac­chi; Inter­na­tion­al Busi­ness Times; 4/3/2013.

EXCERPT: Mem­bers of a white suprema­cist prison gang have been linked to a series of tar­get­ed killings of pub­lic offi­cials in Texas.

The Aryan Broth­er­hood of Texas (ABT) is sus­pect­ed of being behind the killings of Dis­trict Attor­ney Mike McLel­land and his wife along with the sep­a­rate exe­cu­tion-style mur­der of McLel­land’s main assis­tant, Mark Has­se.

An unof­fi­cial off­shoot of the Cal­i­for­nia-based Aryan Broth­er­hood, the 4,000-strong group was formed in the ear­ly 1980s in Tex­an pris­ons. Its main aim, said the FBI, was “pri­mar­i­ly con­cerned with the pro­tec­tion of white inmates and white supremacy/separatism”. . . .

. . . . Indeed, the Aryan Broth­er­hood and oth­er neo-Nazi gangs like Aryan Cir­cles and Pub­lic Ene­my Num­ber One, along with fringe patri­ot groups and sur­vival­ists’ mili­tias, are inspired by the The Turn­er Diaries, a blue­print for an apoc­a­lyp­tic race war which will bring down the US gov­ern­ment with cam­paign of ter­ror­ism, assas­si­na­tion and eco­nom­ic sab­o­tage tar­get­ing fed­er­al offi­cials, politi­cians, Jews, blacks and minori­ties.

“This [the Texas shoot­ings] could be a sig­nal, at least for this spe­cif­ic group, that they are coa­lesc­ing around a more open, out­right cam­paign of vio­lence against police and oth­er law enforce­ment offi­cials,” says Simi. “The big ques­tion is what impact that may have on the dozens of dif­fer­ent groups like this around the coun­try and whether they’ll say, ‘It’s time for us to step it up as well.’ ”

“Texas Pros­e­cu­tor Quits White Suprema­cists Case” [AP]; CBS News; 4/3/2013.

EXCERPT: . . . . In the wake of the week­end slay­ings of a Texas dis­trict attor­ney and his wife that prompt­ed inves­ti­ga­tors to sus­pect a vio­lent white suprema­cist prison gang, an assis­tant U.S. attor­ney in Hous­ton has with­drawn from a large rack­e­teer­ing case against the Aryan Broth­er­hood of Texas, CBS News cor­re­spon­dent Anna Wern­er reports from Kauf­man, Texas.

Richard O. Ely II, a Hous­ton defense attor­ney for one of the 34 defen­dants, told The Dal­las Morn­ing News that Assis­tant U.S. Attor­ney Jay Hile­man sent him an email on Tues­day inform­ing him that he was off the case. . . .

“I under­stand why some­one would want to step back,” Ely told Hous­ton tele­vi­sion sta­tion KTRK-TV. “It makes sense to me, espe­cially peo­ple that have fam­i­lies.“ . . .

“Texas Pros­e­cu­tor and Wife Killed in ‘Tar­get­ed Act’ Two Months after Assis­tan­t’s Death” by Dominic Rushe; The Guardian [UK]; 3/31/2013.

EXCERPT: . . . . Sam Rosander, who lives in the same unin­cor­po­rated area of Kauf­man Coun­ty as the McLel­lands, told the Asso­ci­ated Press that sheriff’s deputies were parked in the dis­trict attorney’s dri­ve­way for about a month after Has­se was killed. The DA had also armed him­self for pro­tec­tion, telling reporters that he car­ried a gun every­where and took extra care when open­ing the door at his home fol­low­ing his assistant’s death.

“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.

Byrnes declined to com­ment on secu­rity arrange­ments ahead of the shoot­ing and would not go into detail as to the mea­sures now being brought in to pro­tect oth­er indi­vid­u­als.“ . . .

“Expert: Aryan Broth­er­hood of Texas are “Dumb Ol’ White Boys” Who Wouldn’t Kill a D.A.” by Anna Mer­lan;  Dal­las Observ­er; 4/3/2013.

EXCERPT: When I spoke to Ter­ry Pelz late yes­ter­day after­noon, he sound­ed hoarse and exhaust­ed. “I’m just about talked out,” he said.

Pelz is a for­mer prison war­den at the Dar­ring­ton Unit who now runs a crim­i­nal jus­tice con­sult­ing firm in Mis­souri City, about 20 miles south­west of Hous­ton. He’s been in high demand the past cou­ple days, as an expert on the Aryan Broth­er­hood of Texas. The ABT are being eyed as pos­si­ble sus­pects in the killing of Kauf­man Coun­ty DA Mike McLel­land, his wife Cyn­thia and assis­tant DA Mark Has­se. The group is, as we out­lined yes­ter­day, a vio­lent and grow­ing crim­i­nal enter­prise through­out the state and espe­cially in north Texas. . . .

. . . . Although Pelz cer­tainly sees the ABT as a vio­lent and not par­tic­u­larly pleas­ant group of peo­ple, some­thing doesn’t sit right with him in the McLel­land and Has­se killings.

“That’d be a big leap for them,” he says. “I just don’t think it’s cred­i­ble that it’s them.”

Why is the ABT the focus of so much spec­u­la­tion in these mur­ders to begin with? A cou­ple rea­sons. As The Dal­las Morn­ing News’ Tanya Eis­erer wrote in Feb­ru­ary, after Hasse’s killing, the Texas Depart­ment of Pub­lic Safe­ty issued a bul­letin in Decem­ber, warn­ing that they had “cred­i­ble infor­ma­tion” that the ABT was plan­ning retal­ia­tory attacks on law enforce­ment offi­cers, after the mas­sive fed­eral indict­ment that net­ted 34 of their mem­bers, includ­ing five high-rank­ing “gen­er­als.” (Yes­ter­day, a Hous­ton fed­eral pros­e­cu­tor involved in that case qui­etly with­drew from it, prompt­ing spec­u­la­tion that he was afraid for his family’s safe­ty). . . .

. . . . But in the Kauf­man Coun­ty mur­ders, Pelz says, “It’s just not their style. I stud­ied them for almost 30 years. Like all prison gangs, they make threats on pub­lic offi­cials, but I’ve nev­er seen them car­ry them out.”

Why not? Well, Pelz says, after a moment of reflec­tion, “You’re deal­ing with a bunch of dumb ol’ white boys who are meth cook­ers.”

Mark Potok of the South­ern Pover­ty Law Cen­ter, a for­mer jour­nal­ist who’s also stud­ied the ABT, agrees that if the gang is involved, it would be an unprece­dented move for them.

“I wouldn’t say [the mur­ders] look like any­thing we’ve seen before from the ABT,” he says. “If in fact this is them, it would be an astound­ing kind of move to make.”

He points out that only about 20 pros­e­cu­tors in the U.S. have been mur­dered over the course of the entire 20th cen­tury. “It’s an incred­i­bly rare phe­nom­e­non. And I’ve nev­er heard of any prison gang assas­si­nat­ing cor­rec­tional offi­cials,” oth­er than the occa­sional prison guard. . . .

. . . . “We know 211 Crew is also involved in the drug trade,” Potok says. But he sounds skep­ti­cal. “How that relates, I don’t know. It’s con­ceiv­able that in some way these groups are work­ing togeth­er. I’m not sug­gest­ing that’s true or that I even think that’s true. It seems hard to believe, frankly.” . . .

. . . . That house­clean­ing some­times involves mur­der, Pelz acknowl­edges. But he spec­u­lates that the mur­ders in Kauf­man Coun­ty — and he’s quick to note that this is only spec­u­la­tion — have some­thing to do instead with the ABT’s grow­ing rela­tion­ship with Mex­i­can drug car­tels, who have bond­ed across racial lines over their shared love of sell­ing meth.

“Car­tels love that meth,” Pelz says. “They make bil­lions off of it.” Last year, as he points out, a raid on a meth lab south of the bor­der seized an eye­brow-rais­ing $4 bil­lion worth of the drug.

Pelz puts his mon­ey on a part­ner­ship between the ABT and the car­tels that’s soured. “Some­thing was dis­rupted and some­body got pissed off in the car­tel, I think,” he says. “And they got one of their asso­ciates to take care of busi­ness. I just don’t think the ABT was direct­ly involved in it.” . . .

“2 Men With Ties To White Suprema­cist Gang Sought In Colo. Prison Chief’s Killing” by Cather­ine Tsai [AP]; Talk­ing Points Memo; 4/4/2013.

EXCERPT: Two more men con­nected to a vio­lent white suprema­cist gang are being sought in con­nec­tion with the slay­ing of Colorado’s pris­ons chief, and author­i­ties are warn­ing offi­cers that they are armed and dan­ger­ous.

The search comes about two weeks after prison gang mem­ber Evan Ebel — a sus­pect in the death of Depart­ment of Cor­rec­tions chief Tom Clements on March 19 and of Nathan Leon, a piz­za deliv­ery­man, two days ear­lier — was killed in a shootout with Texas deputies.

While it’s not clear whether the gang, the 211 Crew, is linked to the killing, the warn­ing bul­letin issued late Wednes­day by the El Paso Coun­ty Sheriff’s Depart­ment is the first offi­cial word that oth­er gang mem­bers may be involved.

James Lohr, 47, and Thomas Guolee, 31, aren’t being called sus­pects in Clements’ death, but their names have sur­faced dur­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion, El Paso Coun­ty sheriff’s Lt. Jeff Kramer said. He wouldn’t elab­o­rate.

Kramer said the two are known asso­ciates of the 211 gang. . . .

“Sus­pect Slipped Ankle Bracelet” by Nicholas Ric­car­dio [AP]; Seat­tle Post Intel­li­gencer; 4/2/2013. 

EXCERPT: Parole offi­cials did not real­ize that a white suprema­cist gang mem­ber had slipped his ankle bracelet and fled cus­tody until five days after the sys­tem first flagged him as being delin­quent, accord­ing to records released Tues­day.

They sent a war­rant out for his arrest the next day, one day before he was killed in a shootout with Texas author­i­ties and a day after police now say they think he was involved in the slay­ing of Col­orado pris­ons chief Tom Clements.

“We have to do bet­ter in the future,” said Tim Hand, direc­tor of the Depart­ment of Correction’s parole divi­sion.

Evan Spencer Ebel had been a mod­el parolee until his elec­tronic mon­i­tor­ing bracelet stopped work­ing March 14. Before that, he called in dai­ly, even once call­ing in alarm because no one had request­ed his week­ly uri­nal­y­sis test to show he hadn’t been using drugs. . . .

. . . . Judi­cial offi­cials acknowl­edged Mon­day that Ebel’s pre­vi­ous felony con­vic­tion was inac­cu­rately record­ed and his release in Jan­u­ary was an error. . . .

 

Discussion

8 comments for “Update on Killing of Legal Professionals and White Supremacist Prison Syndicates”

  1. http://edition.cnn.com/2013/04/02/us/aryan-brotherhood-texas-profile/

    Explain­er: What is the Aryan Broth­er­hood of Texas?
    By Hol­ly Yan and Deb­o­rah Fey­er­ick, CNN
    April 2, 2013 — Updat­ed 1059 GMT (1859 HKT)
    Watch this video
    Rules for one of the most vio­lent gangs
    STORY HIGHLIGHTS

    The Aryan Broth­er­hood of Texas has been blamed for more than 100 homi­cides
    Author­i­ties have not made a clear link between the group and two pros­e­cu­tors’ deaths
    The Kauf­man Coun­ty DA’s office had helped pros­e­cute some of the gangs’ mem­bers
    The Aryan Broth­er­hood of Texas was denied mem­ber­ship in the Aryan Broth­er­hood

    (CNN) — As inves­ti­ga­tors scram­ble to fig­ure out who killed two Texas pros­e­cu­tors, sus­pi­cions abound over whether the Aryan Broth­er­hood of Texas played a role.

    Author­i­ties have not offi­cial­ly linked the two slay­ings, nor do they know whether the white suprema­cist group ordered the attacks.

    But a series of events lead­ing up to the killings have raised ques­tions about the group’s pos­si­ble involve­ment.

    Here’s a primer on the Aryan Broth­er­hood of Texas:

    What is the Aryan Broth­er­hood of Texas?
    Ruth­less Aryan Broth­er­hood of Texas

    The FBI describes the group as a “whites only,” prison-based gang that has been oper­at­ing since at least the 1980s.

    “I think the Aryan Broth­er­hood of Texas today is arguably the most vio­lent white suprema­cist prison gang out there,” said Mark Potok of the South­ern Pover­ty Law Cen­ter.

    The group has been blamed for more than 100 homi­cides and at least 10 kid­nap­pings since the ear­ly 1980s.

    Is the Aryan Broth­er­hood of Texas part of the Aryan Broth­er­hood?

    No.

    Inmates in Texas asked the Aryan Broth­er­hood, a Cal­i­for­nia-based prison gang, for per­mis­sion to start a Texas chap­ter, but they were denied mem­ber­ship, the South­ern Pover­ty Law Cen­ter said. It’s not clear why.

    Nonethe­less, the Texas-based group mod­eled itself after the Cal­i­for­nia gang.

    What does the Aryan Broth­er­hood of Texas stand for?

    Like the Aryan Broth­er­hood, the Texas group’s main pur­pose mor­phed from pro­tect­ing white inmates to crim­i­nal activ­i­ties involv­ing drugs, extor­tion and mur­ders, author­i­ties say. It also espous­es a white suprema­cist ide­ol­o­gy.

    “At the end of the day, these orga­ni­za­tions are real­ly fun­da­men­tal­ly crim­i­nal enter­pris­es,” Potok said. “That means, above all, their inter­est is in green. In mon­ey. Skin col­or comes long after that.”

    Its reach began to extend out­side prison walls as more mem­bers fin­ished their sen­tences. ABT mem­bers on parole are required not only to remain loy­al to the gang, but also to recruit new mem­bers.

    “Bru­tal beat­ings, fire bomb­ings, drug traf­fick­ing and mur­der are all part of ABT’s alleged stan­dard oper­at­ing pro­ce­dures,” said Lan­ny Breuer, a for­mer Assis­tant U.S. Attor­ney Gen­er­al.

    Did the group play a role in the deaths of Kauf­man Coun­ty Dis­trict Attor­ney Mike McLel­land and Assis­tant Dis­trict Attor­ney Mark Has­se?

    Author­i­ties don’t know.

    But McLel­land’s office was one of numer­ous agen­cies involved in a mul­ti-year inves­ti­ga­tion that led to the indict­ment of 34 alleged mem­bers of the ABT — includ­ing four of its senior lead­ers — on rack­e­teer­ing charges in Novem­ber.

    At the time, Breuer called the indict­ment a “dev­as­tat­ing blow” to the orga­ni­za­tion.

    Weeks lat­er, the Texas Depart­ment of Pub­lic Safe­ty issued a statewide warn­ing say­ing it had “cred­i­ble infor­ma­tion” that mem­bers of the group were plan­ning to retal­i­ate.

    In an inter­view with The Asso­ci­at­ed Press after Has­se’s death, McLel­land said his deputy had­n’t been involved in the Aryan Broth­er­hood of Texas inves­ti­ga­tion. But the dis­trict attor­ney nev­er­the­less raised the pos­si­bil­i­ty the group was behind the death.

    “We put some real dents in the Aryan Broth­er­hood around here in the past year,” McLel­land told the news agency.

    How do mem­bers join the Aryan Broth­er­hood of Texas?

    “It is said to be one of the gangs that live by the ‘blood-in, blood-out’ code, mean­ing that you can only get into ABT by car­ry­ing out some kind of attack,” Potok said. “And sim­i­lar­ly ... you can only leave in a body bag.”

    Posted by Vanfield | April 6, 2013, 11:01 pm

  2. An update: inves­ti­ga­tors are reit­er­at­ing that the two 211 gang mem­bers sought by author­i­ties are not sus­pects in Clements’ mur­der (noth­ing spec­i­fied on Nathan Leon’s mur­der) while not­ing that the two were in fre­quent con­tact with Ebel in the 24 to 36 the hours before Clements was assas­si­nat­ed:

    The Den­ver Chan­nel
    James Lohr arrest­ed after throw­ing gun from car dur­ing chase
    Police recov­er gun shown being picked up in video

    Post­ed: 04/05/2013
    Last Updat­ed: 3 days ago

    COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Police have arrest­ed one of the two want­ed men whose names came up dur­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion into the mur­der of Col­orado prison chief Tom Clements.

    Inves­ti­ga­tors said 47-year-old James Lohr tossed a gun from his car as he was being chased ear­ly Fri­day.

    Col­orado Springs Police said offi­cers tried to pull Lohr over at 1:30 a.m. as he was leav­ing a busi­ness along Plat­te Avenue, east of Union Boule­vard. A short vehi­cle pur­suit fol­lowed and Lohr fled on foot after the vehi­cle he was dri­ving became dis­abled near Bijou Street and Han­cock Avenue, police said. A search of the area was con­duct­ed and Lohr was tak­en into cus­tody with­out inci­dent.

    Lohr was booked into the El Paso Coun­ty Crim­i­nal Jus­tice Cen­ter for inves­ti­ga­tion of felony elud­ing, sev­er­al traf­fic offens­es, and for the three out­stand­ing arrest war­rants unre­lat­ed to the inves­ti­ga­tion.

    The sher­if­f’s office said Lohr tossed a gun out of his car dur­ing the chase and a man picked up the gun on the side­walk. A video from a busi­ness sur­veil­lance sys­tem in the 2300 block of East Bijou Street shows a firearm being thrown from the vehi­cle Lohr was oper­at­ing dur­ing the pur­suit. The video goes on to show what appears to be two adult males find­ing the gun and one of the men picks it up and sets it back down. The two men return lat­er and the same man picks up the gun and they leave with it.

    The sher­if­f’s office said lat­er that the weapon had been recov­ered.

    “The gun was turned into law enforce­ment by an indi­vid­ual who received the gun from the per­son depict­ed in the pre­vi­ous­ly released video. We appre­ci­ate their coop­er­a­tion,” a state­ment issued late Fri­day said.

    A “Be On The Look­out” order is still in effect for Lohr’s asso­ciate, 31-year-old Thomas Guolee. Goulee is con­sid­ered armed and dan­ger­ous with vio­lent ten­den­cies, offi­cials said.

    Lohr and Goulee were in fre­quent con­tact with mur­der sus­pect Evan Ebel 24 to 36 hours before Clements was killed, accord­ing to ABC News.

    Lt. Jeff Kramer with the El Paso Coun­ty Sher­if­f’s Office said the two men are “asso­ciates” of the 211 Crew, the same prison gang that Ebel belonged to.

    Ebel was linked to the prison chief’s shoot­ing death after he was killed in a gun­fight with Texas law enforce­ment. In addi­tion to dri­ving a vehi­cle that matched the one seen out­side of Clements’ home, Kramer announced bal­lis­tic evi­dence also linked the weapon he used in Texas to the mur­der.

    The sher­if­f’s office reit­er­at­ed that the two men are not named as sus­pects in Clements’ mur­der.

    ...

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | April 8, 2013, 2:55 pm

  3. It sounds like Evan Ebel had a longer list of offi­cials he was ordered to assas­si­nate and the 211 Crew is con­tin­ue to issue those hit orders:

    211 Crew put hit on El Paso Coun­ty judge who signed search war­rants in Clements mur­der inves­ti­ga­tion
    By Kirk Mitchell
    The Den­ver Post
    Post­ed: 08/25/2013 09:47:47 PM MDT
    Updat­ed: 08/26/2013 10:51:33 AM MDT

    An El Paso Coun­ty judge went into hid­ing ear­li­er this month, bought a gun and was placed under police pro­tec­tion after being warned that 211 Crew prison gang lead­ers had ordered a “hit” against him in retal­i­a­tion for his part in the inves­ti­ga­tion into the slay­ing of pris­ons chief Tom Clements, accord­ing to a source famil­iar with the case.

    A key source spoke to The Den­ver Post on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty because he is not autho­rized to release infor­ma­tion about the mul­ti-state inves­ti­ga­tion involv­ing the FBI, El Paso Coun­ty Sher­if­f’s Office and oth­er law enforce­ment agen­cies.

    The source, who has direct access to and knowl­edge of sealed court doc­u­ments includ­ing inves­tiga­tive files, ver­i­fied details of the inves­ti­ga­tion, includ­ing alle­ga­tions that the assas­si­na­tion of Clements was ordered by lead­ers of the white suprema­cist prison gang. The source also offered new insight into the actions of Evan Ebel, a parolee who offi­cials say killed Clements and piz­za deliv­ery dri­ver Nathan Leon in March before being killed in a shootout with deputies in Texas.

    El Paso Coun­ty Judge Jonathan L. Walk­er, who served in the U.S. Army Spe­cial Forces dur­ing the Viet­nam War and was a Col­orado pub­lic defend­er, took a leave of absence this month for his own pro­tec­tion after three crim­i­nal sources, includ­ing two jail infor­mants, warned that 211 Crew lead­ers planned to kill him, the source said.

    Despite infor­ma­tion from the source, Col­orado State Court Admin­is­tra­tor’s spokesman Jon Sarche said no judge from the El Paso Coun­ty courts has been on leave.

    Walk­er had signed rough­ly 20 search war­rants against numer­ous mem­bers of the white suprema­cist prison gang allow­ing inves­ti­ga­tors to search gang lead­ers’ homes and cell­phone records for evi­dence poten­tial­ly tying them to the Clements slay­ing con­spir­a­cy, the source said.

    Walk­er took secu­ri­ty pre­cau­tions, includ­ing buy­ing a .380-cal­iber hand­gun, mov­ing out of his house and wear­ing a bul­let­proof vest, the source said.

    Dur­ing the two weeks of leave, Walk­er went into hid­ing after Col­orado Springs SWAT team mem­bers told him he was a “sit­ting duck” at his home on a busy street, the source said. Police have pro­vid­ed secu­ri­ty for the judge, who is to return to his court­room Mon­day morn­ing.

    The death threats came to light through a series of con­tacts between crim­i­nal sources and law enforce­ment in the past month.

    “It is true there is a death threat that came out of the (El Paso Coun­ty) jail,” the source said.

    One inmate told a jail lieu­tenant that gang mem­bers were after a pros­e­cu­tor or judge by the name of Walk­er. One of the judge’s for­mer legal clients called the judge direct­ly and warned him about the threats.

    “These guys are seri­ous,” the source said. “Whether it’s legit or just jail talk to wield influ­ence, I don’t know. Who is going to take a chance on that?”

    The infor­mants told jail super­vi­sors that 211 Crew mem­bers also were send­ing out orders to oth­er paroled gang mem­bers instruct­ing them to com­mit new crimes or vio­late parole rules so that they could return to prison and strength­en their ranks behind bars.

    “These guys think dif­fer­ent­ly than you or I,” the source said.

    The source said inves­ti­ga­tors sort­ing through Ebel’s belong­ings after his death dis­cov­ered a list iden­ti­fy­ing Clements and oth­er offi­cials as pos­si­ble tar­gets.

    Oth­er state author­i­ties, includ­ing Gov. John Hick­en­loop­er, have been under spe­cial pro­tec­tion since Clements was killed.

    For­mer DOC parole Direc­tor Tim Hand said 211 Crew mem­bers also tar­get­ed him in an assas­si­na­tion plot, accord­ing to cor­re­spon­dence between gang mem­bers inter­cept­ed by inves­ti­ga­tors.

    ...

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | August 26, 2013, 11:12 am

  4. It sounds like Homaid­an al-Tur­ki is still a per­son of inter­est in the ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tion of the motive behind the mur­der of Tom Clements. Inves­ti­ga­tors have deter­mined that Ebel was pay­ing back 211 Crew’s leader, Ben­jamin Davis, by com­mit­ting the mur­der by the under­ly­ing motive is still unknown. Ties between Davis and al-Tur­ki are still being inves­ti­gat­ed:

    Evan Ebel may have killed pris­ons chief to repay 211 Crew favor
    By Kirk Mitchell
    The Den­ver Post
    Post­ed: 08/26/2013 02:36:02 PM MDT

    The founder of the 211 Crew pro­tect­ed Evan Ebel after a rival prison gang tar­get­ed the white suprema­cist sol­dier for vio­lence at Ster­ling Cor­rec­tion­al Facil­i­ty. That left the young gang mem­ber with a debt author­i­ties sus­pect he repaid by killing pris­ons chief Tom Clements.

    FBI and El Paso Coun­ty inves­ti­ga­tors have been work­ing for months to piece togeth­er the inves­ti­ga­tion into the mur­der of Clements and piz­za deliv­ery dri­ver Nathan Leon in March.

    A source who spoke to The Den­ver Post on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty described details of the inves­ti­ga­tion con­tained in sealed court doc­u­ments. The source has direct access to and knowl­edge of the doc­u­ments and the inves­ti­ga­tion itself.

    Inves­ti­ga­tors now believe they have answers to two key ques­tions raised by the killings: Was Ebel act­ing alone or under orders? And why did Ebel flee to Texas, where he was killed in a shootout with law enforce­ment offi­cers?

    Answers to two oth­er cen­tral ques­tions appar­ent­ly remain elu­sive: Why was Clements tar­get­ed? And did the mur­der plot involve a Sau­di inmate impris­oned in Col­orado?

    One thing is clear, the source said. Both while in prison and after his release in Jan­u­ary, Ebel was firm­ly entrenched in the 211 Crew, the white suprema­cist prison gang found­ed by “shot caller” Ben­jamin Davis.

    Fed­er­al and state agents and inves­ti­ga­tors in two states are try­ing to learn whether Davis and a cir­cle of paroled gang mem­bers orches­trat­ed the assas­si­na­tion of Clements in part by help­ing Ebel kill Leon, mere­ly to obtain his Domi­no’s uni­form for the mur­der plot.

    Inves­ti­ga­tors believe the idea to recruit Ebel to kill Clements orig­i­nat­ed at the Ster­ling prison, where Davis and Ebel were serv­ing sen­tences at the same time, the source says.

    Ebel, who was already a 211 Crew mem­ber, was tar­get­ed for reprisal by a rival gang at the prison, which hous­es Col­orado’s death row and a large admin­is­tra­tive seg­re­ga­tion unit, accord­ing to the source. It’s unclear why Ebel was marked for vio­lence, but in Feb­ru­ary 2011 Ebel was placed in an admin­is­tra­tive seg­re­ga­tion cell after he fought with anoth­er inmate.

    “Ebel had been threat­ened,” the source said. “Davis stepped in and saved him.”

    Davis, 38, then told Ebel he expect­ed a favor for sav­ing his life upon his release from prison, the source said. The deci­sion to tar­get Clements may not have been decid­ed at the time.

    One the­o­ry inves­ti­ga­tors con­tin­ue to con­sid­er, the source said, is that the deci­sion to tar­get Clements came after he reject­ed a request by Sau­di inmate Homaid­an al-Tur­ki to return to his native coun­try to com­plete his prison sen­tence for sex­u­al­ly assault­ing his maid. That deci­sion came one week before Clements was killed on the night of March 19. Inves­ti­ga­tors are try­ing to deter­mine whether there are ties, finan­cial or oth­er­wise, between al-Tur­ki and the 211 Crew.

    Lawyers for al-Tur­ki have denied their client was involved in any way.

    Anoth­er pos­si­bil­i­ty is that Davis had his own moti­va­tion to go after the head of the Depart­ment of Cor­rec­tions.

    Short­ly after Davis saved Ebel, DOC offi­cials trans­ferred Davis to Bue­na Vista Cor­rec­tion­al Facil­i­ty to split up the 211 Crew pow­er base at Ster­ling, DOC offi­cials have said.

    Inves­ti­ga­tors believe Davis was incensed because Bue­na Vista is a pow­er base for a rival white suprema­cist gang, the Aryan Broth­er­hood.

    “In essence, it stripped him of his pow­er base,” the source said.

    Fol­low­ing Ebel’s parole in Jan­u­ary, he was in fre­quent con­tact with 211 Crew mem­bers, his cell­phone records con­firm. Author­i­ties believe gang mem­bers gave him mon­ey to buy a car, got him his mis­matched license plates and helped arrange the piz­za theft in which Ebel shot Leon on March 17, the source said.

    “Ebel was­n’t the bright­est bulb on the plan­et,” the source said. “He could­n’t have done this on his own.”

    After he cut his parole ankle mon­i­tor­ing bracelet, Ebel stayed in a Den­ver hotel with a woman await­ing orders, the source said.

    Inves­ti­ga­tors have con­clud­ed that gang mem­bers steered him to Clements’ home, tucked back in a wood­ed neigh­bor­hood of Mon­u­ment, about an hour south of Den­ver, the source said. After killing Clements on March 19, Ebel drove to Col­orado Springs and stayed at a “safe house” arranged by gang mem­bers, the source said inves­ti­ga­tors believe. Two days lat­er, Ebel set out for Texas.

    Inves­ti­ga­tors have con­clud­ed that Ebel was dri­ving to the home of a paroled 211 Crew mem­ber, who lived south of Dal­las, the source said. Ebel, 28, was killed in a shootout with Texas law­men on March 21.

    Inves­ti­ga­tors found Ebel’s cell­phone and imme­di­ate­ly began track­ing all the calls he made on parole, includ­ing calls to the 211 Crew mem­ber in Texas. The gang mem­ber has since been arrest­ed for vio­lat­ing parole by hav­ing con­tact with oth­er gang mem­bers, the source said.

    El Paso Coun­ty Judge Jonathon L. Walk­er signed about 20 search war­rants, allow­ing inves­ti­ga­tors to track the move­ments of 211 Crew mem­bers, includ­ing the Texas gang mem­ber.

    Walk­er him­self went into hid­ing ear­li­er this month after being warned that the 211 Crew had put out a “hit” on him in retal­i­a­tion for his role in the inves­ti­ga­tion, the source said. The chief judge for El Paso Coun­ty on Mon­day con­firmed threats were made against Walk­er.

    ....

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | August 27, 2013, 1:39 pm

  5. Per­haps this is off-base because I don’t under­stand the struc­ture of Ara­bic names;

    But is it pos­si­ble that the al-Tur­ki in the Col­orado prison is relat­ed to “Prince Tur­ki” (Tren­to, “Pre­lude to Ter­ror” page 102, The Safari Club)

    I know that when al-Tur­ki was impris­oned on slav­ery and abuse charges he had huge sup­port from the Sau­di Roy­al fam­i­ly. If I remem­ber cor­rect­ly, the attor­ney gen­er­al for the state of Col­orado actu­al­ly went to meet with the Roy­al Fam­i­ly over the issue...

    Posted by Swamp | August 28, 2013, 10:35 am

  6. @Swamp: That’s a good ques­tion because it’s kind of ambigu­ous. There are lots of blogs and non-main­stream reports that refer to “Prince” Homaid­an al-Tur­ki, but I’m unable to find any main­stream reports that back up that prince­ly sta­tus. And Yes, there were reports from 2006, right around when al-Tur­ki was sen­tenced, about the Col­orado attor­ney gen­er­al trav­el­ing to Sau­di Ara­bia and meet­ing with the roy­al fam­i­ly and mem­bers of al-Turk­i’s fam­i­ly to assuage con­cerns over the sen­tenc­ing. So it cer­tain­ly sounds like al-Tur­ki could be either roy­al­ty or from a fam­i­ly close to the roy­al fam­i­ly, but it’s unclear:

    The Den­ver Post
    Sau­di king hears Auro­ra sex-slave case
    Attor­ney Gen­er­al John Suthers vis­it­ed the Mid­dle East to ease con­cerns about the sen­tence imposed on an Auro­ra man.
    By Car­los Illescas
    Den­ver Post Staff Writer
    Post­ed: 11/18/2006 01:00:00 AM MST

    Attor­ney Gen­er­al John Suthers is due back from Sau­di Ara­bia on Sat­ur­day night after spend­ing sev­er­al days meet­ing with Sau­di King Abdul­lah and oth­er high-rank­ing offi­cials about a man who was con­vict­ed of sex­u­al­ly assault­ing a woman and keep­ing her enslaved in his Auro­ra home.

    Suthers went there at the request of the U.S. ambas­sador in Sau­di Ara­bia and the U.S. State Depart­ment to ease the Sau­di roy­al fam­i­ly’s con­cerns over whether Homaid­an Al-Tur­ki, 37, was treat­ed fair­ly when he was sen­tenced in Sep­tem­ber to 20 years to life in prison.

    A lin­guis­tics doc­tor­al can­di­date at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Col­orado, Al-Tur­ki also was sen­tenced to eight years for unlaw­ful sex­u­al con­tact and eight years for theft.

    “It was deemed nec­es­sary to go over there and defend the good name of Col­orado and explain how our crim­i­nal sys­tem works,” Deputy Col­orado Attor­ney Gen­er­al Jason Dunn said.

    Dunn said the roy­al fam­i­ly and the Sau­di pub­lic were mis­in­formed about the Al-Tur­ki sen­tenc­ing. Suthers met with King Abdul­lah, the Crown Prince Sul­tan and mem­bers of the defen­dan­t’s fam­i­ly.

    Suthers left on Sun­day and spent about four days in Sau­di Ara­bia, Dunn said. He said the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment paid for most, if not all, of the trip.

    Al-Tur­ki was con­vict­ed June 30 of forc­ing a 24-year-old Indone­sian woman to cook and clean and take care of the fam­i­ly, includ­ing five chil­dren, with lit­tle pay.

    The vic­tim slept on a mat­tress on the base­ment floor, was paid less than $2 a day, and Al-Tur­ki even­tu­al­ly intim­i­dat­ed her into sex acts that cul­mi­nat­ed in her rape in late 2004, accord­ing to pros­e­cu­tors.

    ...

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | August 28, 2013, 8:05 pm

  7. The Den­ver Post has a big new report on the motive for Evan Ebel’s killing of Tom Clements. Accord­ing to the report, it was a 211 gang hit intend­ed to put Evan back in the good graces of the 211 lead­er­ship:

    The Den­ver Post

    White suprema­cist gang con­spired to kill Col­orado pris­ons direc­tor, new doc­u­ments allege
    Doc­u­ments obtained by Den­ver Post shed new light on Evan Ebel’s move­ments sur­round­ing the killing of Tom Clements

    By Kirk Mitchell |
    May 27, 2016 | UPDATED: 5 days ago

    New doc­u­ments obtained by The Den­ver Post quote Texas law enforce­ment offi­cials say­ing what Col­orado author­i­ties still will not: The assas­si­na­tion of pris­ons direc­tor Tom Clements was orches­trat­ed by a white suprema­cist prison gang.

    The Texas doc­u­ments, obtained through an open-records request, reveal a spi­der­web of phone calls between gun­man Evan Ebel and fel­low mem­bers of the 211 Crew in the days before and after Clements’ killing on March 19, 2013. Some of those calls came two days lat­er while Ebel was lead­ing Texas law­men on a 100 mph chase that led to a crash and, ulti­mate­ly, his death in a shootout.

    After inves­ti­ga­tors retrieved phone num­bers from the phones Ebel had been using, author­i­ties in Texas and Col­orado made six arrests, half of them nev­er pre­vi­ous­ly report­ed.

    The arrests stemmed from the gang mem­bers’ deal­ings with Ebel, but none was direct­ly linked to Clements’ killing, which remains offi­cial­ly unsolved more than three years lat­er.

    At this stage, there is no per­son of inter­est” or sus­pects in the Clements case, El Paso Coun­ty Sher­iff Bill Elder told The Post last year.

    But a May 28, 2013, report of inves­ti­ga­tion by Texas Ranger James Hol­land could not have been more clear about inves­ti­ga­tors’ the­o­ry on the case.

    “The mur­der of the Col­orado Depart­ment of Cor­rec­tions direc­tor was ordered by hier­ar­chy of the 211 prison crew,” the report says.

    Holland’s 77-page report iden­ti­fies a dozen sus­pects or per­sons of inter­est who alleged­ly did every­thing from order­ing Clements’ assas­si­na­tion to help­ing Ebel flee to Texas.

    The report obtained from the Texas Rangers, inter­views by The Post with wit­ness­es and Col­orado court doc­u­ments offer the most com­plete pic­ture yet of Ebel’s move­ments, activ­i­ties and meet­ings in the days sur­round­ing the Clements killing.

    Although some peo­ple have ques­tioned whether Ebel act­ed alone, all of the signs point to mul­ti­ple deal­ings between Ebel and his fel­low gang mem­bers — itself a parole vio­la­tion because, as a parolee, Ebel was for­bid­den to asso­ciate with oth­er felons and gang mem­bers.

    Among the report’s major find­ings:

    • James “Jim­bo” Lohr, a gen­er­al in the 211 Crew and the gang’s rank­ing leader in Col­orado Springs, told a fel­low gang mem­ber that he ordered Ebel to assas­si­nate Clements. The gang mem­ber, who spoke to the Rangers as a con­fi­den­tial infor­mant, said the killing was ordered after Ebel had a falling out with the 211 Crew’s founder, Ben Davis, and the mur­der was an attempt to redeem him­self.

    • The infor­mant, JR, iden­ti­fied only as a 211 Crew sol­dier on parole in Texas, claimed Lohr also ordered him to help Ebel flee after Clements’ mur­der. JR told Texas Rangers that Ebel was “a stand-up guy.”

    • The night before Ebel killed Com­merce City father Nathan Leon and stole his Domino’s piz­za uni­form, Ebel paid $1,250 in cash on March 16, 2013, to an Auro­ra school teacher for her 1991 Cadil­lac DeV­ille. She told The Post that Ebel pulled out a thick roll of hun­dred dol­lar bills to pay her. She said she sought ther­a­py after learn­ing about the mur­ders.

    • Three days lat­er — just hours before he killed Clements, Ebel sat down for brunch with 211 Crew cap­tain Christo­pher “Hog” Mid­dle­ton and his wife at a south­ern Col­orado din­er and applied make­up to cov­er the Nazi tat­toos on his hands. Pos­ing as a piz­za deliv­ery man that night, Ebel shot Clements on the doorstep of his Mon­u­ment home and sped away in the black Cadil­lac.

    • Inves­ti­ga­tors exam­in­ing the Cadil­lac after Ebel’s death found a fin­ger­print on the trunk that belonged to Mid­dle­ton. Mid­dle­ton acknowl­edges he touched the car the same day Ebel killed Clements, but he denies pri­or knowl­edge of the assas­si­na­tion.

    • Inves­ti­ga­tors also found DNA on a gal­va­nized steel pipe bomb in the Cadil­lac trunk that Texas Rangers say is tied to a pre­vi­ous­ly unknown third mur­der in the case, in Col­orado Springs. Texas author­i­ties Thurs­day said the find­ing was shared with El Paso Coun­ty sheriff’s inves­ti­ga­tors, but Col­orado Springs police say they are unaware of any such evi­dence. Agents search­ing the car also found a hit list of oth­er Col­orado offi­cials.

    • Inves­ti­ga­tors traced hun­dreds of calls and text mes­sages made by four dif­fer­ent phones used by Ebel and a half dozen 211 Crew mem­bers up until April 4, 2013.

    Dis­trac­tions

    The Clements case, per­haps the high­est pro­file mur­der in Col­orado his­to­ry, has been mired in con­flict between pros­e­cu­tors and an El Paso Coun­ty Sheriff’s Office dis­tract­ed by office pol­i­tics, sex­u­al scan­dals and pos­si­ble crim­i­nal wrong­do­ing.

    The sher­iff at the time, Ter­ry Make­ta — along with two fel­low top offi­cials — on Wednes­day was indict­ed by a grand jury on var­i­ous cor­rup­tion charges. He stepped down in late 2014.

    Much of the evi­dence not­ed in the Texas report, devel­oped by scores of Texas, Col­orado and fed­er­al law enforce­ment offi­cers, was either fun­neled to Col­orado author­i­ties or devel­oped by the lead inves­tiga­tive agency, the El Paso Coun­ty Sheriff’s Office.

    Juan San Agustin, who led the department’s Clements inves­ti­ga­tion for 19 months before he resigned in 2014, has crit­i­cized the deci­sion by Elder, the cur­rent sher­iff, to reduce the num­ber of inves­ti­ga­tors on the case to just one deputy.

    San Agustin also crit­i­cized Dis­trict Attor­ney Dan May’s deci­sion to pull his most expe­ri­enced homi­cide pros­e­cu­tor, Jef­frey Lind­sey, from the case after Lind­sey worked inten­sive­ly on the case for sev­er­al months.

    San Agustin and Make­ta said requests for crim­i­nal charges were repeat­ed­ly made to May’s office. May has denied that such requests were made.

    San Agustin and a for­mer under­sh­er­iff are the two oth­er offi­cials indict­ed Wednes­day.

    Elder and May have declined mul­ti­ple requests for inter­views because the Clements inves­ti­ga­tion is ongo­ing. Short­ly after he took office in 2015, Elder said there were no sus­pects or per­sons of inter­est in the Clements homi­cide and promised a new top-to-bot­tom inves­ti­ga­tion of the case. Elder’s spokes­woman, Jacque­line Kir­by, said only one sheriff’s inves­ti­ga­tor remains on the case.

    Too late?

    It is pos­si­ble pros­e­cu­tors have already missed their oppor­tu­ni­ty to hold some of the con­spir­a­tors account­able for less­er roles in the mur­der and escape. The Col­orado statute of lim­i­ta­tions for “acces­so­ry after the fact, mur­der” is three years, said Kris McDaniel-Mic­cio, a law pro­fes­sor at the Sturm Col­lege of Law at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Den­ver.

    “By not charg­ing peo­ple who har­bor or help killers, you send a mes­sage that it’s appro­pri­ate,” McDaniel-Mic­cio said. “If they are not held account­able, there is the fear that they could com­mit oth­er crimes.”

    Acces­so­ry after the fact, mur­der, is a felony offense with a penal­ty range of one to six years in prison, depend­ing on the cir­cum­stances, McDaniel-Mic­cio said.

    “If that per­son had a vio­lent crim­i­nal his­to­ry, I would ask for the max­i­mum,” said McDaniel-Mic­cio, who was a New York state pros­e­cu­tor in the Bronx.

    Although pos­si­ble co-con­spir­a­tors deny pri­or knowl­edge of the mur­ders of Leon and Clements, exten­sive phone records appear to cor­rob­o­rate alle­ga­tions they had roles in assist­ing Ebel while he was flee­ing Col­orado.

    Accord­ing to the Texas Ranger’s report, it is clear that inves­ti­ga­tors were pur­su­ing a pos­si­ble con­spir­a­cy ear­ly on.

    JR, the 211 Crew mem­ber who spoke to Hol­land on con­di­tion of immu­ni­ty from pros­e­cu­tion, told the Ranger that Ebel was ordered to kill Clements to make amends to Davis, the gang’s founder and caller of the shots.

    JR said Davis had been angered by crit­i­cism from Ebel of the way gang mem­bers were com­mu­ni­cat­ing with one anoth­er, the report says.

    Ebel had been demot­ed from “sol­dier” to “prospect,” and told JR while both were still behind bars that Ebel would have to do some “wild (exple­tive)” for Davis on the out­side to redeem him­self, the report says..

    Davis was touchy about such crit­i­cism after slop­py com­mu­ni­ca­tions among gang mem­bers had result­ed in rack­e­teer­ing con­vic­tions and life prison sen­tences against him and oth­er top 211 Crew lead­ers in 2008.

    Days after Ebel’s release on parole in Jan­u­ary 2013, 211 Crew mem­ber Den­nis Simon­ton, then an inmate at Ster­ling Cor­rec­tion­al Facil­i­ty, called his wife, Crys­tal, and gave her instruc­tions to help Ebel, Crys­tal Simon­ton said in an inter­view at her home.

    He gave her Ebel’s phone num­ber, she said. She was nev­er told Ebel was plan­ning to kill Clements, but she ran dai­ly errands for him and drove him across the Den­ver area, she said.

    She said she lat­er refused to buy a gun for Ebel and that she was afraid he planned to kill her.

    Crys­tal told The Post that the 211 Crew founder had noth­ing to do with Clements’ killing.

    Many phone calls

    The Texas report details a series of phone calls between var­i­ous 211 Crew mem­bers in the months after Ebel’s release from prison, either to or from him or made on his behalf.

    Ebel called JR, who then asked Christo­pher Mid­dle­ton to help find Ebel a place to stay on the night of March 18, 2013, — the day after Leon was killed and the day before Clements was killed, the report says. Ebel also called anoth­er 211 Crew gang mem­ber, whose name was redact­ed from the Texas report, and a prison asso­ciate then on parole in Texas named Rueben Sus­tai­ta, an admit­ted mem­ber of the Sureños street gang and who was enrolled in a culi­nary arts school in Austin.

    In a recent phone inter­view, Mid­dle­ton acknowl­edged speak­ing with Ebel by phone. Middleton’s wife, Jacque­line, said he arranged for Ebel to stay at the home of a close friend, Thomas Schuler, who lived in Foun­tain. Schuler was referred to as Middleton’s broth­er in the Texas report.

    Ebel arrived at Schuler’s house late on March 18. Schuler told author­i­ties he had no idea why Ebel was stay­ing at his home, doc­u­ments indi­cate.

    The next morn­ing, Christo­pher and Jacque­line Mid­dle­ton met Ebel in Foun­tain at Coke’s Din­er, a 1950s-style restau­rant with posters of Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe and Elvis Pres­ley and across the street from the Foun­tain Police Depart­ment. The own­er of the restau­rant con­firmed the meet­ing.

    Jacque­line recalled Ebel apply­ing women’s make­up to cov­er gang tat­toos on his hands while wait­ing for his meal of chick­en-fried chick­en smoth­ered in pep­per gravy, eggs, hash browns and toast. She lat­er real­ized this was part of Ebel’s piz­za-deliv­ery dis­guise. Ebel talked about mak­ing his way to Cos­ta Rica, where his moth­er lived.

    Ebel had a wad of cash and tipped the wait­ress $100, Christo­pher Mid­dle­ton said.

    Christo­pher Mid­dle­ton, a con­struc­tion work­er, said Ebel told him he was in Foun­tain to hang out. He said he didn’t know about any plans by Ebel to kill Clements.

    Lat­er that after­noon, Ebel showed up at the Col­orado Springs home of Eric Trux­al, an acquain­tance of 211 Crew mem­ber Thomas “Ghost” Guolee’s.

    Ebel was look­ing for “Ghost,” Trux­al told The Post, but Guolee had just left with some­one else. Ebel then used Truxal’s phone for about five min­utes and left, he said.

    “His aura put off some­thing you don’t want to get,” said Trux­al, who says he had no idea what Ebel was plan­ning. “It was a scary emo­tion. You could just feel the evil pour­ing out of him. I nev­er met some­one who was going to kill some­one.”

    Ebel shot Clements at about 8:40 p.m. on March 19. Near­ly an hour lat­er, he called Middleton’s cell­phone, but Mid­dle­ton was snor­ing on the couch, Jacque­line Mid­dle­ton said. When she looked at the phone and noticed the call was from Ebel, she said she decid­ed not to answer.

    Mid­dle­ton called JR on March 20, accord­ing to the Texas records. When he found out he had missed a call, JR called Middleton’s phone and Lohr answered the call, the report says.

    Lohr, who answered the phone by say­ing “Jim­bo,” asked JR whether he had heard from Ebel recent­ly. He also said Ebel was head­ed south after he had “done some­thing.” Lohr then asked him whether he had heard about the Clements mur­der, the report says.

    When JR said he had heard about the shoot­ing, Lohr said, “I had him do that,” the report says. JR asked Lohr why he had had Ebel kill Clements.

    “‘Don’t wor­ry about it,’” JR quot­ed Lohr as alleged­ly say­ing. Lohr ordered JR to “look after” Ebel if he came his way, the report says.

    In a sub­se­quent phone call with Mid­dle­ton, the infor­mant said Mid­dle­ton was “freaked out” and upset because he had been asked to find Ebel a place to stay with­out know­ing what the gang mem­ber was going to do.

    JR said Ebel called him on March 21, the day that Ebel shot Mon­tague Coun­ty Sheriff’s Deputy James Boyd dur­ing a rou­tine traf­fic stop in Texas. JR told Texas Rangers that he believed Ebel called him right after the shoot­ing because a “freaked out” Ebel told him: “Come get me … (I’m) in a bind.”

    With­in min­utes, Ebel died after being shot in the head dur­ing the shootout with Texas law­men.

    ...

    “James “Jim­bo” Lohr, a gen­er­al in the 211 Crew and the gang’s rank­ing leader in Col­orado Springs, told a fel­low gang mem­ber that he ordered Ebel to assas­si­nate Clements. The gang mem­ber, who spoke to the Rangers as a con­fi­den­tial infor­mant, said the killing was ordered after Ebel had a falling out with the 211 Crew’s founder, Ben Davis, and the mur­der was an attempt to redeem him­self.”
    Well, the fact that Clements’s mur­der was ordered by 211’s lead­er­ship is not a par­tic­u­lar­ly sur­pris­ing con­clu­sion. But it’s also worth not­ing that this report still leaves open the ques­tion of why Clements, along with a num­ber of oth­er offi­cials on the “hit list” found in Ebel’s car, were the 211 lead­er­ship’s cho­sen tar­gets.

    So, with El Paso’s sher­iff assert­ing that the inves­ti­ga­tion is still ongo­ing, let’s hope the ques­tion of why Clements was tar­get­ed in a man­ner that was guar­an­teed to bring a lot of heat to the 211 lead­ers that called this hit is part of that ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tion. And let’s also hope they haven’t stopped look­ing into the pos­si­bil­i­ty that this his was being paid for Homaid­an Al-Tur­ki. Espe­cial­ly after al-Turk­i’s name showed up repeat­ed­ly in new­ly declas­si­fied doc­u­ments from the Joint Ter­ror­ism Task Force’s 9/11 inves­ti­ga­tion:

    KWGN.com

    Declas­si­fied doc­u­ments show pos­si­ble link between man in Col­orado and 9/11

    Post­ed 10:22 pm, May 24, 2016, by Julie Hay­den

    DENVER — There is a grow­ing call for the gov­ern­ment to release a secret, 28-page report on pos­si­ble Sau­di Ara­bi­an involve­ment in the 9/11 attacks.

    It dis­cuss­es peo­ple sus­pect­ed of sup­port­ing the hijack­ers while they were in the Unit­ed States. FOX31 Den­ver Prob­lem Solvers recent­ly obtained declas­si­fied doc­u­ments indi­cat­ing one of the pos­si­ble helpers might have been liv­ing in Col­orado.

    It’s a name we’ve told you about before – Homaid­an Al-Tur­ki, a Sau­di cit­i­zen liv­ing in metro Den­ver.

    In 2006, an Ara­pa­hoe Coun­ty jury con­vict­ed him of keep­ing his maid as a sex slave.

    Sev­en years lat­er he was in the news again. He was on the verge of being trans­ferred back home to Sau­di Ara­bia to serve his sen­tence there.

    But the FBI inter­vened and Depart­ment of Cor­rec­tions chief Tom Clements said no to the trans­fer. A week lat­er, Clements was mur­dered. The case is unsolved but there have been sus­pi­cions al-Tur­ki may have played a role.

    Prob­lem Solvers con­firmed the Joint Ter­ror­ism Task Force had been look­ing at al-Tur­ki for years.

    There’s nev­er been an expla­na­tion as to why the FBI moved to stop his trans­fer back to Sau­di Ara­bia but doc­u­ments from the Nation­al Archives might shed some light on that.

    They’re labeled “Work­plan: Pos­si­ble Sau­di Gov­ern­ment and Roy­al Fam­i­ly Con­nec­tions to the 9/11 Hijack­ers.”

    It’s 47 pages of notes and mem­os from the staff of the joint con­gres­sion­al inves­ti­ga­tion into the attacks.

    ...

    But the Nation­al Archives recent­ly released staff notes and Homaid­an al-Turki’s name comes up repeat­ed­ly as some­one to look into.

    The staff lists the names of pos­si­ble Sau­di gov­ern­ment con­nec­tions to the 9/11 attacks say­ing they are “some of the most impor­tant indi­vid­u­als with whom the hijack­ers may have had con­tact.” Homaid­an al-Tur­ki is on the list and described as a Sau­di stu­dent liv­ing in Col­orado with ties to the Sau­di Roy­al fam­i­ly and gov­ern­ment.

    In anoth­er sec­tion the Work­plan rais­es what it calls “key ques­tions.”

    1. Did any­one help fund or pro­vide sup­port for the 9/11 attacks?
    2. Were any indi­vid­u­als aware of the plot before the attacks?

    Al-Tur­ki is list­ed as some­one they want to inter­view about those ques­tions.

    One of the most sig­nif­i­cant sec­tions is one where the staff lists four ques­tions regard­ing al-Tur­ki.

    The report says the FBI claims al-Tur­ki was in con­tact with a Ger­man cell phone linked to one of the 9/1 hijack­ers. The hijack­ers and oth­er key play­ers in the 9/11 plot were part of a rad­i­cal Islam cell in Ger­many.

    The inves­ti­ga­tion staff want­ed to know whose phone was al-Tur­ki con­tact­ing, what was his rela­tion­ship to that per­son and was there any infor­ma­tion tying him to oth­ers involved in the attack or oth­er ter­ror­ist groups?

    We do not know what, if any­thing, the final 28-page report says about al-Tur­ki.

    He is serv­ing his prison sen­tence in anoth­er state and has always denied any involve­ment with ter­ror­ism.

    “The report says the FBI claims al-Tur­ki was in con­tact with a Ger­man cell phone linked to one of the 9/1 hijack­ers. The hijack­ers and oth­er key play­ers in the 9/11 plot were part of a rad­i­cal Islam cell in Ger­many.”
    Yeah, the more we learn about the mur­der of Tom Clements and the rest of Evan Ebel’s vic­tims, the less closed this case seems.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | June 1, 2016, 5:43 pm

  8. Regard­ing the recent rev­e­la­tion that Homaid­an al-Tur­ki was a per­son of inter­est in the 9/11 inves­ti­ga­tion, the recent­ly declas­si­fied 9/11 Joint Ter­ror­ism Task Form doc­u­ments with mul­ti­ple ref­er­ence to Homaid­an al-Tur­ki as a per­son of inter­est is avail­able here. Al-Tur­ki is ref­er­enced a half dozen times through­out the doc­u­ment, but it’s on page 37 in the sec­tion “Key Ques­tions Regard­ing Pos­si­ble Sau­di Gov­ern­ment and roy­al Fam­i­ly Con­nec­tions to the Sep­tem­ber 11 Hijack­ers and Oth­er Ter­ror­ists and Ter­ror­ist Groups” where you get most of the infor­ma­tion about what makes him a per­son of inter­ests:

    ...
    11. Homaid­an al-Tur­ki
    * FBI doc­u­ments note that al Tur­ki was in con­tact with a Ger­man cell phone linked to one of the Sep­tem­ber 11th hijack­ers. To whom did the Ger­man cell phone belong?
    * Have you deter­mined the nature of al Turk­i’s rela­tion­ship with this indi­vid­ual?
    * Have you devel­oped any addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion tying al Tur­ki to oth­er indi­vid­u­als con­nect­ed with the Sep­tem­ber 11 attacks?
    * What infor­ma­tion have you devel­oped tying al Tur­ki to al-Qa’i­da or to oth­er ter­ror­ist ele­ments? What ties does al Tur­ki have to the Sau­di Gov­ern­ment?
    ...

    Keep in mind that the doc­u­ment is from 2003, so hope­ful­ly these ques­tions were answered at some point. Also keep in mind that The New York Times describes this released report as “a glimpse into what is still con­tained in the clas­si­fied 28 pages of the con­gres­sion­al inquiry into the 2001 attacks.” So it’s pos­si­ble we’ll get some answers to those ques­tions rel­a­tive­ly soon if the 28 pages are final­ly released. Of course, if those 28 pages aren’t released, we’ll have a few more ques­tions to throw on the pile.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | June 3, 2016, 2:51 pm

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