Army Pfc. Bradley Manning is escorted to a courthouse in Fort Meade, Md., Wednesday for a pretrial military hearing. Manning is charged with causing hundreds of thousands of classified documents to be published on the secret-sharing website WikiLeaks. (Patrick Semansky/AP)
Bradley Manning trial may include Navy SEAL from Osama bin Laden raid
Of the 22 charges US Army Pfc. Bradley Manning faces for allegedly leaking classified information to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks, none is more serious than “aiding the enemy” in wartime.
Although military prosecutors could have sought the death penalty on this charge – which violates both the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) – they are pushing for a life sentence.
In a court-martial pretrial hearing Tuesday, Col. Denise Lind, the military judge in the case, ruled that the US government must prove that Manning knew he was aiding the enemy when he took steps to make public hundreds of thousands of Iraq and Afghanistan battlefield reports, State Department diplomatic cables, files on detainees at the Guantánamo Bay US naval base, other classified records, and battlefield video clips – the most controversial of which showed US attack helicopter pilots in Iraq killing what turned out to be a group of unarmed civilian men, including two journalists from the Reuters news agency.
Colonel Lind said the prosecution must show evidence that Manning had "reason to believe such information could be used to the injury of the US," by an armed group like Al Qaeda or another nation, Agence France-Presse reported Wednesday.
Prosecutors reportedly are preparing evidence – including testimony from a US Navy SEAL who was one of those involved in the raid that killed Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in May 2011 – to show that the information leaked by Manning was found in Mr. bin Laden’s compound in Abbotttabad, Pakistan, and thus aided a terrorist organization.
As Manning’s pretrial hearing continued Wednesday, Lind ruled against the defense, which had tried to block such testimony on grounds that it would be prejudicial to Manning’s case.
The ruling means prosecutors can call the witness during the "merits," or main, phase of the trial. They otherwise could have used his testimony only for sentencing purposes, according to the Associated Press.
The witness has been publicly identified only as "John Doe" and as a Defense Department "operator," a designation given to SEALs. Prosecutors say he participated with SEAL Team Six in their assault on the compound which resulted in the death of bin Laden. Such testimony would help establish a chain of custody for the evidence from its recovery to its analysis by a computer expert.
Lind is weighing options for protecting the witness's identity, the AP reports. They could include moving the trial to a secure location to hear his testimony, or having him wear a disguise. Lind also must decide what limits to place on any defense cross-examination of “John Doe,” as well as three other unidentified "special witnesses," to protect national security.
Wednesday’s hearing was the first since a group pressing for more government transparency flouted a military ban by releasing a secretly-recorded audio clip of Manning's testimony in February, according to the AFP report.
"To say that the judge was unhappy about this violation of the rules of the court would be an understatement," a military spokeswoman told reporters covering the hearing.
As a result, mobile phones and recording devices, previously only banned inside the courtroom, are now outlawed in the press gallery as well, where the hearing is being broadcast, AFP reports.
"This media operation center is a privilege, not a requirement. Privileges can be taken away," the spokeswoman said.
Specifically, Manning is charged with “aiding the enemy; wrongfully causing intelligence to be published on the Internet knowing that it is accessible to the enemy; theft of public property or records; transmitting defense information; fraud and related activity in connection with computers; and for violating Army Regulations 25-2 ‘Information Assurance’ and 380-5 ‘Department of the Army Information Security Program.’ ”
In February, Manning pleaded guilty to 10 of 22 charges against him – specifically acknowledging that he had misused classified documents by sending them to WikiLeaks, the website founded by controversial Internet activist Julian Assange. Those 10 charges could result in a 20-year sentence.
Manning’s trial is scheduled to start June 3 at Fort Meade in Maryland. It could last for 12 weeks.
Dylan Quick, a suspect in the multiple stabbings Tuesday at Lone Star College Cy-Fair campus, is escorted by Harris County Sherrif's Office investigators after being questioned in Houston. Mr. Quick is charged with three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. (Cody Duty/Houston Chronicle/AP)
Mental evaluation set for suspect in Lone Star College stabbings
Police have charged one man in Tuesday’s stabbing rampage at a Houston-area community college, during which 14 people were injured.
Dylan Quick, a student at Lone Star College’s Cy-Fair campus, is being held without bond and is charged with three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Five people remain hospitalized, though they are all in good condition, hospital officials said. Mr. Quick will appear in court Thursday in Houston, according to the Associated Press.
In a voluntary statement to authorities, the suspect admitted that “he has had fantasies of stabbing people to death since he was in elementary school,” according to a news release from the Harris County Sheriff's Office. “He also indicated that he has been planning this incident for some time,” it stated.
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On Wednesday, Quick will undergo a psychological evaluation, the Harris County District Attorney's Office told CNN.
Quick’s neighbors said they were taken aback to learn that the shy man who often helped his parents with yard work could be tied to something like this.
Next-door neighbor Michael Lincoln was surprised that the “very friendly kid” was implicated in the incident. Quick helped Mr. Lincoln pull down a branch that had fallen on his roof last week.
“He’s not aggressive,” Lincoln told the Houston Chronicle. He added that Quick did keep mostly to himself.
"He doesn't have any friends. Nobody comes over there," Lincoln said. "He stays inside most of the time."
Magdalena Lopez, who has lived across the street from the Quick family for 15 years, said she couldn’t believe that Quick would do this.
"I can't imagine what would have happened to that young man to make him do something like this. He is very normal," Ms. Lopez told the Associated Press.
Quick came to Lone Star College after being home-schooled, the Houston Chronicle reported. He started attending events at the college’s library when he was 12 to help develop his hearing and communication skills. Born deaf, Quick received ear implants when he was 7 years old, the paper reported.
He attended two book clubs at the library – Classics for Home Schooled Teens and Contemporary Books for Everyone – and after two years of not contributing to the groups, he learned to open up.
“Dylan became loquacious, sharing his analyses of literature and socializing with his book club comrades," said a profile on the library’s website, a blog that focuses on teens transitioning from high school to college that was published April 1.
This is the second attack in three months for Lone Star College, a network of six campuses the Houston area. In January, a fight led to a shooting at the North Harris campus in which three people were injured.
At 11:20 a.m. Central time, Quick used a “razor-like knife” to stab people, moving quickly through campus before being tackled by other students, according to the statement from the sheriff's office.
Ryan Ballard was among the students reported to have helped stop the attack, chasing the suspect as he fled the Health Science building where Mr. Ballard was headed to biology class.
When Ballard entered the building, students were shouting, and several were bleeding, he told the Houston Chronicle.
"My first thought was I need to go catch him,'" he told the paper. "I don't know why I thought that."
Police say they found the handle to the knife in Quick’s backpack, which he was carrying when he was arrested.
The college reopened at regular hours Wednesday after being locked down Tuesday because police believed there was a second suspect. Campus surveillance equipment and eye-witness accounts later confirmed only one perpetrator, the college said in a statement.
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Snigdha Nandipati of San Diego concentrates while spelling 'guetapens' in the last round to win the National Spelling Bee last year. Scripps announced Tuesday that the spelling bee will include a vocabulary component this year. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP/File)
Know what 'campestral' means? National Spelling Bee introduces a vocab test.
Not only will National Spelling Bee participants stand on stage to spell words like “defibrillation” and “indocile,” but this year they will also have to know what those words mean.
The Scripps National Spelling Bee, for the first time in its 86-year history, is adding a vocabulary component to the national competition, which is set for May 28-30 in Oxon Hill, Md. That leaves the 281 spellers with 49 days to memorize spellings and definitions.
This is a significant but natural change for the National Spelling Bee, said director Paige Kimball.
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“It represents a deepening of the Bee’s commitment to its purpose: to help students improve their spelling, increase their vocabularies, learn concepts and develop correct English usage that will help them all their lives,” she said in a statement.
This year, participants will qualify for the semifinals and finals based on a cumulative score of on-stage spelling, computer-based spelling questions (which Scripps added in 2002), and computer-based vocabulary questions. The vocabulary evaluation counts for 50 percent of the score.
Both the computerized spelling and vocabulary tests will not be televised, though ESPN will broadcast the live onstage spelling portions.
Some of the sample vocabulary questions may look something like this:
What does it mean to appertain?
a) assume the character or appearance of
b) belong either as something appropriate or as an attribute
c) distress severely so as to cause continued suffering
d) be guilty of
Or, where would a campestral scene take place?
a) in the country
b) in a city
c) at the beach
d) in a warehouse
(The answers are “b” and “a,” respectively.)
“Spelling and vocabulary are, in essence, two sides of the same coin,” Ms. Kimble said. “As a child studies the spelling of a word and its etymology, he will discover its meaning. As a child learns the meaning of a word, it becomes easier to spell. And all of this enhances the child’s knowledge of the English language.”
Scripps waited until the regional competitions were over before announcing the change in program, providing equal footing for all the participants, she said.
Participants learned about the change during a conference call on Wednesday, so they will definitely be changing their studying strategy.
“It’s a short time, that’s for sure,” Srinivas Mahankali, whose son, Arvind Mahankali, will be participating for the third time, told the Associated Press. “But the thing is everyone knows about it at the same time, so I think it’s fair to everyone.”
Mr. Mahankali said the aspiring spellers will now know there is more of a focus on meaning. “Although from the beginning they’ve been emphasizing meaning. But I think [there will] be more emphasis now,” he added.
The National Spelling Bee draws students from eight countries and Department of Defense Schools in Europe and US territories including American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. The competition is open to students younger than 16 years old who have not passed eighth grade.
Snigdha Nandipati, an eighth-grader from San Diego, won last year with the word “guetapens,” which is a word for ambush or trap. In 2011, the final word was “cymotrichous,” which is defined as “having the hair wavy.”
Students will still be able to ask for definitions during the onstage spelling section, but future bees may eventually include onstage vocabulary tests, Kimble told the Associated Press.
"These spellers will be excited at the opportunity to show off their vocabulary knowledge through competition,” she said.
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President Obama hugs Newtown, Conn., family members after speaking at the University of Hartford in Hartford, Conn., on Monday. The president said US lawmakers have an obligation to the children killed and other victims of gun violence to act on his proposals. (Susan Walsh/AP)
Newtown family members entreat Congress over need for gun controls
Family members of the children and educators killed in the Newtown, Conn., school shooting are on Capitol Hill Tuesday, engaging in face-to-face lobbying as part the Obama administration’s effort to persuade reluctant lawmakers to enact stricter gun controls.
Eleven Newtown family members flew into Washington Monday night on Air Force One, accompanying President Obama as he returned home from giving a gun control speech in Hartford, Conn. According to a pool report from Amie Parnes of The Hill newspaper, the president carried a red bag off the plane that contained T-shirts that said, “Team Vicki Soto.” She was one of the teachers killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, and the T-shirts were given to Mr. Obama by her sister, Jillian.
In addition to the Newtown families’ lobbying efforts on the Hill, Tuesday afternoon Vice President Joseph Biden and Attorney General Eric Holder will, in remarks at the White House, call on Congress to approve gun legislation. Earlier, the two men will meet with law enforcement officials from around the country.
The lobbying effort continues Wednesday when first lady Michelle Obama will make what the Los Angeles Times calls “a rare foray into a contentious issue,” by hosting a summit on youth violence in Chicago, her home town.
These efforts are aimed at trying to get legislation through the Senate that will stiffen background checks on gun buyers. It is a heavy lift. Thirteen conservative Republican senators have written to majority leader Harry Reid (D) of Nevada to say they will filibuster gun control legislation. With 53 Senate Democrats and two independents who usually vote with Democrats, Senator Reid is short of the 60 votes he would need to proceed.
That explains why the Obama White House’s political arm, Organizing for Action, announced Monday that it is running a series of Facebook ads. As Politico reported, the ads target 10 Republican senators and one Democrat (Martin Heinrich of New Mexico) on gun control.
The Associated Press reports that Senate Democrats will hold a lunchtime meeting on Tuesday to decide whether to seek a compromise with Republicans on gun legislation or try to advance a bill over Republican efforts. Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Republican Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania are trying to reach an agreement on background checks. NBC News’ First Read reports that the proposed deal would require background checks for purchases at gun shows and on the Internet but not for person-to-person sales.
One question is whether the filibuster threat by the Republican senators is a politically wise move. As the analysts at NBC News write, "It’s hard not to view the filibuster attempt as a potential strategic error just on the politics. Why? Because it paints the GOP as obstructionists, and it lowers the bar for victory for Obama (to simply beating the GOP filibuster). Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said as much over the weekend. 'I don’t understand it,' he said. 'What are we afraid of?…. If this issue is as important as all of us think it is … why not take it up and debate?' "
That is especially true, the First Read team argues, because Senate Republicans have a built-in “pocket veto” called the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. “While we understand the base politics on this issue, this seems to be yet another way the GOP brand is getting tarnished with swing voters, even with voters who may be sympathetic with the pro-gun argument but are turned off by the idea of how politics is practiced in Washington right now," the First Read team says.
Chelsea Clinton speaks at the third day of the Clinton Global Initiative University conference at Gateway STEM High School in St. Louis, Sunday. (Christian Gooden/St. Louis Post-Dispatch/AP)
Chelsea Clinton TV interview adds to speculation about Hillary's plans
Chelsea Clinton’s comments Monday morning on NBC’s "Today" program about her political future – and her mother's – are sure to add fuel to the speculation about former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton making another run for the White House in 2016.
Chelsea Clinton, a special correspondent for NBC News, recorded the interview in St. Louis, where she appeared over the weekend with her father, former President Bill Clinton, at a Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI-U) event she helped run.
Dressed in a light blue CGI-U tee shirt, Clinton was first asked about her mother’s political future. “I deeply respect and appreciate all of the admiration and respect and gratitude for my mother's service,” the younger Clinton told NBC correspondent John Yang. “As a daughter, I very much want her to make the right choice for herself, and I know that will be [the] right choice for our country, and I’ll support her in whatever she chooses to do.”
In the past week, there were several developments which Associated Press political writer Ken Thomas referred to as “a soft rollout of sorts” for Hillary Clinton’s political future, should she decide to have one. She gave her first two public speeches since leaving the State Department – last Tuesday at the Kennedy Center in Washington for the Vital Voices in Global Leadership Awards and a second on Friday in New York City at the annual Women in the World Conference.
This public reemergence came on the heels of word that Clinton would write a new book, slated to be published in June 2014. As Jill Lawrence of the National Journal notes, the publication date results in “conveniently putting her on the road for a book tour right when Democratic congressional and gubernatorial candidates all over the country would welcome her help.”
Meanwhile, last Thursday prominent Democratic political strategist James Carville wrote to supporters of the Ready for Hillary political action committee, urging them to send funds to boost a potential candidacy. In his e-mail to the Hillary PAC, obtained by The Washington Post, Mr. Carville, a longtime Clinton family confidant, said: “It isn’t worth squat to have the fastest car at the racetrack if there ain’t any gas in the tank – and that’s why the work that Ready for Hillary PAC is doing is absolutely critical. We need to convert the hunger that’s out there for Hillary’s candidacy into a real grassroots organization.” Carville ran former President Clinton’s 1992 campaign.
While her mother’s political future absorbs Washington’s chattering class, Chelsea Clinton seems slightly more open to a political future of her own. On the "Today" program, she held out the possibility of running for office herself someday.
“Right now I'm grateful to live in a city, a state, and a country where I strongly support my mayor, my governor, my president, and my senators and my representative,” the younger Clinton said. “If at some point that weren't true and I thought I could make a meaningful and measurably greater impact, I'd have to ask and answer that question.”
Those comments closely track one she made in an interview with Lynn Sherr of Parade magazine. In that interview, featured on the magazine’s cover, Clinton was asked whether she could describe the circumstances that would make her lean toward running for office. “No, but I’ve never thought too far into the future,” she said, showing a political pro’s skill at keeping her options open.
A Delta Airlines Airbus A320 passenger jet taxis at the Salt Lake City international airport, in Salt Lake City, Utah, in Nov. 2012. (George Frey/Reuters/File)
Behind rising air travel complaints: mergers and ever-shrinking seats
Complaints from airline passengers in the US increased in 2012, as higher demand meant more travelers were being squeezed onto flights, an annual airline rating report found.
The 14 largest US airlines did improve their on-time performance and lost less baggage, according to the annual Airline Quality Rating (AQR) report released Monday. Nonetheless, customer complaints rose 20 percent, from 1.2 per 100,000 passengers in 2011 to 1.4 per 100,000 passengers in 2012. The number of involuntary denied boardings was also higher in 2012, the report said.
Among the reasons for the jump in the complaint rate: airline mergers and the hiccups in schedules and customer service that often come with them, say the report's authors. Since the early 2000s, the industry has been in an era of consolidation, said one of them, Dean Headley, associate professor of marketing at Wichita State University in Kansas. The researchers have noticed negative trends in customer satisfaction when airlines merge.
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“Past AQR data suggests that the combining of two large air carrier operations often results in subsequent decreases in AQR rankings,” said Brent Bowen, report co-author and head of the Department of Aviation Technology at Purdue University in Indiana, in a statement.
Mr. Headley adds: “When you look at the past 13 years, you find that the airline industry performs most efficiently when the system isn't stressed by high passenger volume and high number of airplanes in the air. Every time there are more planes in the sky and more people flying, airline performance suffers."
It’s no surprise that performance is suffering, Headley told the Associated Press, especially as airlines shrink the sizes of seats and bathrooms to fit more people on board each plane.
"The way airlines have taken 130-seat airplanes and expanded them to 150 seats to squeeze out more revenue, I think, is finally catching up with them," he said. "People are saying, 'Look, I don't fit here. Do something about this.' At some point airlines can't keep shrinking seats to put more people into the same tube."
The AQR rating is derived from monthly data airlines provide to the US Department of Transportation (DOT). The researchers assign values to four criteria – on-time performance, involuntary denied boardings, mishandled bags, and customer complaints – and rank the 14 largest airlines accordingly.
But the ranking does not capture the entirety of customer dissatisfaction, say other industry experts.
“The air transportation experience is suffering from issues that are not measured in the DOT or AQR,” Charlie Leocha, director of the Consumer Travel Alliance, told NBC News. Mr. Leocha said these other issues include higher fees to check luggage, opaque code-share rules, and policies that make families pay extra to sit together.
Despite greater passenger frustration, the overall 2012 rating for the airline industry was not too different than in 2011, and both years rank among the industry's best in the report’s 23-year history. This year, Virgin America Airlines earned the No. 1 spot in terms of lowest rate of complaints – its first year being included in the report. Here is a list of the full rankings:
- Virgin America
- JetBlue
- AirTran
- Delta
- Hawaiian
- Alaska
- Frontier
- Southwest
- US Airways
- American
- American Eagle
- SkyWest
- ExpressJet
- United
Headley said the airline industry is nearing the end of its merging era because there aren’t many more airlines left to merge. Future AQR reports will show if airlines can adapt to boost customer satisfaction.
“We will be carefully watching to see if two highly rated carriers, such as former No. 1 AirTran and Southwest, will reverse this trend,” said Purdue's Mr. Bowen in a statement. Researchers will also closely watch how the American Airlines and US Airways merger will navigate the turbulence of customer complaints.
“When airlines combine, more chains get yanked for reasons that passengers find reasonable to complain about,” Headley told NBC News. “The sad part is that when I get back from a trip and people ask me how my flight was, the best I can say is it was uneventful.”
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A LOT Polish Airlines 787 passenger jet takes off from Paine Field in Everett, Wash. The 787 Dreamliner flew a test flight Friday aimed at showing that the plane's new lithium-ion battery system meets regulatory safety standards – a key step in ending a two-month, worldwide grounding of the high-tech jet. (Boeing/REUTERS)
Dreamliner completes crucial test flight. How big a deal?
Boeing’s troubled 787 Dreamliner passenger aircraft flew a crucial test flight Friday, one that could help determine whether the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) gives it the go-ahead to resume commercial service.
The 787 Dreamliner has been grounded since mid-January because of smoldering batteries, including a fire on the ground in Boston. Boeing has designed what it says is a fix, including more heat insulation and a battery box designed so that any meltdown of the lithium-ion battery will vent the hot gasses outside the plane.
"Today's demonstration flight is the final certification test for the new battery system," Boeing spokesman Marc Birtel said in a statement. "The purpose of the test is to demonstrate that the new system performs as intended during normal and non-normal flight conditions."
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The FAA will still need to approve the results and certify the battery system before airlines can fly 787s again. Fifty 787s owned by eight airlines have been grounded worldwide. Nine days after the Boston battery fire, a second battery incident led to an emergency landing in Japan.
The National Transportation Safety Board is still investigating the cause of the Boston fire, which was traced to a short circuit in one of the battery's eight cells, USA Today reports. The safety board has scheduled a two-day forum on lithium batteries next week and a hearing on the Boston fire on April 23 and 24.
The Dreamliner's battery woes also has drawn the attention of the US Senate, reports the Everett (Wash.) Herald newspaper. The transportation committee will hold an April 16 hearing on the FAA's ongoing investigation of the 787.
As the Monitor reported earlier this year, the 787 is a next-generation airliner designed to be 20 percent more energy-efficient than earlier passenger jets. The 787's lithium-ion batteries are at the center of that leap forward: They produce more power relative to their size than do traditional nickel cadmium batteries, and the 787 relies on its batteries to do much more than previous jetliners have.
Until the recent battery problems, reports Boeing, there were about 150 daily flights of the Dreamliner by airlines including All Nippon Airways, Japan Airlines, United Airlines, and Air India.
International Airlines Group plans to buy 18 Dreamliners as it seeks to modernize the aging fleet of British Airways, its UK subsidiary, the Financial Times reported this week.
US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood declined to say when he will decide whether to end the grounding, Bloomberg News reports.
“We want to get it right,” Secretary LaHood said Friday. “We want to make sure that everything’s done correctly. We want to be able to assure the flying public that these planes are safe.”
The 792-mile test flight, which lasted just under two hours, began and ended at Paine Field in Everett, Wash. The test aircraft is scheduled for delivery to LOT Polish Airlines. Boeing has orders for another 800 Dreamliner aircraft.
• This report includes material from the Associated Press.
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Aurora, Colo., theater shooting suspect James Holmes sits in the courtroom during his arraignment in Centennial, Colo., last month. (RJ Sangosti/Denver Post/AP/File)
Who knew what, when about shooting suspect James Holmes?
A psychiatrist who briefly treated James Holmes, suspect in last summer's Aurora, Colo., movie theater shooting, told University of Colorado campus police a month before the attack that he was having homicidal thoughts and could be a danger to the public, according to newly unsealed court documents.
Dr. Lynne Fenton, who worked at and for the university, met with Mr. Holmes just once, on June 11, 2012, and approached campus police the next day “due to homicidal statements he had made,” said a search warrant affidavit made public Thursday by Arapahoe County District Judge Carlos Samour Jr., who took over the Holmes case this week.
Dr. Fenton also reported that Holmes had stopped seeing her and soon after had “begun threatening her via text messages.” She made her report to police, according to the affidavit, because she knew she was required by law to do so.
Campus police responded by deactivating Holmes’s student identification card. The documents do not reveal if police conducted any further investigation, and CU police have not elaborated on actions it took after receiving Fenton's report.
A month later, on July 20, Holmes allegedly stormed a movie theater in a Denver suburb during a midnight screening of “The Dark Knight Rises,” killing 12 and injuring 70.
Much of the information contained in the newly released warrants – which authorized searches of Holmes’s apartment, car, and phone, among other locations – had already been revealed in earlier hearings and court filings. But the new documents revealed additional details and contextual information about the case.
For instance, one warrant states that after the shootings police initially mistook Holmes for a fellow officer when they noticed him lingering beside his car outside the theater. When officers later arrested Holmes, they asked if he had any accomplices, to which he responded, “it is just me.”
The documents also shed additional, although limited, light on Holmes’s personal life. In a search of his apartment, police found sedatives, anti-anxiety medication, and antidepressants. He owned several video games, including "Skyrim," "StarCraft," and "Oblivion," and had a poster on his wall from the movie “Pulp Fiction.” Other objects recorded in the apartment include 48 cans of beer, a stack of textbooks, and a Batman mask.
Although most of the details from the newly released documents simply deepen the already-established narrative about Holmes, some directly contradict earlier reports and testimony.
For instance, prosecutors have previously revealed that Holmes made threats and had his key-card access cut off. But CU officials have denied that Holmes was banned from campus for making threats, saying instead that his key card was deactivated as part of a normal process when a student withdraws from school – which Holmes was doing at the time of the alleged threats.
Likewise, the affidavits contradict a statement Fenton made when testifying during an earlier hearing in the case. Fenton said she went to police in June with concerns about a patient. But, when asked whether she had ever reported a dangerous patient to police because she was required to by law, Fenton said she hadn't.
The documents were released Thursday after several media outlets petitioned for them to be unsealed, arguing that their contents had likely already been made public in the course of the court proceedings.
Holmes’s trial will begin Feb. 14, 2014. On April 1, prosecutors announced they will seek the death penalty. Holmes’s defense team is widely expected to use an insanity defense.
This undated photo shows Thomas Guolee, said to be part of the 211 Crew, has been identified as person of interest in the March 19 slaying of Colorado prison chief Tom Clements. (Colorado Department of Corrections/AP)
Colorado prison chief death: two white supremacists sought
Investigators in the case of slain Colorado prison chief Tom Clements have begun a search for two white-supremacist prison gang members identified as persons of interest in the case.
The men, James Lohr and Thomas Guolee, are said to be part of the 211 Crew, a gang whose members also included Evan Ebel, the primary suspect in Mr. Clements’s killing. Mr. Ebel died in a shootout with police two days after the March 19 slaying.
Authorities have not elaborated on a tie between Ebel and Messrs. Lohr and Guolee, except to say they believe the three were in touch before the killing, The Denver Post reports.
But the warning issued Wednesday evening by the sheriff’s office in El Paso County, where Clements was killed, is the first indication that other members of the white supremacist group may have been involved in the slaying.
"These are a couple of names that have come up during the ongoing investigation of the Clements murder," Lt. Jeff Kramer, the public information officer for the sheriff’s office, told the Post. "Because of the circumstances where you have violent folks who are willing to execute a [Department of Corrections] official, we don't want to underestimate these guys.”
Both Lohr and Guolee are wanted on charges unrelated to Clements’s death, the sheriff’s office said, and both are believed to be armed. Kramer said one or both of the men may be headed to Nevada or Texas.
The investigators’ announcement came the same day as reputed 211 gang “shot caller” Benjamin Davis was sentenced in a Denver court to an additional 108 years in prison on a racketeering charge. Mr. Davis, who is already serving a 30-year conviction for robbery and assault, founded the white supremacist gang in 1995 at Denver County Jail after he claimed his jaw had been broken by a black inmate, the Post reports.
Meanwhile, news emerged earlier this week that Ebel had been released from prison in January as the result of a clerical error. He was supposed to spend four more years in prison for a 2006 assault on a police officer, but authorities mistakenly entered the charge as one to be served co-currently with his other sentences, rather than consecutively.
The week before the deaths of Clements and pizza deliveryman Nathan Leon – whom Ebel is also suspected of killing – Colorado authorities flagged his electronic monitoring bracelet for tampering. But by the time police followed up, Ebel had fled.
Two weeks after Ebel’s fatal shootout with police, Mike McLelland, district attorney for Kaufman County, Texas, and his wife were gunned down in their home. That case also has potential connections to a white-supremacist prison gang.
The group in question in that case is the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has described as “arguably the most violent white supremacist prison gang out there,” according to a Monitor story.
Early news reports floated possible connections between the killings of Clements and the McLellands, but so far no major evidence has emerged to support that idea.
The 211 gang operates exclusively in Colorado, and some have theorized that the group ordered the hit to settle scores with the prison authorities. One month before Clements’s killing, a “core group” of the gang’s members were moved to another correctional facility, possibly to dilute their strength in the prison system, the Post reports.
A wreath of flowers in honor of slain District Attorney Mike McClelland is placed in front of Kaufman County Courthouse in Kaufman, Texas. (Richard W. Rodriguez/REUTERS)
Behind prosecutor's withdrawal, 'Aryan' prison gang's legacy of violence
The withdrawal of an assistant US attorney from a major racketeering case in Texas appears tied to personal concerns about a white supremacist prison gang's propensity for violence.
The case involves charges against 34 members of the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, a group investigators say may be tied to the shooting death of Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife in their home Saturday, as well as to the death two months earlier of county prosecutor Mark Hasse, who was shot and killed in a parking lot near the county courthouse.
Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, describes the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas (ABT) as “arguably the most violent white supremacist prison gang out there.”
"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," Mr. Potok told CNN. "And similarly ... you can only leave in a body bag."
The all-white gang formed some time in 1980s, first as a form of self-protection inside prisons, then as a criminal enterprise beyond prison walls with a military structure. It’s believed to have about 4,000 members, including many who have finished their sentences and are out of prison.
“Unlike [Branch Davidian leader] David Koresh and his sheeplike followers (and other sects based on religious fanaticism), these are battle-hardened and death-tested men (many of them … with extensive military experience) who are not set on dying for some kind of religious cause; their thing is that, when the situation calls for it, they’re killers,” writes a former prison inmate on the Daily Beast website. “They’re not into dying – except to protect the honor of the Brotherhood.”
“They’re also sincere in their belief that many members of law enforcement are kindred spirits, right-wingers who understand their hatreds, loss of hegemony, and rabid determination to protect whatever power the white man has left in America,” writes the former inmate – anonymously because of the potential for violent retribution. “And those who don’t buy into their hateful rhetoric they perceive as being weak-kneed sob sisters who will willingly mongrelize and sell out their proud white heritage. Truly, everyone who is not with them is against them.”
In an e-mail Tuesday, Assistant US Attorney Jay Hileman notified lawyers involved in the statewide racketeering case that he was off the case, Richard O. Ely II, a Houston-based defense attorney who is representing one of the 34 defendants, told the Dallas Morning News.
“It’s shocking because he’s not the kind of guy that I would think that would back away from a challenge,” said Brent Mayr, another defense attorney in the racketeering case. “It would lead me to believe that there are some valid concerns.”
In December, the Texas Department of Public Safety warned that the Aryan Brotherhood could be conducting surveillance against law enforcement officers as part of planned retaliation against those who helped secure the indictments, the Dallas newspaper reports. Since the investigation into the Aryan Brotherhood began in 2008, more than 60 defendants from across the state have been charged and more indictments are expected.
Charges include murder as well as drug dealing. Several defendants have already agreed to testify against fellow gang members.
The pattern in Texas appears to be the same as in Colorado, where evidence points to former state prison inmate Evan Ebel – a member of another white supremacist prison gang, 211 Crew, also known as the Brotherhood of the Aryan Alliance – as the shooter in the recent death of Colorado prisons chief Tom Clements as well as of a pizza delivery man. A few days later, Mr. Ebel was killed in a shootout with police in Texas.
Mr. Clements had begun cracking down on such gangs since taking over the Colorado prison system two years ago. In Ebel's case it appears he was paroled four years early due to a clerical error and removed the ankle bracelet meant to track his movements – a step that authorities failed to act upon in time.
Over the last century, 14 prosecutors have been killed, according to news reports and statistics kept by the National District Attorneys Association, reports the Associated Press. At least eight of them were targeted in the line of duty.
On Wednesday, a sheriff known for cracking down on the drug trade in southern West Virginia's coalfields was fatally shot. A suspect also was shot and was in custody.
The anonymous former inmate writing in the Daily Beast traces the current spate of violence tied to prison gangs back to the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995.
“If these recent killings represent the Brotherhood’s twisted form of retribution, the fact that it has taken so long to begin is all the more chilling,” he writes. “To me this would demonstrate a hard-nosed determination that all citizens should find frightening. We shouldn’t be whistling past the graveyard on these killings.”
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