Killing of Texas district attorney, wife, seen as targeted

 

The killing of a Texas district attorney and his wife, in the same county where an assistant prosecutor was shot dead outside a courthouse in January, does not appear to be random, a local official said on Sunday.

Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, were found with fatal gunshot wounds at their home near the town of Forney, Texas, on Saturday, two months after Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse was gunned down.

"In my view it appears that it was not random. It was a targeted attack," Forney Mayor Darren Rozell told CNN. "We're obviously sad and shocked but there's some outrage too."

He did not elaborate on a possible motive for the double murder, but neither he nor Kaufman County Sheriff David Byrnes ruled out a link between the killings.

Hasse was shot and killed on January 31 on the same day the U.S. Department of Justice released a statement saying the Kaufman County District Attorney's Office was involved in a racketeering case against the Aryan Brotherhood white supremacist group.

The Texas arm of the Aryan Brotherhood was described in an indictment unsealed in November as a gang responsible for murders, arson, assault and other crimes and prone to "extreme violence and threats of violence to maintain internal discipline and retaliate against those believed to be cooperating with law enforcement."

"It's unnerving to the law enforcement community, it's unnerving to the community at large," Byrnes told a news conference. "And that's why we're striving to assure the community that we are still providing public safety and will be able to do that."
Byrnes' office reported the shooting deaths late on Saturday.
Kaufman County Judge Bruce Wood said the last known contact with either of the McLellands was about 7 p.m. on Friday.
Wood described McLelland as a friend as well as a colleague. He said he and McLelland had spoken regularly about Hasse and the investigation.
'ATTACK ON JUSTICE SYSTEM'
"I can't fathom someone doing this," Wood said. "It is completely senseless, and completely out of the blue. Perhaps it is retaliation, but we won't know that until someone is caught."

Numerous state and federal officials, including the FBI and Texas Rangers, are involved in the investigation, Byrnes said, adding that it was too early to discuss whether there were any suspects.

McLelland, a 23-year U.S. Army veteran who served in Operation Desert Storm, had five children including a son who is an officer with the Dallas police department, according to a biography on the county website.
Authorities have made no arrests in Hasse's killing. McLelland had vowed to bring his killer to justice.
Earlier this month, the Hasse slaying case took a new turn when the Kaufman police chief said the FBI was looking for any link between Hasse's death and the March 19 shooting death of Colorado prisons chief Tom Clements.
Evan Spencer Ebel, 28, a Colorado prison parolee suspected of killing Clements, died in a shootout with police in Decatur, Texas, on March 21. Ebel was a member of a white supremacist prison gang called the 211 Crew and had a swastika tattoo, prison records indicate.
Judge Wood said investigators had found no link between the shooting death of Clements and the killing of Hasse, however.
"This is not just an attack on two very fine people but an attack on the justice system," Wood told Reuters, referring to the McLelland killings.
He did not elaborate and declined to comment on the crime scene at the McLellands home, just outside Forney and about 25 miles from Dallas.
But the Dallas Morning News cited one law enforcement official as saying shell casings were scattered everywhere around the crime scene.
The Dallas Morning News also noted that the Texas Department of Public Safety had issued a statewide bulletin in December warning that authorities had received "credible information" the Aryan Brotherhood was "actively planning retaliation against law enforcement officials" who helped secure indictments in Houston against dozens of members, including the gang's leadership.

"High-ranking members ... are involved in issuing orders to inflict ‘mass casualties or death' to law enforcement officials who were involved in cases where Aryan Brotherhood of Texas are facing life sentences or the death penalty," the bulletin said.