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Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Close to the Assassination Action, Anyway

posted by on August 27 at 12:32 PM

While the Washington delegates are not very near the convention, I should probably note that the glamourous Hyatt Regency Tech Center, where the Washington delegation is staying, played a role in the supposed attempt (since dismissed by a U.S. attorney as “no credible threat”) on Obama’s life. Here are the details:

Martin Dwaine Johnson told authorities that an associate and an accomplice were planning to kill Sen. Barack Obama using a sniper rifle simply because he is black, but the threat was not deemed credible by federal authorities.

[…]

The case began 1:37 a.m. Sunday when Gartrell, 28, who was driving a rented Dodge pickup, was pulled over in Aurora after he was seen swerving and driving erratically. He was driving without a license and was on probation for a methamphetamine conviction, authorities learned.

Police then saw a wig and two high-powered rifles in the truck, along with a hunting scope, a bulletproof vest, a walkie-talkie, several boxes of ammunition and methamphetamine. One rifle was threaded for a silencer attachment. The other, which was stolen from the Sherman County Sheriff’s Office in Goodland, Ka. in 2005, according to court records released today.

Three backpacks contained equipment for making methampahetamines: three large boxes of matches, two glass cooking vessels, pseudo-ephedrine pills and a bottle of pH base. Officers found a baggie of suspected methamphetamine in Gartrell’s pocket.
Gartrell told authorities the weapons belonged to his cousin Adolf, according to federal documents.

Police went to the Denver Tech Center Hyatt Hotel, 7800 E. Tufts St. and contacted Johnson, 32, and a girl. He told police that Adolf was at a sixth floor room at Cherry Creek Hotel in Glendale.

At 6:37 a.m. Sunday, police knocked on Adolf’s hotel room door. Adolf told officers to wait while his wife changed her clothes.
Officers then heard “glass breaking inside the room and an unknown female screaming.”

Adolf, 33, had jumped from the sixth-floor window, landed on an awning four floors down and then jumped to the ground, breaking his ankle, Glendale Police Chief Victor Ross said.

An unnamed female witness from Fort Morgan, who had been driven to Denver on Saturday with Adolf, told Colorado State Patrol officers about possible threats against Obama, according to the federal court records.

The witness said in the Hyatt hotel room, Adolf and Gartrell talked “negatively” about Obama using racial epithets. She believed they were “white supremacists.”
They “could not believe how close he was to becoming president,” and that no black should live in the White House.

In a subsequent interview between CSP troopers and Johnson, the suspect said he was with Adolf and two women at the Hyatt at 10 p.m. Saturday when one of them started talking about killing Obama with a camera with a gun hidden in the lens. But Adolf and Gartrell dismissed her statements.

Johnson cried and said Adolf and Gartrell talked about going hunting, but what they meant was that they were going to kill Obama during his speech Thursday.

There you have it. Close to the white supremacist action.

RSS icon Comments

1

Thanks for the report.

Hopped up on meth jumps out six stories high has arms and is not a credible threat?
Jesus. We have too many guns in America.

Meanwhile, off topic a bit,
--Greg Craig of Obama team says McCain vetting Condi Rice for VP. that would be a historic pick, no? Probably just trying to keep the die hard HRCite wymenfolk stirred up...

--TV is showing that Obama will speak from a Greek type structure with columns in Invesco field. Huh?
--Sources also say he plans to ride a horse there, over a bridge made of boats, across a man made lake ... (just kidding!)

Posted by PC | August 27, 2008 12:44 PM
2

Adolf? Why am I not surprised?

Posted by keshmeshi | August 27, 2008 12:47 PM
3

People though Timmy McVeigh was blowhard who couldn't follow through, too.

Posted by Fnarf | August 27, 2008 12:47 PM
4

I know this isn't the point, but the post really needs to work on completing sentences.

Posted by gramma man 2000 | August 27, 2008 12:51 PM
5
Johnson cried and said Adolf and Gartrell talked about going hunting, but what they meant was that they were going to kill Obama during his speech Thursday.

Duh, that's what rednecks always mean when they say they're "going hunting."

Posted by jrrrl | August 27, 2008 12:54 PM
6

WOW, some of those Hillary supporters just are not getting the catharis that they need!

Posted by Cato the Younger Younger | August 27, 2008 1:02 PM
7

Cheney must be miffed his hit on Obama was thwarted.

Posted by Will in Seattle | August 27, 2008 1:06 PM
8

If this half-assed assassination (half-assassination?) plot was against Bush, Cheney or McCain, we wouldn't be hearing about anything else. We'd probably be on Double Secret Orange Alert right now.

Posted by flamingbanjo | August 27, 2008 1:10 PM
9

@8, McCain had an envelope of white powder mailed to his CO campaign headquarters with a death threat just last Friday

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hc-zIPTR-8SS2RPAoZTsp4VEk3uAD92NIJAO0

Posted by Just Sayin' | August 27, 2008 1:28 PM
10

#9:Touché. Of course, that powder wasn't anything dangerous and these guys actually had sniper rifles and telescopic sites, but still.

Posted by flamingbanjo | August 27, 2008 1:54 PM
11

Sounds like "the gang who couldn't snort straight"...

Posted by RHETT ORACLE | August 27, 2008 2:45 PM

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