- EAGER, AZ - A national leader
of the militia movement has been killed and an Apache County sheriff's
deputy wounded in a shootout, authorities said.
-
- William Milton Cooper, 58, of Eager, had hosted a talk
show broadcast on the Worldwide Christian Radio out of Nashville, which
receives it via phone from his home in St. Johns. He had millions of listeners
worldwide, including Timothy McVeigh.
-
- The deputy, whose name was being withheld by authorities,
was shot twice in the head while trying to arrest Cooper, a state Department
of Public Safety spokesman said today. Cooper was killed by another officer.
-
- Several deputies were attempting to arrest Cooper, who
was armed with a handgun, said Officer Steve Volden, a spokesman for the
DPS, which was investigating the shooting.
-
- He said details of the shooting would be released later
today.
-
- The deputy was in critical condition at a Phoenix hospital
early today, Volden said.
-
- Cooper was one of the most widely known prophets of the
"patriot movement," railing at the federal government and talking
of doomsday omens in his radio broadcast.
-
- McVeigh, who was executed in May for the bombing of the
federal building in Oklahoma City, listened to Cooper's broadcasts for
inspiration, according to testimony by James Nichols, brother of Oklahoma
bombing co-defendant Terry Nichols during a 1996 pretrial hearing.
-
- Like some other patriot leaders, Cooper refused to get
a driver's license or pay federal income taxes, saying he is willing to
risk getting ticketed and has found a legal way to avoid the taxes.
-
- The patriot movement grew during the 1990s, fed by a
series of news events - the siege of Randy Weaver in Idaho, the raid on
the Branch Davidians near Waco, Texas and the signing of gun-control laws.
-
-
- Link
-
-
-
-
- MainPage
http://www.rense.com
-
-
-
- This
Site Served by TheHostPros
|