As police searched the apartment of the couple involved in the fatal shooting of two police officers and several civilians in Las Vegas, a stunning theory began to emerge: The couple may have white supremacist ties.
According to the Las Vegas Sun, police found swastika symbols in the apartment, and neighbors told the authorities that the couple, whom the news site identified as Jerad and Amanda Miller, repeatedly voiced their " … racist, anti-government views, bragging about their gun collection and boasting that they’d spent time at Cliven Bundy’s ranch during a recent standoff there between armed militia members and federal government agents." Bundy is the Nevada rancher who recently made news after claiming that black people were better off as slaves.
According to police who spoke with the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the couple walked into a Cici's Pizza in Las Vegas and then over to two police officers—Alyn Beck, 41, and Igor Soldo, 31—who were eating lunch and shot them both at point-blank range. The couple then stole the officers' weapons, ammunition and badges and, according to witnesses, yelled, "This is a revolution."
The couple reportedly covered the officers' bodies with a Revolutionary War-era flag that had the words "Don’t tread on me" inscribed on it. According to the newspaper, the flag was designed by Christopher Gadsden and has been associated with the American Tea Party movement and the Confederacy.
Of the ambush, Sheriff Doug Gillespie told the Sun, "My officers were simply having lunch when the shooting started."
Read more at the Las Vegas Sun and the Las Vegas Review-Journal.