Las Vegas Shooters May Have Been White Supremacists

Republican officials continue to play on the racial fears of angry whites through dog whistle messaging and other inflammatory means.  Seeing what has happened to the GOP since my active involvement years ago, I have even conjectured at what point KKK robes would be distributed before local GOP committee meetings commence.  No one in the GOP seems to worry that this messaging may be the straw that breaks the camel's back as they say in the minds of disturbed individuals.  As the investigation of the Las Vegas shootings over the weekend, it is beginning to look like the shooters - who then committed suicide - may have been typical members of the GOP base white supremacists.  Here are highlights from the Washington Post:

A man and a woman who shot two police officers and then a civilian in Las Vegas on Sunday may have been white supremacists, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.

If true, the Vegas slayings would be one of several linked to hate movements.

Among recent killings: A former Ku Klux Klan “grand dragon” killed three at two Jewish facilities in a Kansas City suburb in April; a man killed six before killing himself at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin in 2012; and a man killed three officers in Pittsburgh in 2009.

The tragedy in Las Vegas unfolded Sunday afternoon as two police officers ate lunch at CiCi’s Pizza — a world away from the glitz and glamour of the Las Vegas strip.

Without warning, they were fatally shot at point-blank range by a man and a woman who then swiped the officers’ weapons, ammunition and badges, according to the Review-Journal. “This is a revolution,” one of the suspects shouted, according to witnesses.

The couple then reportedly covered the officers’ bodies with a cloth showing a Revolutionary War-era flag.

The newspaper reported it was the Gadsden flag, a yellow background with a coiled snake above the words, “Don’t tread on me.” Named for Christopher Gadsden, the Revolutionary War general who designed it, the flag has been more recently associated with the American Tea Party movement and, by some, with the Confederacy.

On Sunday night, investigators searched the married couple’s apartment, just four miles from the scene of the shooting. Police allegedly found swastika symbols and are looking into their links to the white supremacy movement, the Review-Journal reported:

Neighbor Krista Koch described them as ‘militant.’ They talked about planning to kill police officers, ‘going underground’ and not coming out until the time was right to kill.

Brandon Monroe, 22, has lived in the complex for about two weeks. He said the man who lived in the apartment that was being searched often rambled about conspiracy theories.