Militia broadcaster killed by law officers
Mark Shaffer
The Arizona Republic
Nov. 06, 2001 08:02:00
EAGAR - One of the country's most influential militia radio broadcasters was killed early today in a hail of gunfire when law officers tried to arrest him on a warrant accusing him of aggravated assault.
William Milton Cooper, 58, whose apocalyptic, constitutionalist shortwave radio programs were a major influence on Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, was shot to death after Cooper shot and critically wounded an Apache County sheriff's deputy who had tried to arrest him, police said.
The officer, Robert Marinez, 40, was listed in critical condition at St Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix.
Apache County Sheriff Brian Hounshell said Marinez, a former Marine and Persian Gulf War veteran, was shot twice in the head by what was believed to be a .45-caliber pistol.
The officer was expected to survive, Hounshell said, after undergoing two hours of surgery this morning. Marinez's skull was fractured, and surgeons removed bone fragments from near his brain, the sheriff said.
Cooper had been indicted on federal charges of failing to pay taxes from 1992 to 1994 and became a fugitive after failing to appear for a U.S. District Court hearing in Phoenix three years ago.
Scott Garms, Eagar's police chief, said he had urged federal law officers to stay away from Cooper's two-story compound, high on a mesa overlooking Round Valley, because militia group members do not recognize the legitimacy of federal law officers.
"We certainly didn't want to make him a martyr," Garms said.
The police chief said the effort to arrest Cooper became a local law enforcement matter in July after Cooper ordered a local man to leave land that Cooper did not own atop the mesa and then followed the man about two miles to his home. Cooper then pulled a gun and pointed it at the man's face, Garms said. That resulted in a warrant for Cooper's arrest.
Seventeen officers were involved in the operation, which started at 11:40 p.m. Monday, Garms and Hounshell said.
Garms said a group of undercover officers in a pickup truck pretended to be "people just acting normal up there at night" in a ruse to draw Cooper out of his house to adjoining property 200 yards away. But Cooper surprised the officers by driving, not walking, to them, and he never left the vehicle during a verbal altercation.
During that confrontation, a second undercover police vehicle drove to Cooper's property line and blocked the road, Garms said. But on the way back to his house, Cooper drove off the side of the road and tried to run over sheriff's Sgt. Steve Brown, who dived out of the way, Hounshell said.
Cooper then parked his vehicle in front of his house, and Marinez followed him toward his front door while admonishing him to surrender, Hounshell said. Near the door, Cooper turned and fired an undetermined number of rounds at Marinez, who was wearing a bulletproof vest but no helmet, Hounshell said, adding that officers had not seen Cooper's handgun before he fired it.
At that point, another sheriff's deputy who had been at the side of Cooper's home, approached Cooper and opened fire. Hounshell said he did not know where or how many times Cooper was struck, saying a state Department of Public Safety shooting-review team had been dispatched to the site. Hounshell declined to identify the officer.
Cooper had said numerous times on his radio show, Hour of the Time, and posted on his Web site, that he had been under siege by "Nazi jackbooted thugs." He also had solicited donations for what he said was his fight against the U.S. government, which he said was responsible for the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
"He had vowed that he would not be taken alive," said Tom McCombs, a spokesman for the U.S. Marshal's Service in Phoenix.
Garms said Cooper's radio show had been off the air for about a month because of a shortage of money. But in one of his last programs, Garms said, Cooper had accused the federal government of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City.
Glenn Jacobs, a Round Valley newspaper publisher and friend of Cooper, said he didn't think the police operation was unjustified.
"I think Bill just went nuts. He was looking for martyrdom anyway and swore he would never surrender," Jacobs said. "They had him dead to rights on the aggravated assault."
Jacobs also said that if the sheriff's deputies had allowed Cooper to enter his house, "they would have had a bloodbath on their hands."
"He kept an AK-47 just inside his front door by a magazine rack," Jacobs said.
A spokesman for a group that tracks militias said the shooting wasn't surprising given Cooper's history. In addition to his show, he was known within the militia movement for an influential book called Behold a Pale Horse, in which he wrote about global elites and conspiracies.
"For more than 3 1/2 years, he had been holed up in his house in Eagar, threatening to kill police officers and federal agents," said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center. "He was talked about as a guy who talked crazy and made a lot of threats. The reality is that people like him are frequently exceedingly dangerous."
James Nichols, brother of Oklahoma bombing co-defendant Terry Nichols, said during a 1996 court proceeding that McVeigh had been a regular listener of Cooper's programs in the months leading up to the Murrah bombing.
Nelson Udall, an Eagar repairman and friend of Cooper, also said that McVeigh had paid a personal visit to Cooper two months before the bombing, when Cooper was broadcasting his show from his home at the time in St. Johns.
Cooper, who said he served in the Navy in intelligence operations aboard submarines, also was heavily involved in discussions of unidentified flying objects on his radio programs.
Probably agreed to work for the NWO while he was in the Gulf. Was probably part of the NWO then, because everyone knows that no Marine would become part of the NWO. Just another jack-booted thug who got what he deserved.
(sarcasm off)
Sad...ten years ago people on this board would have been cheering him for doing his job. Now, to some of them, he's scum for doing his job.
17 deputy dogs? Give me a break.
Garms' statement is patently false.
...But in one of his last programs, Garms said, Cooper had accused the federal government of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City.
Cooper may have implied that, but I'm not aware of any open accusation. The broadcast(s) in question will have to be reviewed on that point.
...and Mr. Cooper would have nothing to do with him and sent him away.
That's gotta hurt.
yeah, that's the reason, that's it, yeah, no doubt about it, i believe it, not
What I learned from this:
1.Don't stop paying the unconstitutional income tax. They will hunt you down and make you pay even if it is unconstitutional. They will put out warrants for your arrest. The constitution is history.
(but rich folks like Mark Rich and powerful people like the Clinton's can do ANYTHING and no one blinks an eye.)
2.Don't stay in your house for 3 and a half years not bothering a soul and expect to get away with it. Especially if you are a gun-owning patriot in a militia.
3. Even if you did not fire first, when you are dead you cannot tell anybody that.
4. With the government cover-ups we know about, even if the "authorities" were to tell the truth how would we know it's not just another cover-up? I mean how can you really KNOW anymore?
Maybe he did point a gun at someone's face. Maybe he had good reason to and maybe not. We will never know for sure. Some may trust the accounts the "authorities" give but I always have a big question mark in my mind. I didn't put it there cover-ups put it there.
One thing seems for sure...the patriots and the lawful militia are going to be made an example of. Not Condit, not Ted Kennedy, not the Cinton's, not people in certain places.
William Cooper may have been wrong about some things, but he certainly knew how the system worked. He didn't pay his taxes but he didn't sell us out to China. He didn't have a strong connection to a murdered woman, he wasn't responsible for the drowning of a woman. He doesn't have a "body count list", etc.
What he was...was an example. An example of what happens if you do not bow down to the state.
It's terrible about the deputy who was shot. I feel very sad for him and his family. Still..I can't help believing it would never have happened if they would have left the man alone. Like they did the elite.
Also...notice how the story has changed. First, the deputy shot first, now it is Cooper who shot first.
Who's surprised?