Posted on 07/09/2003 5:52:58 AM PDT by Vigilant1
DAYTON TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) ? Fire burned the rural home of a man who barricaded himself inside during a deadly police standoff, but authorities were unable to find him when they searched the rubble, Michigan State Police said.
Two hours after the Tuesday afternoon fire, officials found a backpack filled with food and ammunition about three-quarters of a mile away, said Tracy Pardo, a state police communications officer.
The wife of the barricaded man, Scott Allen Woodring, 40, identified the backpack as her husband's, Pardo told the Detroit Free Press for a Wednesday story.
State police said Woodring was believed to be inside when they fired a concussion grenade into the house, which went up in flames a short time later. They were uncertain whether the explosive device, intended to stun Woodring, started the fire or if he set it.
State police scheduled a news conference for Wednesday morning.
Trooper Kevin Marshall, a 33-year-old married father of two and a native of Sterling Heights, was shot Monday afternoon during the standoff. He died later during surgery at a Grand Rapids hospital.
State police were called in after the confrontation erupted Sunday night.
Woodring barricaded himself when officers from the Hesperia Police Department and the Newaygo County Sheriff's Department tried to serve him at his Dayton Township home with a felony arrest warrant. The township is adjacent to Fremont, about 30 miles northeast of Muskegon.
The warrant accuses Woodring of soliciting a minor for sex on July 1 at a gas station, The Grand Rapids Press reported.
Several hours into the standoff, police helped Woodring's wife escape the home, leaving him alone inside.
After Woodring allegedly fired two shots from the house on Monday afternoon, the State Police Emergency Support Team stormed inside and then withdrew. Marshall, an eight-year state police veteran who served on the team, was shot at that time.
When asked whether Marshall could have been hit by a bullet shot by another officer, state police Inspector Barry Getzen said the matter remained under investigation and authorities would examine evidence to "determine what rounds the officer was hit with."
Tom Wayne, former chief of staff and executive officer of the Michigan Militia Corps Wolverines, told The Detroit News that Woodring was active in the group until the mid-1990s. They parted ways over ideological differences.
"He started getting more and more into the Christian Identity movement," said Wayne, who said the militia is largely inactive now.
The movement espouses racist, sexist, anti-Semitic and homophobic beliefs.
Woodring's sister, Debbie DeVisser, of Mount Pleasant, described her brother as a deeply religious man who would help anyone and not ask for anything in return.
Asked if she thought he would shoot at someone, DeVisser said, "Scott would not shoot anybody to harm anybody. The only reason he would have shot (at police) was because he felt threatened and to protect himself."
DeVisser said she wished police had allowed family members to talk to Woodring on Tuesday and speculated that family may have been able to talk him out. Relatives were allowed to converse with him on Monday, the same day police said they last spoke with him during the standoff.
Suzie Burdick, of Everett Township in Newaygo County, said she and Woodring have been close friends for five years. She said they have attended the same church for about a year and often spoke several times a day, mostly about the Bible.
Burdick noted that while Woodring holds strong anti-government views, he was a nonviolent person.
"He's the most loving person I've ever known, just about. He's kind, considerate, loving, caring and loved his wife dearly," Burdick said.
Meanwhile, Gov. Jennifer Granholm has ordered flags at all state buildings to be lowered to half-staff until sundown of the day of Marshall's funeral. Funeral arrangements have not yet been completed, according to her office.
Marshall is the 49th Michigan State Police trooper to die in the line of duty. His death is the department's first in three years.
Irrelevant. The felony was resisting arrest. Had he surrendered, the standoff would not have happened, and the house would not have ended up getting torched.
Guesss again. Pension for life for spouse plus life insurance is my guess at a minimum.
Wrong. Life insurance plus pension plan lump-sum payout unless the officer was eligible for retirement. And without years of interest accrual...the pension payout ain't much.
Fine, go ahead and take the law into your own hands, be judge and jury...
With goofballs like you saying "no harm in asking," looks like I'm the only
but still does not answer the question, first it is alleged he solicited a minor
Right. That's why we have a judicial system--to deal with ALLEGATIONS of criminal behavior.
One of the requirements of due process is that the accused has to submit to the process due him.
and second predator means prey, which indicates aggression, devour, destroy, not merely asking or suggesting.
An adult asking someone to engage in sex for money, said someone being below the age of consent, is predatory by definition.
He may have broken the law but the word predator does not seem to fit IMO in this case, lacking further information. If I offer some kid $50 to wash my car am I a predator?
If you do not understand the difference between soliciting a minor to wash a car and soliciting a minor for sex, then you are one sick perverted a$$hole and should be locked up for life.
Great.
If lightning were to come out of a clear sky and fry Wickstrom and his adherents at their next shindig, I would shed no tears.
Matousek said he grew up in Methodist and Baptist churches and was involved in the conservative John Birch Society before discovering the Christian Identity movement.http://216.239.53.104/search?q=cache:b0DmPr6VdzMJ:groups.yahoo.com/group/christianidentity/message/25806+%22George+Matousek%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8"It all made sense, with the experience and knowledge I had of the New World Order, as a member of the John Birch Society," he said. "This put the pieces together."
James Nichols finds religion - with group labeled racist Jewish organizations find brother of Oklahoma City figure attending anti-black, anti-Semite Bible study' Sunday, February 09, 2003By Ron Fonger
About James Wickstrom Decker - The brother of Terry Nichols, one of the men convicted of the Oklahoma City bombing, has a new acquaintance - a pastor some say has advocated the lynching of Jews. And farmer James Nichols said he's not sure whether another Holocaust isn't a good idea. A story in the winter edition of the Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence Report claims Nichols took a secret oath to the Christian Identity movement on behalf of himself and his brother during a two-day meeting outside tiny Essexville in October. Months after the gathering that included pastor James Wickstrom and about 90 supporters in a furniture store, Nichols denies he took such an oath but said he wasn't sure whether Jews should be exterminated. "I don't know. I'm there to learn," said Nichols, who acknowledged he was at the "Feast of Tabernacles" and has been attending what he called Bible study meetings at the store. The Anti-Defamation League and SPLC, which track white supremacist groups, are among those that claim Christian Identity - and Wickstrom in particular - promote more hate than Bible knowledge. Wickstrom's movement claims God created a single race -- the white race - in his own image, that Jews are descendants of Satan and that blacks and other nonwhite races are "mud people" on the same level as animals, according to the ADL. "The Bible is racist itself. It's not meant for everybody," said Nichols, who said he's known Wickstrom for more than a year. Nichols' involvement in the Identity movement and his relationship with Wickstrom raise new questions about the 49-year-old Decker farmer who has portrayed himself as "just an average everyday" person rather than a revolutionary. Terry Nichols and bomber Timothy McVeigh were linked to militia, or Patriot, groups following the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, but the tie was never proven. McVeigh was executed June 11, 2001, for carrying out the bombing. Terry Nichols now is serving life in prison for conspiracy and the deaths of eight law enforcement officers in the bombing; he was accused of helping deliver a getaway car to bomber McVeigh and working with McVeigh to pack the bomb inside a Ryder truck. Nichols still faces state charges - 160 counts of first-degree murder - in the bombing and faces the death penalty if convicted. James Nichols claimed his brother was framed by federal officials and expressed conspiracy theories and distrust of the government since the bombing, similar to claims of militia members. He renounced his U.S. citizenship, returned his Social Security card and refused to carry a driver's license, but until the SPLC story hadn't been singled out as a member of a hate group. "James Nichols, among many other people, always denied the Patriot movement was racist. This shows clearly the racist and anti-Semitic strain that always ran through the movement," said Mark Potok, editor of the SCLC's Intelligence Report and author of a report, "The Second Man: Terry Nichols and the Oklahoma City Bombing." Nichols contends the SPLC story doesn't accurately portray what happened at the Feast, but the Montgomery, Ala., nonprofit organization is standing behind its story. Nichols said he couldn't even be sure he heard anti-Semitic remarks at the gathering. "That was in October (and) I wasn't there every minute of the day," he said. "I don't remember hearing that (but) I could have been taking a break outside." Nichols called the SPLC "liars and cowards." He said he took part in a prayer, but the SPLC story was not correct in saying he dropped 66 cents into a basket, pledging himself and brother Terry to the movement. "They didn't get that part right," he said. Potok would not comment on how the organization collected its information about the meeting, but said the group stumbled into Nichols while it was attempting to keep up with about 90 white supremacists at the session. "We had almost no interest in James Nichols at all. He just popped up," Potok said. He said Nichols took a "Soldier's Ransom" oath in Essexville. "The Soldier's Ransom -- it's an oath to do battle ... very much associated with Aryan Nations," Potok said. Potok said Nichols' relationship with Wickstrom is troubling because Wickstrom is one of the most radical Identity pastors. His Web site offers links to music "with a pro-white agenda," Aryan Nations and the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Nichols, a 1972 graduate of Lapeer High School, denied he took an oath to "anybody or any group. "I took an oath to be a Boy Scout a long time ago," he said. Jack Kay, professor of communications at Wayne State University, said Wickstrom - once a candidate for governor and U.S. Senate in Wisconsin - has a limited but national following. "Wickstrom is quoted in a lot of the Ku Klux Klan and Identity Web sites," Kay said. Some music groups associated with "white power groups use Wickstrom's words" as lyrics, he added. A 1998 Intelligence Report story quoted Wickstrom as telling followers a Y2K (or year 2000) computer crash was coming and to prepare to "fill our shoes with the blood of our enemies and walk in them." Wickstrom said he "lives for the day I can walk down the road and see heads on the fence posts," according to the story. The Journal could not reach Wickstrom for comment, but Mary Marquiss, who owns Marquiss Quality Furniture, where the Christian Identity meeting was held, said she would relay requests to speak with him. Like Nichols, Marquiss said their Bible study group believes whites and blacks should not mix. She said Jews are "sons and daughters of Satan." "The Bible -- if you read it -- is a book of the white race," Marquiss said. "What we believe is each bird to his own kind; each race to its own kind. You don't racially mix. You don't see a cat and a dog mixing." Nichols said Wickstrom is "just a pastor," and he doesn't believe in everything he hears during Bible meetings but isn't inclined to walk out. He said the Bible establishes that it is normal for whites and blacks to marry within their own race and said whites are often treated unfairly. "The blacks can have their days and the Jews have a Jewish holiday, but ... when do the white people have their holiday?" he asked. Marquiss said Nichols isn't a radical racist. "Jim Nichols is not a threat to anyone. Neither was Terry Nichols," Marquiss said. "He was framed." *** Ron Fonger can be reached at (810) 766-6317 or rfonger@flintjournal.com.
DECKER
THE FLINT JOURNAL FIRST EDITION
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER
QUICK FACTS
About James Nichols
"I don't know. I'm there to learn," said Nichols...
YGBSM.
"We evicted (Woodring and others in the Newaygo County militia 'brigade') from the militia several years ago in regards to their Christian Identity ties and their ties to the Ku Klux Klan and the neo-Nazis," said Lynn Jon VanHuizen, a Muskegon County gun-shop owner and state commander of the Michigan Militia Corps Wolverines.http://www.mlive.com/news/muchronicle/index.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/base/news-2/105785200567770.xml
And now we know the value you put on the lives of the officers and other innocents involved. None zero nada zip!
psst once the govt has the money, it is no longer YOUR money. If it were then still YOUR money why you could just go get it back because you don't like the way it is being spent protecting LEOs and all this overtime pay.
If believing in the sanctity of human life makes me a liberal democrat, then count me in with them on this one. Because I do value human life. Are you suggesting conservatives don't value human life (especially LEOs) as much as liberal democrats? True conservatives might disagree with you on this one. I know I do.
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