Category: Crime

Some connections I made yesterday between the murder of the Colorado prison system director and a Texas prosecutor apparently are not so far-fetched. Read some links I have gathered today. I feel they better tell the story than I will so attempt.

Links between Kaufman and Colorado murders?

Shell casings the same in Texas shootout and Colorado Springs killing.

Pizza driver body found.

Prison gang connections?

Black Caddy search warrant.

This is a tragic, violent story. It is also an interesting one for those who follow crime sagas. It would be something if they could tie all of these crimes neatly. When I say neatly, I mean accurately.

Law enforcement officers in North Texas captured someone who may be of interest in the murder of the Colorado Prison system director. Unfortunately, or not to some, the suspect who was also shot during his capture is reportedly brain dead.

A man driving a black Cadillac at a high speed crashed his car into a rock truck in Wise County, Texas, and began firing on police. The area in which the incident happened is about 35 miles northwest of Fort Worth. The unidentified man driving the car was shot in the head by police. He is believed to have also shot a Montague County, Texas, deputy sheriff in the head and chest after being stopped for a traffic violation. The Star-Telegram in Fort Worth is reporting police are checking the suspect’s fingerprints to identify him since, as a police official said, the man was “basically legally deceased.”

The deputy who was shot earlier was said to be in “stable condition” which tells the lay person “basically medically nothing.” It just says that the individual has stable vital signs. The person can be stable and in good condition or stable and in improving condition or even stable in serious or critical condition. I once worked for a newspaper that told us to not accept “stable” by itself as a condition. Luckily, the head nurse at our local trauma hospital was a very sharp lady and could readily give us that information. Hopefully, the deputy is in a “stable and expected to pull through just fine condition.”

Colorado and in Texas authorities have not indicated how they might have connected the possibly “basically legally deceased” suspect with the person who fatally shot Colorado prison director Tom Clements in the chest. The car involved in the Texas crime spree had Colorado plates and supposedly matched the black “boxy” description of the car reportedly seen speeding away from the neighborhood about the time Clements was shot.

There are so many angles to investigate in a crime such as the Clements murder which could likely turn out an assassination. I think of a crime which happened awhile back just east of Dallas in which an assistant prosecutor was gunned down as he approached his office in the Kaufman County Courthouse. Mark Hasse was killed was on his way to work when he was mortally wounded by gunfire.

Hasse was known to have prosecuted and investigated a number of cases involving the notorious white supremacist gang the Aryan Brotherhood, an brutal outfit that grew out of Texas prisons. While Hasse was not directly cited, a Justice Department news release went out the morning the 57-year-old prosecutor was killed that announced two Aryan members plead guilty to federal racketeering charges. Among the numerous law enforcement agencies cited by Justice as providing assistance in the arrests was the Kaufman County D.A.’s Office. Hasse was not specifically singled out in that release.

When I heard of the “in your face” fatal shooting of Clements this week, I immediately thought of the assassination of Hasse. The obvious links one thinks about there include prison gangs and the brutal racists who belong to them.

Hopefully, the links to the Clements murder and the Texas suspect just now described by “NBC” as “brain dead” will prove fruitful in solving the Colorado killing. If such mystery is solved, who knows if the Hasse murder will likewise find a conclusion.