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| This undated photo released by the Colorado Department of Corrections shows paroled inmate Evan Spencer Ebel. Ebel, 28, is the man who led Texas authorities on a 100 mph car chase that ended in a shootout Thursday, March 21, 2013, and may be linked to the slaying of Colorado's state prison chief. |
DECATUR, Texas
(AP) -- Shell casings from a Texas shootout with a white supremacist
Colorado parolee are the same make and caliber as those found at the
home of Colorado's prison chief after he was killed, according to legal
papers.
It's the closest link yet between Evan
Spencer Ebel - who died in the shootout - and the slaying of Tom
Clements, who was shot and killed when he opened his door Tuesday
evening.
Authorities also say they found a
Domino's pizza bag and a jacket or shirt in the trunk of the car Ebel
was driving when Texas deputies tried to pull him over - a link to
another slaying, that of a pizza deliveryman whose body was found
Sunday.
In a case that's been confusing in how
the suspect is connected to each crime, the search warrant documents
released Friday in Texas brought some clarity.
Ebel,
28, is a Colorado parolee with a long record of convictions since 2003
for various crimes including assaulting a prison guard in 2008. He was a
member of a white supremacist prison gang called the 211s, a federal
law enforcement official told The Associated Press. The official was not
authorized to speak publicly about the case and spoke to the AP on
condition of anonymity.
Colorado officials
would not confirm Ebel's gang ties or say whether they had anything to
do with the death of prisons director Tom Clements. But they locked down
prisons Friday for the second time since Clements' slaying without
giving a reason, and said state troopers are providing extra security
for Colorado government officials.
"We are at a heightened alert," said Steve Johnson of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation at a Friday news conference.
Denver
police said they were "confident" Ebel was involved in the death of
Nathan Leon, 27, the pizza man whose body was found Sunday.
They've
been less forthcoming about his link to Clements' death, aside from
saying the car Ebel was driving during the shootout in Texas is similar
to one seen at Clements' home the night of the shooting.
Ebel
fired at Texas authorities who tried to stop him Thursday. The .9 mm
Hornady casings found after the Texas shootout match those found at
Clement's house, Texas Ranger Anthony Bradford wrote in the application
for a search warrant.
Authorities said they
were running ballistics tests to see if they could conclusively link the
gun Ebel used in Texas with the one that killed Clements.
The
FBI and local officials were also beginning to examine another case
that appears similar to the Clements killing - the Jan. 31 slaying of a
prosecutor in Kaufman - about 100 miles from where Ebel crashed and got
into the shootout. Mark Hasse was gunned down as he walked across a
parking lot to the courthouse.
Authorities
have investigated whether Hasse's death could be linked to a white
supremacist gang. On Friday they said they will see if there is any
connection to Clements' murder.
"This is part
of routine investigative work when two crimes occur under somewhat
similar circumstances," Kaufman Police Chief Chris Aulbaugh said in a
statement on the look at any links with the Clements case.
Ebel's
tie to Clements' killing comes from the car he drove - a black Cadillac
with mismatched Colorado plates that fit the description of a vehicle
spotted outside Clements' home just before the prison chief answered his
front door and was shot to death.
Texas
authorities spotted the car Thursday and gave chase after Ebel shot and
wounded a deputy. They fatally shot him after he crashed into a semi and
opened fire on his pursuers.
Ebel is not on
the radar of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks extremist
groups, but the center rates the gang as one of the most vicious white
supremacist groups operating in the nation's prisons, comparable to the
Aryan Brotherhood of Texas. Founded in 1995 to protect white prisoners
from attacks, it operates only in Colorado and has anywhere from between
a couple hundred to 1,000 members, senior fellow Mark Potok said
Friday.
The gang has grown into a
sophisticated criminal enterprise where members are assigned military
titles like "general" and extort money from fellow prisoners, regardless
of race. Released members are expected to make money to support those
still in prison, Potok said. He said members have to attack someone to
get in and can only get out by dying.
"It's blood in and blood out," he said.
In
2005, 32 members were indicted for racketeering and the gang's founder,
Benjamin Davis, was sentenced to over 100 years in prison.
The
killing of Clements, 58, shocked his quiet neighborhood in Monument, a
town of rolling hills north of Colorado Springs, for its brutality: He
answered the door of his home Tuesday evening and was gunned down.
Authorities wouldn't say if they thought the attack was related to his
job, and all Clements' recent public activities and cases were
scrutinized.
The Texas car chase started when a
sheriff's deputy in Montague County, James Boyd, tried to pull over the
Cadillac around 11 a.m. Thursday, authorities there said. They wouldn't
say exactly why he was stopped, but called it routine.
Ebel
opened fire on Boyd, wounding him, Wise County Sheriff David Walker.
Ebel then fled south before crashing into a semi as he tried to elude
his pursuers.
After the crash, Ebel he got out
of the vehicle, shooting at deputies and troopers who had joined the
chase. He shot at Decatur Police Chief Rex Hoskins four times as the
chief tried to set up a roadblock.
"He wasn't planning on being taken alive," Hoskins said.
Boyd,
the deputy who was shot, was wearing a bulletproof vest and was at a
Fort Worth hospital, authorities said. Officials Friday said he was able
to sit up and appeared to be recovering.
Legal
records show Ebel was convicted of several crimes in Colorado dating
back to 2003, including assaulting a prison guard in 2008. He apparently
was paroled, but Colorado Department of Corrections spokeswoman Alison
Morgan said she could not release information on prisoners because of
the ongoing investigation into Clements' death.
Scott
Robinson, a criminal defense attorney and media legal analyst,
represented Ebel in 2003 and 2004. He said Ebel had been sentenced to a
halfway house for a robbery charge in 2003 before he was accused in two
additional robbery cases the following year that garnered prison
sentences of three and eight years.
"I thought
he was a young man who was redeemable, otherwise I wouldn't have taken
the case," Robinson said, saying he didn't recall the details of the
case.
Robinson said he knew Ebel before he got
in trouble. He said Ebel was raised by a single father and had a
younger sister who died in a car accident years ago.
Vicky
Bankey said Ebel was in his teens when she lived across from him in
suburban Denver until his father moved a couple of years ago. She
remembers seeing Ebel once jump off the roof of his house. "He was a
handful. I'd see him do some pretty crazy things," she said.
"He had a hair-trigger temper as a kid. But his dad was so nice," Bankey said.
Ebel's father didn't return multiple phone calls.
Clements
came to Colorado in 2011 after working three decades in the Missouri
prison system. Missouri Department of Corrections spokeswoman Mandi
Steele said Thursday the department was ready to help in the probe if
asked.
The last public official killed in
Colorado in the past 10 years was Sean May, a prosecutor in suburban
Denver. An assailant killed May as he arrived home from work.
Investigators examined May's court cases, but the case remains unsolved.
