Law enforcementAryan Brotherhood suspected in Texas prosecutors killings

The Aryan Brotherhood is a focus of the murders of Texas prosecutors // Source: vk.com

The FBI and other law enforcement agencies believe the white supremacist group  the Aryan Brotherhood could be behind the murders of a Texas district attorney and his wife last weekend, and the death of an assistant district attorney earlier this year.

“I believe it is a group. It could possibly be the Aryan Brotherhood,” Congressman Ted Poe (R-Texas) told CNN. Yahoo News reports that Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife Cynthia were found dead last Saturday at their home with fatal gunshot wounds. In January, Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse was also killed. Kaufman County Sheriff David Byrnes said that the FBI, Texas Rangers, and other law enforcement officials are investigating the murders.

Poe did not say what information led to his hypothesis, but he did say that in the last thirty years only thirteen prosecutors have been murdered across the United States, and the three killings in Texas had the mark of a direct campaign of fear and intimidation, “specifically aimed at certain people in particular roles in law enforcement.”

“It seems to me that a scenario may be developing that the district attorney’s office was investigating this gang, or another gang, and they wanted to prevent that investigation,” Poe added.

Poe did not name any possible suspects in the case, but law enforcement officials are believed to be focusing on the prison-based gang in the unsolved murder of Hasse, who was killed in a gangland-style shooting just outside the Kaufman County courthouse on the same day the U.S. Justice Department released a statement saying the Kaufman County District Attorney’s Office was involved in a racketeering case against the Aryan Brotherhood.

Following Hasse’s murder, McLelland promised to bring those responsible to justice.

According to the Dallas Morning News, the Texas Department of Public Safety issued a statewide bulletin last December warning authorities that it had received “credible information” that the gang was “actively planning retaliation against law enforcement officials” who helped secure indictments against dozens of members including the leaders of the gang in Houston.

An indictment released late last year described the Texas region of the Aryan Brotherhood as a gang responsible for murders, arson, assault, and other crimes and prone to “extreme violence and threats of violence to maintain internal discipline and retaliate against those believed to be cooperating with law enforcement.”