Murder.com: Killer Confesses to Politically-Motivated Slaying on IndyMedia

Shockingly, it's covered by the WaPo; but I doubt we'll hear any more about it:

The coming revolution against the United States government was announced on the Internet via a manifesto by a self-described "proud and insolent youth," a college sophomore who sought to be our leader. This was to be the spark:

At 1:27 a.m. on Nov. 19, 2002, Officer David Mobilio of the Red Bluff Police Department was working the graveyard shift when he pulled his cruiser into a gas station in his quiet little farm town. As he stood beside the car, the 31-year-old husband and father of a toddler was shot three times, twice in the back and once in the head, at very close range.

Beside Mobilio's dead body, someone left a handmade flag with a picture of a snake's head and the words "Don't Tread on Us."

A well-chosen spot for an ambush. That is what investigators later concluded, especially when they learned the suspected assailant had Army Ranger training. A lonely crossroads. Poorly lit. No station attendant on duty. No witnesses. It was a killing that might have never been solved.

That is, until a confession appeared on the Internet. Six days after the shooting, a manifesto appeared on more than a dozen Web sites operated by the left-leaning Independent Media Center.

It began: "Hello Everyone, my name's Andy. I killed a Police Officer in Red Bluff, California in a motion to bring attention to, and halt, the police-state tactics that have come to be used throughout our country. Now I'm coming forward, to explain that this killing was also an action against corporate irresponsibility."

The tract -- which managed to mingle an almost chirpy tone with leftist cant -- was signed by "Andrew McCrae," later found to be an alias for Andrew Mickel, a student at a liberal arts college who before enrolling had served three years stateside with the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division.

...

Mickel wrote that he was incorporating to shield himself from prosecution. He urged everyone to join his board of directors. His stock would be free. He called for insurrection. A national strike. Mass resistance. "But don't do anything you're uncomfortable with," Mickel added, "and don't pressure anyone else into anything they're uncomfortable with."

So polite. But aren't they always?

This is why I am so insistent on not having any murder-talk on this site, even in jest. Some people are born killers. Some people, however, are only potential killers, and will kill only when they feel they have the support and encouragement of a group of people whose opinions they respect.

These are the killers who imagine themselves as heroes.

And I just never want it said that some lunatic got the idea to kill someone because he saw some people talking about it-- in jest, or as gallows humor, or whatever -- on Ace of Spades HQ.

It makes my physically angry to see lefties talking up murder and assassination on their little lunatic forums. I don't like it when they provide not-so-subtle encouragement to deranged folks looking to become folk heroes, and I don't like it when anyone on the right does that either.

Thanks to NickS for the chilling story.

posted by Hoke at 01:18 PM

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