Left-wing copkiller - Here's an interesting story I hadn't noticed till today. A young left-winger gunned down a cop late last year as an act of "protest". He'd been a student at Evergreen State College in WA, had been one of the International Solidarity Movement "human shields", and had taken part in anti-globalization protests/riots. His gun and vehicle were found up in Oregon. I think that's where Ray Duray lives - wonder if he knew this young fellow?
Several articles follow:
Documents describe accused cop killer
By GAIL CETNAR, News-Sun Staff Writer
The former Springfielder charged with murdering a California police officer was involved in peace efforts in Israel, according to recently unsealed court documents.
Andrew Hampton Mickel traveled to Israel at about Christmas 2001 as part of a peace-oriented group that acted as human shields between the Israelis and Palestinians, according to a Nov. 26 inter-office communication written by then-Springfield Police Capt. Stephen P. Moody, who became Springfield's police chief Wednesday.
Mickel, 23, reportedly was frustrated by the Israelis' ability to circumvent the effort, Moody wrote in the document released by Tehama County Superior Court in California.
Moody wrote that Mickel's parents contacted a local defense attorney after the killing of the police officer in November.
"They related that they had been in telephonic contact with their son, and he had advised then that he had shot and killed a police officer in Red Bluff," Moody wrote.
Moody's narrative was filed in the California court and was made available after a records request by the Red Bluff Daily News.
Officer David Mobilio was ambushed at about 1:30 a.m. Nov. 19 while he fueled his patrol car. He was shot twice in the left side and once at close range in the back of the head.
Mickel reportedly contacted several people after the shooting, including Washington Post reporter Lois Raimondo, who reportedly is a family friend. She is a Wittenberg University graduate.
He told her he killed the officer and he needed to be arrested so the media would report the story, Moody wrote. Mickel reportedly said he was not afraid of going to jail for the rest of his life because he was exposing the injustice of the world.
Raimondo reportedly called Mickel's parents, Stanley Mickel, a Wittenberg professor of languages, and his wife, Karen, a mathematics professor at the University of Dayton. His father checked the Web site of the Red Bluff Police Division and found the killer's profile fit his son, Moody's document stated.
Andrew Mickel also telephoned both his brothers and his parents and reportedly told his parents that what he told Raimondo was true. He did not give them specific information about how he allegedly killed Mobilio, but he told his mother he disposed of the gun before he boarded a plane east, the document stated.
A .40-caliber handgun that could have been one of four makes, including a Sig Sauer, was used to shoot Mobilio, according to a Nov. 26 statement of probable cause written by California Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Jeff Lierly. A .40-caliber Sig Sauer handgun was registered to Andrew Mickel in Washington.
Andrew Mickel, 23, is a 1998 North High School graduate who served in the U.S. Army for three years. His father said he joined the service to provide discipline in his life and excelled in the mental and physical challenges, but also was turned off by the service, according to the inter-office police document.
He graduated from the Army's Ranger school, airborne school and jungle operations training school, and he served at Fort Benning, Ga., and Fort Campbell, Ky., Moody wrote.
He then began studying creative writing at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., where he was a sophomore.
Moody's inter-office communication states Mickel's father said his son needs an opportunity to express his platform and described him as idealistic, intelligent and stubborn, with a wry sense of humor. He said his son believes "America is raping the world ... and is anti-globalization," Moody wrote.
Andrew Mickel's brother reportedly stated he "is acting as if he is in a movie and the media attention will cause the world to change."
A maroon 1992 Ford Mustang hatchback registered to Andrew Mickel in Washington potentially is linked to the crime. Two witnesses said they saw a maroon early-90s model Ford Mustang hatchback parked near the scene of the shooting at about 6:30 p.m. Nov. 18, the day before the killing, according to the probable cause statement. A cloth covered both license plates.
Another witness stated he was passed by a car with a brown cloth over the rear license plate at about 1:45 a.m. Nov. 19, about 15 minutes after the killing, according to the probable cause statement.
Andrew Mickel wrecked his car Nov. 19 in Oregon, according to a report in the Sacramento Bee. While deputies responded to the crash, a nearby resident invited Andrew Mickel in to shower and clean up. He was not arrested because deputies had no indication he was linked to a homicide, the Bee reported.
Investigators believe Mickel, who also uses the name McCrae, confessed to the murder on Nov. 25 on a San Francisco news Web site, www.indymedia.org. In one of two letters posted online, the writer identified as McCrae claims he shot and killed the officer to protest "police state tactics" and corporate irresponsibility. The writer claimed he is immune from prosecution because he incorporated himself in New Hampshire as a protest against corporations who "murder thousands of people each year" without being held accountable.
Andrew Mickel was arrested Nov. 26 at a Concord, N.H., hotel after several hours of negotiations with FBI agents and a phone interview with a Concord reporter.
He is being held without bail in a New Hampshire jail while he fights extradition. He has until Jan. 10 to file a petition contesting the validity of the California governor's warrant for his return.
He is charged with murder in California and could face the death penalty.
Reach Gail Cetnar at gcetnar@coxohio.com
216.239.39.104
Writings describe motive
By DANIEL BARRICK
Monitor staff
A man identifying himself as Andrew McCrae railed against "a brutal police system" in two lengthy postings to a San Francisco Web site Monday evening. The writings also describe an anti-corporate philosophy that he said justified the killing of police officers.
"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," one letter read. "Now I'm coming forward, to explain that this killing was also an action against corporate irresponsibility. All the major problems in America and throughout the world today are caused by corporate irresponsibility."
In another posting, the writer, who the police say is the same man they arrested yesterday, issued what he called "The Declaration of a Renewed American Independence." The letter opens with an apology "to the family and friends of the Police Officer that we killed in Red Bluff, California," followed by a five-page list of grievances against law enforcement officials who have "defiled our liberties."
"We, the Freedom-Loving people of America, hereby solemnly publish and declare that any adult consensual act, whether declared illegal by legislature or not, is, in the truth of human existence, not a crime, but a Non-Crime," it reads in part. "They have allowed 'resisting arrest' charges to turn unlawful arrests into 'lawful' ones. They have arrested people without reading them their rights. They have attacked our spiritual and physical liberties by waging a War on Drugs that are so widely used and enjoyed that this enforcement becomes an insult to both American intelligence and freedom itself."
The letter is signed "The American People."
McCrae claimed immunity from prosecution because he was acting as a corporation. Papers filed with the New Hampshire secretary of state show McCrae formed his corporation, Proud and Insolent Youth Inc., on Nov. 7.
In the Web posting, he said he did this "so that I could use the destructive immunity of corporations and turn it on something that actually should be destroyed."
"The very concept behind corporations is to protect their owners from taking responsibility for their actions."
The name of his corporation is a reference to a line from the children's book Peter Pan, the writer said: "Now, Peter Pan hates pirates, and I hate pirates, and corporations are nothing but a bunch of pirates. It's time to send them to a watery grave, and rip them completely out of our lives."
He said he filed in New Hampshire because, "The New Hampshire State Constitution, in the Bill of Rights, guarantees the Right to Revolution."
"I'm going to utilize the WTO's tactic of applying to a foreign state the laws of the state in which I was incorporated. I encourage everyone else to do the same."
Both postings had been removed from the site, San Francisco Indymedia, by noon yesterday. The site is a collection of independent news articles, "to seek out and provide coverage underscoring the global nature of people's struggles for social, economic, and environmental justice directly from their perspective." It includes a forum where members can post their own writings.
The letters also accuse the U.S. military of "raping and destroying the places 'terrorists' are from."
"The government and corporations have bastardized our military away from us, endangering our soldiers for their own monetary gain. They've been doing it for a long time. But many veterans, after leaving the service, step back and look at U.S. foreign policy to see it for what it is."
McCrae enlisted in the Army in 1999, as Andrew Hampton Mickel, a name the police gave as an alias. He trained as an infantryman and in 2001 moved to the Individual Ready Reserve, a civilian reserve corps. In one posting, McCrae claims to be a graduate of the U.S. Army Ranger School, Airborne School and Jungle Operations Training School. An Army spokesman said he could find no evidence of such training in his file yesterday.
McCrae's public record is otherwise sketchy. He was arrested in Seattle on April 20, as Andrew Mickel, for obstructing a public official. He spent one night in King County Jail, in Washington state, before being released by the court.
Papers filed by McCrae with the New Hampshire secretary of state give an address in Olympia, Wash., as well as a house on Lovering Avenue in Loudon, as business contacts.
At the Loudon address, Judy Edwards said she works as an agent for about 50 out-of-state businesses. Some of those, she said, exist only on paper. Her role, she said, is to give those businesses a physical presence in New Hampshire for legal purposes.
"Every business in the state has to have someone they can serve subpoenas on," said Edwards, standing outside the gray prefabricated home where she lived and ran her business until moving into offices recently. "They have to designate someone in the state to accept service of process."
Edwards said she did all her agent work through an intermediary, Wisconsin-based Business Filings Inc., and has never spoken to or even heard of McCrae.
The Olympia address is a large apartment building, with no listing for McCrae. The Olympia phone number on McCrae's corporate filings went unanswered yesterday afternoon. The Olympia police say they have had no contact with him.
McCrae's postings generated two responses from visitors to the site. One reader, named "jefe," wrote, "Well done. Send it to all the IMCs, media, outlets of communication and rage - wa-hoo."
Another visitor responded, "First off, I don't think you really killed a cop. No one who actually did that would be that stupid as to put it on the net. If you did, I hope you fry."
Evergreen student fights extradition
McCrae suspected in death of police officer in California
Andrew McCrae sits in Concord District Court in Concord, N.H., on Thursday. McCrae is accused of killing a police officer in California.
The Associated PressOLYMPIAN STAFF, WIRE SERVICES
The Evergreen State College student accused of killing a police officer in California is fighting extradition from New Hampshire, his lawyer told a judge Thursday.
Andrew McCrae, who is also known as Andrew Mickel, was given until Jan. 10 to file an extradition petition.
District Court Judge Michael Ryan ordered McCrae to continue being held without bail in the Merrimack County Jail in New Hampshire until the petition is heard in Superior Court.
If extradition is granted, he could be sent to California immediately.
McCrae, 23, is suspected of ambushing Red Bluff, Calif., Officer David Mobilio at a gas station on Nov. 19 and shooting him three times. McCrae was arrested a week later at a hotel in Concord.
McCrae appeared in court Thursday but did not speak at the brief extradition hearing.
McCrae has every reason to want to fight extradition, since he could face a California capital murder charge, which can carry the death penalty. His lawyer, Mark Sisti, declined to give specifics of the argument planned in McCrae's petition, but said, "I think it is a rather novel situation."
"It has a lot to do with the potential penalty waiting in California and his state of mind," he said.
Concord city prosecutor Scott Murray said he was not surprised by the petition, but he has never seen such a petition succeed, and "I've been doing this for 20 years."
Phone calls McCrae made to his parents in Springfield, Ohio, and to a Washington Post reporter, Lois Raimondo, led investigators to his Concord hotel room, according to California court documents released this week. He surrendered without incident.
An individual identifying himself as McCrae had posted confessions online, claiming he killed Mobilio to make a statement about police brutality and corporate irresponsibility.
Court documents obtained by the Red Bluff (Calif.) Daily News through a court order provide a few more of what have been sketchy details about McCrae's time in the Northwest.
In a memo dated Nov. 26, Capt. Stephen Moody of the Springfield Police Department described what he had learned from conversations with McCrae's parents, Stanley and Karen Mickel.
McCrae's father told Moody that McCrae was in his sophomore year at Evergreen, majoring in writing.
While an Andrew Mickel was listed on Evergreen's online student directory, college officials have not confirmed or denied whether McCrae was a student. Federal law forbids releasing student information if the student requests no release, Art Costantino, Evergreen vice president for student affairs, has said.
According to the police memo, Stanley Mickel said McCrae had lived in Los Angeles within the past year, after being discharged from the Army at the rank of Specialist E4. He said his son had joined the Army to provide discipline in his life, and that while he excelled in the mental and physical challenges, he was "turned off by the service."
Mickel said his son had traveled to Palestine during Christmas 2001 as part of "a peace-oriented group that acted as human shields between the Israelis and Palestinians in a humanitarian effort."
Moody reported that McCrae had told his older brother, who lives in New York, that he had been "bloodied" in Seattle, but his parents were unsure whether he had been involved in the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle.
They told Moody he might have had some affiliation with "one of the radical groups involved in Seattle during this time."
McCrae was "acting as if he is in a movie and the media attention will cause the world to change," Stanley Mickel said McCrae's older brother had related.
"He related to Raimondo that he needed to be arrested so the media will get the story out," the memo said. "That he is not afraid of going to jail for the rest of his life because he is exposing the injustice in the world."
Phone messages left at the Mickels' home Thursday were not immediately returned.
Court documents also indicated that McCrae's maroon 1992 Ford Mustang hatchback and a .40-caliber Sig Sauer handgun were registered to him in Washington state.
Police had determined that the gun that killed Mobilio was a .40-caliber handgun of one of four makes, including a Sig Sauer.
A vehicle that fit the description was later found in Bend, Ore., where McCrae had been in an accident the night of Nov. 19, according to the Daily News. A weapon matching the description of the one used in Mobilio's death also was later found at a different location in Bend. Both were registered to Andrew McCrae in Washington state.
According to the memo, McCrae told his mother he had to dispose of the gun before he boarded a plane east, but he didn't say what type of gun he had or from where he flew east.
216.239.39.104 |
