Murders of two district attorneys in Texas may be linked to white supremacist movement.

Mike McLelland and his wife Cynthia.

Courtesy of The Week: 

On Jan. 31, gunmen shot and killed Mark Hasse, an assistant district attorney in Texas' largely rural Kaufman County, in broad daylight as he was walking from his car to the Dallas-area courthouse. District Attorney Mike McLelland quickly vowed to pull the "scum" who shot his deputy "out of whatever hole you're in" and prosecute them "to the fullest extent of the law." Hasse's murder was still unsolved on Saturday, when police found the bodies of McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, in their home, also shot dead. 

Hasse had begun carrying a gun to work and varying his routine because he feared for his life, friends say. And after Hasse's death, McLelland started carrying a gun, too. "The people in my line of work are going to have to get better at it, because they're going to need it more in the future," he told The Associated Press less that two weeks ago. "I'm ahead of everybody else because, basically, I'm a soldier," he added, referring to his 23 years in the Army. Police officials say Cynthia McLelland was found near the front door of their house, and her husband was found near the back, still in his pajamas. 

Kaufman County Sheriff David Byrnes said Sunday that there was no evidence that the Hasse and McLelland murders were related, but "the killings of two prosecutors in a county of 106,000 people in less than eight weeks appeared to many officials to be more than a coincidence," notes The New York Times. Law enforcement sources, speaking off the record, say the the sheriff's office, the FBI, the Texas Rangers, and other agencies working on the cases assume there's a strong connection. Local officials are making that case openly, and security is being beefed up for employees of the D.A.'s office. 

The lead suspect in the killings is a white supremacist prison gang called the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas. McLelland had said he believed the gang could have been responsible for Hasse's murder, noting that the group has a lot of members in the area and that his office has "put some real dents in the Aryan Brotherhood around here in the past year."

As  we all know since the election of Barack Obama these white supremacist organizations have seen a real influx of  new members, and after being fired up by the words of a certain VP candidate who shall remain nameless, have been emboldened to come out of he shadows and let their presence be known.

There has not been a more welcoming environment for these groups in the last 30 years than the one provided today. With veiled racist remarks flooding certain conservative cable networks and internet outlets, and constant talk of an armed insurgence against the government, some of these groups must feel that finally America is ready to embrace their radical ideas and tactics.

In this article it does not identify the weapon used though it does say that "The house was reportedly littered with shells from a .233 caliber rifle." However when I first heard of this shooting the CNN reporter identified the weapon as a Bushmaster AR-15, similar to the one used in the Sandy Hook massacre. Which I found somewhat chilling.