Jerad and Amanda Miller — who executed two Las Vegas cops and an armed good Samaritan who tried to stop them — were packing handguns, a shotgun and hundreds of bullets for the Sunday morning bloodbath at a Las Vegas eatery, cops said Monday.
The pair were white supremacists who liked to dress as Slendermn and The Joker.
“We believe that they equate government and law enforcement with fascism and Nazis. In other words they believe law enforcement is the oppressor,” a sombre Clark County Asst. Sheriff Kevin McMahill said during a news conference Monday, reports The New York Post.
“They had hundreds of rounds of ammo. It appeared as if they were prepared for a lengthy gunbattle.”
Cops found white supremacy literature and swastikas in the apartment where the married couple lived until it became so filthy they were kicked out and moved in with a friend in the same complex.
Neighbours there said they had a history of hate.
“They always talked about murdering cops. They were going to kill as many officers as they can, and then they were going to do away with themselves,” Krista Koch told KNTV in Vegas.
“They were handing out white-power propaganda and were talking about doing the next Columbine,” Brandon Moore told the Las Vegas Sun, referencing the 1999 Colorado school massacre that ended in 15 deaths.
But despite the horrific threats, none of the neighbours appeared to have called the police on the psychos, cops said.
Jerad, 31, had also left menacing posts on his Facebook page.
“The dawn of a new day. may all of our coming sacrifices be worth it,” he posted on June 7. “People are awakening,” he said two days earlier.
On June 2, Miller posted a rambling manifesto calling for a bloody uprising.
“We can hope for peace. We must, however, prepare for war. We face an enemy that is not only well funded, but who believe they fight for freedom and justice,” he wrote.
“Those of us who know the truth and dare speak it, know that the enemy we face are indeed our brothers. Even though they share the same masters as we all do.
: They fail to recognise the chains that bind them. To stop this oppression, I fear, can only be accomplished with bloodshed.”
He said it’s better to die fighting for freedom than to die “kneeling as slaves.”
Jerad — a convicted felon — had also boasted on Facebook about spending time with Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy during the standoff between government agents and militia members supporting the rancher, and was captured on video at the ranch threatening violence.
“I feel sorry for any federal agents that want to come in here and try to push us around, or anything like that. I really don’t want violence toward them, but if they’re going to come bring violence to us — well, if that’s the language they want to speak, we’ll learn it,” he said on the video, according to NBC Reno.
Mr Bundy’s son, Ammon Bundy, said that the Millers were asked to leave his father’s ranch because they were too radical.
“Not very many people were asked to leave,” he said. “I think they may have been the only ones.”
Authorities said the couple — who often dressed as the Batman comic book characters The Joker and Harley Quinn — set out on foot from their downtown pad 4.30am and targeted the two officers at random.
Officers Alyn Beck, 41, and Igor Soldo, 31, were having lunch at CiCi’s Pizza at about 11:20am when the twisted shooters yelled, “This is the start of the revolution,” and “We’re freedom fighters!” cops said.
Jerad entered first and then left.
But he and his wife then burst back in and Jerad fatally shot Soldo as he sat in a booth with his partner, who was able to return fire, though it was unclear if he wounded either of the Millers.
Jerad then shot Beck, and he and his 22-year-old wife — who by then had pulled a handgun from her bag — then both fired multiple rounds into the bodies of the officers, both married fathers.
The couple draped a “Don’t Tread on Me” Revolutionary War-era flag and a swastika over Beck’s body, and pinned a note to Soldo’s body that declared, “This is the beginning of the revolution.”
The carnage was captured on surveillance video, Mr McMahill said.
They also parked a patrol vehicle against a rear fire exit, preventing the couple from escaping when Jerad tried to blast his way through with the shotgun.
Both killers then grabbed weapons, ammunition and badges off their victims and fled toward a nearby Wal-Mart, passing Alvaro Lopez.
“They had a backpack, and I saw a gun in their hand. He just told me to tell the cops that it was a revolution and that he’d just killed two cops inside CiCi’s,” Mr Lopez told CNN affiliate KLAS.
“Get out. This is a revolution. The police are on the way,” Jerad shouted as he entered the Wal-Mart, Mr McMahill said.
Just inside the store, they encountered shopper Joseph Wilcox, 31, of Las Vegas, who had a conceal-carry permit and was packing heat, and had told others he was going to try to stop Jerad Miller.
But as he “heroically” approached the gunman, he apparently did not notice his wife, and she blasted him in the ribs before he could get off a shot, Mr McMahill said.
Cops by this point had dispatched a pair of rifle-toting SWAT teams to enter the store from both front and rear exits.
They also parked a patrol vehicle against a rear fire exit, preventing the couple from escaping when Jerad tried to blast his way through with the shotgun.
The killers exchanged gunfire with the cops at several points as the officers moved in, and both were eventually wounded.
One officer got to the store’s security area and used the video surveillance system to help the others corner the Millers, who used items from the store to form a defensive barricade.
They continued trading shots with cops until Amanda Miller shot her husband in the head and turned the gun on herself.
Amanda Miller was still breathing, and was taken by ambulance to University Medical Centre where she later died.
The couple had moved to Las Vegas in January, and had previously lived in Indiana and in Washington state, where Jerad had felony convictions for car theft, cops said.
Cops later Sunday converged on the couple’s downtown apartment, and used a small explosive device to get in.
Beck had been with the department since August 2001 and had been assigned to the patrol division. He is survived by his wife and three children.
Soldo joined in April 2006 and was also with the patrol division. He is survived by his wife and a baby.
“He was a wonderful child, a wonderful husband, a wonderful father,” his grieving mother, Sirli Soldo, told the Lincoln Journal Star.
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