Two arrested in Tulsa, OK murder campaign targeting minority community

[Sasha]

Tulsa, Oklahoma (CNN) -- Authorities in Oklahoma arrested two people early Sunday in connection with a deadly spate of random shootings in Tulsa that had residents on edge.
About 30 representatives from four law enforcement agencies -- the Tulsa police, Tulsa County Sheriff's Office, the U.S. Marshals Service and the FBI -- had been working round-the-clock looking for the person that authorities say killed three people and wounded two others in shooting attacks early Friday.
The police identified the arrested men as Jake England, 19, and Alvin Watts, 32. They were taken into custody from a home in Tulsa.
"We're not exactly sure what their relationship is to another; whether they are friends or extended family members," said Capt. Jonathan Brooks said.
The men did not offer any resistance, he said.
The pair will be charged with three counts of murder and two counts of shooting with intent to kill, the department said.
Detectives were interrogating the two men Sunday morning and did not yet know their motive.
"It took a lot of work, a lot of collaborations between several different agencies, and a lot of help from the community," Brooks said, about what led them to the men.
The news will undoubtedly come as relief to residents, many of whom had changed their daily habits since the shooting.
Just blocks from where two of the shootings occurred in the predominantly black neighborhoods in north Tulsa, Philip Hargett moved his trash cans from the side of his home to the front so he would never have his back to the street.
"It's going to be a couple of days for all of us to get over this," Hargett told CNN affiliate KOKI in Tulsa on Saturday night.
His wife, Migdalia, said the shootings "scare the daylights out of me."
Venecia Williams, a mother and a grandmother who lives in the area, said she was afraid because she just didn't know what might happen next.
"That many shootings in one night?" she said. "That's quite a concern."
After the shooting, a survivor described the suspect as a white man, driving an "older" white pickup truck, said Tulsa Police Chief Chuck Jordan.
Both England and Watts are white. All the victims were black.
Brooks, the police captain, said such a truck had been spotted at least three of the shooting sites around the time of the attacks. It has been
recovered.
Police now believe that both England and Watts were in the truck at the same time during the shootings, Brooks said. "It appeared to have been ditched," he said.
The first shooting occurred at 1:03 a.m. Friday. That victim, 49-year-old Dannaer Fields, died at a hospital.
Three minutes later, two other people were shot, authorities said. One of them "pretty close to the (gunman's) vehicle and the other ... a little further away," said Brooks, the police captain. Those two were initially in critical condition but, by Saturday evening, were expected to survive, he said.
Then, just before 2 a.m., another person was shot and killed.
The body of a third person was found around 8 a.m. next to a funeral home in a more commercial district, though Brooks said police believe he was shot much earlier.
Police have not begun ballistics tests to determine whether the same gun was used in all the shootings.
George Riley, the funeral director at Jack's Memory Chapel, said he was shocked that one of the shootings played out virtually on his doorstep.
"I consider it a war zone," Riley, a Vietnam War veteran, told KOKI. "I don't want to say it's scary, but it can be scary."
In addition to Fields, Jordan identified the other two victims as William Allen and Bobby Clark.
"It appears all the victims were out walking or in the yard," Brooks said. "This (happened in) a residential neighborhood, predominantly single-family dwellings, except for the last victim."
The Rev. Warren Blakney, a pastor at a city church and president of the NAACP's Tulsa branch, said the shootings could well prove to be hate crimes given that they happened in a predominantly black neighborhood.
"For a white male to come that deep into that area and to start indiscriminately shooting, that lends itself for many to believe that it probably was a hate crime," Blakney told CNN.
Brooks said one survivor recalled how "the suspect drives up to him, asks ... for directions and shoots him for no reason." There is no indication the shooter used a racial slur or said anything else that might indicate his motive, according to police.
Jordan stopped short of calling it a hate crime, saying "it's just not time for us to say that."
"Right now, I'm more worried about three of my citizens being murdered," the chief said. "And if it takes us in a direction of a hate crime, that's certainly where we'll go and we'll prosecute him for that as well."
As for the arrest, Brooks said the department wanted to publicize it as quickly as possible for a reason:
""We wanted to get the word out now so that when people woke up this Easter Sunday morning, they'll know that Tulsa is a little bit safer place."

CNN's Maria P. White, Nick Valencia and Don Lemon contributed to this repor

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/04/08/us...ngs/?hpt=hp_t1

[Sasha]

dont know how correct this info is but apperently this is the killers facebook posts: http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/2012/...book-wall.html

[tachosomoza]

A Tulsa police spokesman, Jason Willingham, told The Associated Press that the men — 19-year-old Jake England and 32-year-old Alvin Watts — were arrested early Sunday at a house just north of Tulsa and that they would face three counts of first-degree murder and two counts of shooting with intent to kill.
Mr. Willingham told The A.P. that a tip had led police to the men.
Capt. Jonathan Brooks of the Tulsa police told CNN that investigators were still trying to find a motive behind the four apparently random shootings, which occurred early Friday.
All five victims were African-American, and the two men arrested were white, Captain Brooks said.
At a news conference on Saturday, the city’s police chief, Chuck Jordan, said that the authorities had found no immediate evidence of a hate crime. “There’s a very logical theory that would say that that’s what it could be,” Chief Jordan said. “But I’m a police officer. I’ve got to go by evidence.”
The police do not believe that the victims knew one another, but the timing and proximity of the shootings on Tulsa’s north side, all within miles of each other, have led them to believe the attacks are linked. The two injured victims were expected to survive, officials said.
Survivors had described the gunman as a single white man who was driving a white pickup truck with its tailpipe hanging, but Captain Jordan told CNN that the police believe both men were involved in the shootings.
A Tulsa councilman, Jack Henderson, however, seemed to suggest that race was a factor.
“You have somebody white who has come into a community and taken shots at, killing black people” Mr. Henderson, whose district includes all of the shooting sites, said Saturday in an interview with CNN. “To me, that would indicate that we have some kind of a racial problem.”
Mr. Henderson said the suspect had been described as driving up to pedestrians and asking for directions.
“Then as they’re walking away, this person opens fire,” Mr. Henderson said, adding that apprehending the gunman was critical in restoring the city’s shaken psyche.
“This is a crisis situation,” he said. “A lot of people are afraid for their lives, afraid for their children, afraid for their loved ones. And if you can’t walk outside or walk down the streets of the city that you live in, then that’s definitely a problem.”
According to The Tulsa World Crime Tracker, before these shootings, Tulsa had had 11 homicides since the beginning of the year.
Mayor Dewey F. Bartlett Jr. said the shootings were unlike anything the city had seen, “certainly in modern history.”



http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/09/us...shootings.html

2012 is starting to get uncomfortably like 1962.

[Sasha]

merged the two threads

[ВАЛТЕР]

Unfortunately, Oklahoma is a TERRIFYING reactionary state. I lived there, and have gotten outright fist fights because I was harassed for speaking in a different language when speaking on the phone in public. From personal experience I can tell you that this particular state has serious problems when it comes to racism/xenophobia.

[tachosomoza]

The Southwest in general is a shithole.