A Denver man behind a shootout and car chase with police officers in Texas is also being investigated in the murder of Colorado prison chief Tom Clements, sources tell CBS Denver affiliate KCNC.
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Police believe Texas shootout linked to Colo. manhunt
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Colo. prisons chief shot and killed at home
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Colo. official shot at front door
KCNC's Rick Sallinger reports that Evan Ebel, a parolee and white supremacist, is at the center of a car chase that spanned two counties, injured a deputy and ended in a car crash with a semi truck in Decatur, Texas. Ebel, 28, was being kept alive on life support and was not expected to survive. The suspect in the chase has not been officially identified by police.
Clements, the executive director of the Colorado Department of Corrections, was killed after he answered the door at his home in Monument Tuesday night. Texas authorities are checking whether the black Cadillac with Colorado plates in the car chase was the same vehicle spotted near the Clements' home the night he was killed.
"After the suspect was struck by the 18-wheeler he exited the vehicle with a firearm and engaged our deputies in a firefight ... The suspect was hit as the deputies returned fire," said Wise County Sheriff David Walker.
"He didn't plan on being taken alive," said Decatur Police Chief Rex Hoskins, according to KCNC. "It didn't look like he wanted to be caught or taken alive."
Ebel has been identified as a member of a white supremacist gang, Sallinger reports. The gang is called "211s," a.k.a. the Brotherhood of Aryan Alliance, and was founded in 1995 by habitual criminal Benjamin Davis at Colorado's Denver County Jail. Ebel is also being investigated in the death of Domino's pizza delivery man, Nathan Leon.
The chase began when Texas officers tried to pull over a known drug suspect in Montague County Thursday, when someone inside the vehicle started firing back and drove away. The Montague Sheriff's office said the deputy who first approached the vehicle, James Boyd, was shot and is expected to make a full recovery.
Officials continued to drive after the suspect, whose identity isn't known, in a high-speed chase that led through two counties. The male suspect reportedly continued shooting as he led authorities on the chase.
Eventually the suspect crashed the Cadillac in Decatur, near Highway 380 and US 287. At some point, he was shot in the head and taken to an area hospital.
Suspect is carried on a stretcher following a car chase and crash in northern Texas.
/ Jimmy Alford / Wise County MessengerClements is the fifth criminal justice official in the United States to be targeted since the beginning of the year, including the still unsolved murder of a Texas prosecutor shot dead outside a courthouse in January, CBS News correspondent Mark Strassman reports.
Glenn McGovern, an investigator with the District Attorney's Office in Santa Clara County California, found that there were 35 such attacks or attempted attacks between 2010 and 2012. That's nearly as many as all the attacks on public officials over the prior nine years. The primary motive, McGovern told Strassman, appears to be revenge.
"It's very worrisome," McGovern said. "No government agency besides maybe the secret service provides 24-hour protection. We can't do that."
Clements, who ran prisons in two states for 30-plus years, could have potentially built up a number of grievances and grudges with guys he had contact with - but officials haven't yet zeroed in on who the suspect could be.
"There could be any one of a number of people who would have a motive to perpetrate a crime like this against Mr. Clements," Lt. Kramer told Strassman.
