Two Las Vegas police officers were killed Sunday in what appears to be a politically motivated ambush in a pizza restaurant that spilled over to a nearby Wal-Mart, where the two shooters committed suicide after killing a woman in the store.
Details are sketchy but Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department sources close to the investigation say the shooters shouted that “this is the start of a revolution” before opening fire on the officers, and draped their bodies with cloth showing a Revolutionary War-era flag. Investigators have also found paraphernalia associated with white supremacists.
Sunday night Metro homicide investigators and FBI agents cordoned off and were searching a small apartment complex at 110 S. Bruce St., about four miles from the shooting scene. A resident of the complex said he had spoken with a man who lived in the apartment being searched. He said the man appeared “militant,” and often talked about conspiracy theories.
The shooters then stripped the officers of their weapons and ammunition and badges, according to a law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation. They then covered the officers with something that featured the Gadsden flag, a yellow banner with a coiled snake above the words, “Don’t tread on Me.”
The flag is named for Christopher Gadsden a Revolutionary War general who designed it. It has recently come back in vogue as an adopted symbol of the American tea party movement.
[Source: Las Vegas Review-Journal]