The couple who allegedly shot and killed two Las Vegas police officers and then killed another person Sunday before killing themselves have been identified as Jerad and Amanda Miller, according to multiple news reports.
While neighbors had already pegged the couple as supporters of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who has been facing off with the federal government in recent months, a review of what appears to be Jerad Miller’s Facebook page reveals someone who has long harbored extreme anti-government views and saw the Bundy Ranch standoff as a possible start to a revolution.
The page is attributed to Jerad Miller, with the same unusual spelling of the Vegas shooter’s first name and who is listed as married to an Amanda Miller from Las Vegas. Going back to 2012, it is almost entirely filled with violent rhetoric based around a strong Second Amendment advocacy and extreme opposition to the federal government.
“The dawn of a new day,” Miller posted on June 7, the day before the shootings. “May all of our coming sacrifices be worth it.”
Authorities have said the Millers draped the Gadsen flag — a symbol of the American Revolution that has been adopted in recent years by the tea party movement — on the police officers after shooting them. Witnesses have also told police one of the shooters shouted, “This is the start of a revolution,” before the shooting.
In Jerad Miller’s Facebook postings, he invoked the Bundy Ranch standoff while it was picking up steam in early April with a revolutionary fervor.
“Ranch war almost under way,” he posted on April 9. “[W]e need to watch this closely, could be the next Waco and start of revolution.”
Later the same day, Miller posted that he would be “supporting Clive Bundy and his family from Federal Government slaughter… We must do something. I will be doing something.”
Al Jazeera America quoted someone named Jerad Miller in an April 22 report on the Bundy Ranch standoff, though it identified him as a “rancher.”
“I feel sorry for any federal agents that want to come in here and try to push us around or anything like that,” he told the news outlet. “I really don’t want violence toward them, but if they’re gonna come bring violence to us, if that’s the language they want to speak, we’ll learn it.”
In addition, television station KRNV in Reno aired a report on April 14 that included video from the Bundy Ranch site and an interview with a supporter identified as “Jarad Miller” and who gave a very similar quote that was given to Al Jazeera.
But things apparently didn’t go well for Miller at the ranch. In another apparent entry, posted to a Google Plus account attributed to a Jerad Miller, he wrote that he had been “shunned” at Bundy Ranch and asked to leave because he was a convicted felon.
“I was out there but they told me and my wife to leave because I am a felon,” he wrote. “They don’t seem to understand that they are all felons now for intimidating law enforcement with deadly weapons. So don’t tell you that they need people. We sold everything we had to buy supplies and quit our jobs to be there 24/7. How dare you ask for help and shun us dedicated patriots!”
In the Facebook postings, the revolutionary and violent rhetoric carried through until just prior to the June 8 shootings.
“We can hope for peace. We must, however, prepare for war,” Miller wrote on June 2. “To stop this oppression, I fear, can only be accomplished through bloodshed.” The same day, he encouraged “illegal aliens” to “make the ultimate sacrifice with us.”
But while Miller appears to have taken an intense interest in the Buncy Ranch standoff, his public Facebook postings were filled with violent imagery and anti-government beliefs long before Bundy earned national headlines.
“This is a declaration to all Americans. If you don’t agree with and hold dear the second amendment of the united states constitution (sic), then you ,need to self-deport yourself to someplace where people like you can congregate,” he wrote on Jan. 1, 2013. “We are already on our way to tyranny, and your corrupt evil ass needs to leave this country before you incite another civil war.”
“Your (sic) a traitor to this nation and its people who hold their rights dear to them and deserve to die a traitors death.”
Here are more photos of the couple from Jerad Miller’s Facebook page:
