ATLANTA (AP) — Authorities are seeking to determine why a man carrying an assault rifle, explosives and supplies opened fire outside a Georgia courthouse,
wounding one deputy before dying in a shootout.
Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Doug Rainwater said investigators’ questions include any motive Dennis Marx, 48, had for the attack that began around 10 a.m. Friday on the courthouse square in Cumming. Marx had been due in court to plead guilty in a drug case earlier Friday.
He arrived at the courthouse wearing body armor in a rented SUV with both homemade and commercially made explosives, two handguns, zip ties, water and other gear, according to authorities. They said he dropped homemade
spike strips and used smoke devices in an effort to keep officers from
reaching him.
“We’re trying to piece everything together,” Rainwater told The Associated Press by telephone Saturday. “Him driving to the courthouse and doing what he did at the same time he was supposed to be in court is an indication that’s related.”
Rainwater says the deputy shot is scheduled for surgery on his injured leg on Saturday but is doing well. He declined to name the deputy, a 25-year veteran of
the department.
Rainwater also would not add more to Forsyth County Sheriff Duane Piper’s comments Friday that the department had received threats on social media after the attack.
“That’s part of the investigation,” he said.
Streets near the courthouse were reopened Saturday, but authorities say the
building will be closed until damage from Friday’s shootout is repaired.
Rainwater was not sure whether Marx’s home, where authorities have said
they found explosives that were not set to detonate, was cleared.
Authorities were familiar with Marx, who had placed obstacles around his home about 40 miles northeast of Atlanta when officers came to arrest him in the
past.
Marx has had numerous run-ins with the law, dating to at least 2011. In August of that year, he was arrested on numerous felony charges, including selling marijuana and weapon possession.
That same month, authorities filed papers in an effort to seize weapons and
money found after an undercover officer bought drugs from Marx. Court
documents show authorities wanted to seize two dozen handguns and
rifles, 71 gun magazines and $24,311 in cash.
Marx also had filed a federal civil rights complaint against the sheriff’s department in 2013, according to court records.
___
Associated Press writer Kate Brumback contributed to this report in Cumming.
Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights
reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or
redistributed.
Motive? Let’s see. He gets all of his info from fox, breitbart, nra, etc. So he’s told it’s everybody else’s fault, guns will solve all of his problems, and everybody else in the world is a commie liberal out to get him. Motive? He doesn’t need a fricking motive. He’s saving the world.
I heard it reported on the evening news yesterday that the guy was a Sovereign Citizen adherent or devotee. If true, need they say more as to his motive?
And, once again, we see the remarkable reticence of the MSM to report the fact that the guy was known to be a sovereign citizen nut, that his “civil rights suit” was a typical bogus sovereign citizen mumbo jumbo claim, and that he is a bomb maker.
Google “Dennis Marx” in Google News today, you get about 4,500 results. Google “Dennis Marx sovereign citizen” and it drops to 405. Which is up from yesterday when the latter query would get you 4.
If this guy was a Muslim, that would be the screaming lead and their wouldn’t be any pretense of bafflement about what could possibly have motivated him. If this guy was any kind of black nationalist or animal rights extremist or, god help us, a commie, that fact would lead and be printed in screaming 48 point headlines. But heavens, we must be ever so careful in suggesting, or even mentioning the suggestions of others, that he might be some kind of right wing terrorist.
Anyone who doesn’t think this isn’t caused by a toxic combination of fear of attacks from other heavily armed right wing extremists and fear of being called “liberal” by Rush Limbaugh is crazy.
And, btw, the institutional inability of our liberal MSM to identify a right wing terrorist as a right wing terrorist is a very, very, very bad, dangerous, scary, bad thing. It’s one more nail in the coffin the Roberts Court and the Koch Brothers are building for democracy.
Probably his 10th DUI and after his license was suspended, well, you know how they react to the gumvt takeover thing. Failed mission on the hero to fame get rich quick idea.