[snopercod]

Let me be the first to start the conspiracy theories.

CHIEF_Negotiator - a flat tax activist and FReeper - was killed in a mysterious house fire a couple of years ago. The police never found who tossed the incindiary device into his home office.

Now this.

What was the source of this fire?

[Dec31,1999]

You beat me to it! Good to see some of the old guard still lives.

[Awestruck]

My prayers and condolences go out....along with my 2 cents finding this whole thing as fishy as CN's death.

[Dog Gone]

House fire near Loveland kills 1

Neighbors evacuated as Carter Lake residence burns to the ground

By Jim Kirksey
Denver Post Staff Writer

Post / John Epperson

Intense smoke and flames kept Chelsea Dunfee, 14, above, and her mother, Theresa Dunfee, from entering the home of their Larimer County neighbors Alan and Theresa Albertus on Thursday.

A house fire at Carter Lake southwest of Loveland destroyed a home Thursday and apparently claimed the life of an area resident, authorities said.

Neighbors were evacuated through the use of reverse-911 due to fears of exploding ammunition in the home, said Cpl. Craig Kern of the Larimer County Sheriff's Department.

The residents of the home at 3608 Ranch Road were identified as Alan and Theresa Albertus. One body was found in the burned-out home, and Theresa Albertus was reportedly alive at the scene.

The Larimer County coroner was sent to the scene, said Eloise Campanella, spokeswoman for the sheriff's office.

Bob Skillman, spokesman for the Loveland Fire Department, said the call came in at 4:10 p.m., and arriving firefighters found "the fire was well along."

At 4:22 p.m., the chief in command put the firefighters in a defensive mode because it was too dangerous for them to be inside the structure, he said.

Campanella said it was believed that Albertus kept ammunition and gunpowder in the home.

A neighbor, Valerie Dunfee, said she and her husband saw smoke and flames coming from the house and attempted to get in, but the flames and the smoke were "too intense."

Dunfee said Albertus and his wife were avid hunters, which would explain the presence of ammunition in the house.

She said she was sure at the time that Alan Albertus was inside because he is at home during the day. She heard several propane tanks on the front porch of the burning home explode.

Post / John Epperson

As firefighters worked to control the flames at 3608 Ranch Road in Larimer County, authorities feared ammunition kept in the home might explode.

Some men in the rural community where everybody knows everyone else used a small firetruck, generally for fighting small spot fires, at the Albertus home, but they were unsuccessful.

At 4:54 p.m., with only a wall or two of the home still standing, the fire was declared under control.

An autopsy is scheduled for today, said Campanella. The cause of the fire is under investigation, she said.

Photographer John Epperson contributed to this report.

[GOP_1900AD]

I truly think we need to look systemically at this. I don't know the cause of death but we also lost harpseal, a true 2nd Ammendment defender a few weeks ago. I also noted the passing of someone else whom I cannot recall off hand, but I think that one was due to an illness (but even there... ).

[mlmr]

Could we look at the statistics....how many freepers and how many deaths by fire? There must be some national statistics and state statistics.

[TheDon]

Group blasts ACLU's "selective outrage"
Second Amendment activists have been cop targets for years

by Wayne Laugesen

Activists, newspapers and civil libertarians are outraged at recent revelations that the Denver Police Department keeps files on activists who primarily represent environmental and anti-war causes. The ACLU formally opposes the practice, and has spoken out against it as an infringement on the right to peaceably assemble as protected by the United States Constitution.

The outrage in response to the files is all a bit shocking to another group of activists who routinely picket, protest and peaceably assemble in defense of the Second Amendment.

For the past 18 months, pro-gun activists in Boulder County have complained to various parties-including the ACLU, local media organizations and the Mountain States Legal Foundation-about files kept on them by local police.

"For some reason, the ACLU is all upset to find out that police keep files on left-wing activists," says Steve Ziegenhagen, a Second Amendment activist from Fort Collins. "But they didn't seem to understand the significance of this when we were the ones targeted. That's because we're not politically correct. We're not the people they want to mention when they're bragging it up at their New York cocktail parties."

Gun activists learned that police were keeping files on them in March of 2000, during a Charlton Heston speech at the University of Colorado. Anti-gun activists lined one side of the street outside of Macky Auditorium, and pro-gun activists lined the other. Pro-gun activists reported that police seemed to know them by name. They later found that the Longmont Police Department had been keeping files on members of the Tyranny Response Team, a loosely-knit group of Second Amendment activists, and sharing the files with other agencies throughout the metro area.

At one assembly in Boulder, activist Alan Albertus was confronted by an officer who knew his wife's name and other personal details about his life. The files showed up in the hands of officers at other assemblies in Fort Collins, Longmont and Denver, says Ziegenhagen.

At two Million Mom March rallies in Denver, police used files gathered on the Second Amendment activists in order to segregate them into a special "Free Speech" zone. Ziegenhagen says ever since the "Free Speech" zones were established at Million Mom March functions, Second Amendment activists have been identified in crowds and segregated away from a variety of other public gatherings including the most recent visit of President Bush.

"We've been taped, and photographed and surveiled by cops in every way imaginable for the past two years," says Bob Glass, former chairman of the Tyranny Response Team. "It's blatant, and it's obvious, but nobody gave a shit when it was just us."

Critics say the situation calls to mind a quote by Martin Niemöller, the Lutheran minister who spent time in Dachau concentration camp for plotting to assassinate Hitler. It goes: "First, they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me."

Glass says a member of his group specifically asked for help from Barry Satlow, chairman of the Boulder County chapter of the ACLU.

"I don't remember talking to anyone about this," Satlow says.

Satlow says he would be concerned to hear about police keeping files on defenders of the Second Amendment-even though he doesn't believe the amendment was intended to protect individual gun ownership. Satlow, however, says people who carry guns may get less sympathy than peace activists for a reason.

"If the police were to say they were looking at something beyond peaceful activism, and trying to detect militia activity, then I think that's something we would want them to be doing," Satlow says. "If these are merely gun owners, who are exercising free speech to defend their beliefs, then it may be a concern."

[M Kehoe]

May the Lord comfort and bless Crystal in her time of grief.

CHIEF_Negotiator

Don't know exactly why, but that was my first thought. May he rest in peace.

5.56mm

[Atlas Sneezed]

Reliable word from the local group there is that there is NO speculation that this was anything other than an accident.

Smoker, health problems, vertigo, medication.

RIP