Posted on 05/21/2010 9:18:20 AM PDT by DCBryan1
Arkansas police authorities have sent the bodies of two people killed in a Thursday gunbattle with police to the state crime lab for identification.
They refused to discuss any details about their investigation of the events that left two West Memphis police officers dead and two other law enforcement officers wounded.
“The Arkansas State Police is not confident of the identification that we have at this moment in time, as of 8:40 on Friday morning ," said spokesman Bill Sadler. "We are waiting for results from the state crime laboratory. We don’t play CSI around here. We want it right.”
People claiming to be relatives of the two, however, told The Commercial Appeal they could identify them from numerous videos and photographs taken at the crime scene and available on Memphis media websites. They identified the men as Jerry Kane, 45, of Ohio and his 16-year-old son, Joseph.
Kane's own website this morning bears a note indicating the two were "shot down" by law enforcement in West Memphis.
The Commercial Appeal could not independently confirm the suspects' identification.
Attempts to verify the information led to a woman named Donna Lee in central Florida who said she was married to Jerry Kane and that Joe, as she called him, was her 16-year-old stepson. She wanted to emphasize Joseph Kane is a minor. She said the white minivan belonged to Jerry and was positive from photos and videos from the scene that the two unidentified dead suspects were Jerry and Joe Kane -- and that the dog she saw exiting the minivan was a labrador-rottweiler mix named Olie.
The shelter in West Memphis confirms that there was another dog found in the van, something police had not made public. The family said that dog, who was found dead, is named Little Missy. Lee also said that Joe’s mother died three years ago and said her name was Hope.
A background check of Jerry Kane shows that he had been married to a woman named Hope.
When she saw the news footage of the shootings in West Memphis on Thursday, Donna Lee said she knew.
The lifeless body of a boyish-looking suspect in front of a white minivan, she said she is sure, is that of her 16-year-old stepson. She said she believes he was handcuffed. The white Plymouth Voyager minivan, she is positive, belongs to the man she calls her husband, Jerry Kane.
Lee said Jerry Kane owned an AK-47 and carried it with him on trips because he liked taking it to local shooting ranges.
"Yes, we had an AK-47, but we've taken it down to the local shooting range and shot it but there were other people there with those big sniper rifles," she said.
Lee insists that Jerry and Joe Kane were doing good work, helping people with financial troubles keep their homes.
"They were literally staying in hotels all over the country so they could help people stay in their homes," Lee said.
Another man, Jake Jefferson, said he was a nephew of Jerry Kane's and said he was positive that the dead person he saw in news accounts was 16-year-old Joe Kane, that the white minivan had belonged to Jerry for some time and they traveled the country helping people with mortgage and foreclosure issues. He also said he recognized the dog, and that Jerry and Joe had spent a month with him at his home in the Phoenix area over Christmas.
Jefferson and Lee both said Joe's mother had died previously. Jefferson said they traveled with a box of her ashes in the van.
"That's them," he said. "And why do I think they fired on police? Because they must have believed the police were going to fire on them."
Lee, who said their marriage was not certified "by the state" but common-law, said she believes there was another dog traveling with Joe and Jerry, who she said called her from Little Rock on Thursday morning on their way back to Florida. Kane's website shows that he had seminars planned in Florida for the end of next week, and that he had been in Las Vegas for seminars last weekend.
"It's an absolute tragedy and I'm in absolute shock right now," she said.
Lee rejected Internet speculation that the suspects were white supremacists. She said Jerry Kane tried "to help everyone, it did not matter what their color, or if they were striped or anything."
A background search using the information from the website shows a Jerry Kane, born in Ohio in December of 1964 and most recently associated with addresses mainly in Ohio. The van, which authorities said had Ohio tags, was traced to New Vienna, Ohio, and a church called House of God's Prayer, according to several sources.
That church's address is associated with a deceased white supremacist named Harold R. Redfeairn, who the Associated Press reported in 2003 headed a chapter of the Church of Jesus Christ Christian in New Vienna. That church espoused views of the white-supremacist doctrine of Aryan Nations.
A story published by the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., on Redfeairn has the headline, "The Cop-Shooter." The story said that in 1979, Redfeairn shot 22-year-old Dayton, Ohio, police officer Dave Koenig three times after Koenig had stopped him.
It was unclear whether Jerry Kane knew Redfeairn, and Lee said it was "ridiculous" that Kane would associate with "terrorists." She said Kane knew a pastor in Ohio who helped people who had been incarcerated.
Another reference to Jerry and Joe Kane and the shooting came from a blogger named George Tran touting a foreclosure advising business. He called Jerry Kane the man he had learned "most of this technique" from and that "we lost a beautiful man and boy today."
A "YouTube site showing a video of Jerry Kane conducting a seminar includes a comment from a user identified as FossilRock: "Jerry Kane and son Joe were killed today."
I'm asking you a question of fact that only you can answer. You posted here yesterday that this was "illegal aliens". Did you hear that on the news? The scanner? Made a bad assumption? What is it?
OK.
The aerial video or KFSM ground video? You see the glass coming from the white van? See the bullet holes in the AGFC black truck that rammed it and backing up while being fired upon? Once the shooting dies down from return fire, one big blast comes out of passenger side....looks like a coup-de grace or suicide by driver.
While the information is not complete at this time, there is a lot of information on the internet relating to the timeline of events on this incident.
1) West Memphis officer Bill Evens pulls over the white van with ohio plates, reason for the stop is unknown. Standard procedure during a traffic stop would be to call in the plate number and a description of the vehicle before the officer ever gets out of his car.
2) Second officer arrives on the scene to act as backup. This again is SOP. The second officer is the son of the police chief of West Memphis.
3) After about 15 minutes from the start of the stop, something happens and shooting breaks out. Both officers are killed. Chief of police is one of the first on scene and finds his son dead.
4) Call goes out to look for the white mini van with ohio tags.
5) Van located at WM, occupants open fire again wounding the Sherrif and the Deputy with him.
6) Game and Fish officer rams the van with his truck
7) Occupants of van are killed.
Both officers who were killed were married with young children at home. The Sherrif who was shot is 71 years old and is due to retire at the end of the year. The Deputy with him was shot 3 times in the abdomen and is in critical condition, but expected to recover.
I have no sympathy for the two people who did this. I don’t care who they were or what agenda they had.
There will be video from the dash cams along with video from the WM store the final shootings took place at.
There is no conspiracy here, just a lot of tragedy and some questions that will be answered over the coming weeks.
ping to 39. FRegards.
D’oh.
I see. I was under the impression that you said FReepres were blaiming the Times Square bomb hoax on illegals.
But... back to this case. If there were FReepers blaming illegals, then was it not based on early reports?
Like the two hispanic men running?
Between 3) and 4) was half an hour.....then another hour before calls came in from suspicious activity at apartment near Wal-Mart, where they were cornered. AGFC spokesman today, on the radio confirmed that a Wildlife officer was fired upon and rammed the van to disable it, reversed and took cover while Crittenden county sheriffs provided covering fire.
Seperate incident confused with the shooting. ASP shut down I-40 looking for cop killers in and around Memphis. 2 hispanic men seen running for woodline within a mile of the shooting....BOLO sent out by ASP (when i posted my post) ....not associated with the police shooting later found out to be.
Earlier reports, mixed with bias. Kinda like Bloomberg's mix of facts and bias?
Sometimes that leads you to a correct conclusion. Sometimes it doesn't. No need to defend the process though.
The Game and Fish officer should get an award for bravery. He put his life at risk to stop them from escaping.
Hmmm
These two sleazebags murdered two cops during a traffic stop. Then they shot and wounded two additional officers at the second location.
This isn’t a case where they were shot dead for no reason. They had already killed two men and wounded two others before they were killed.
Did the BOLO ever mention any names?
Nope....
Wanted to go to a Wal-Mart parking lot, where there’s higher odds of finding a white van with a license plate to steal. Not a bad idea.
..and I’ll bet the driver had 4 screws in his pocket.
The 15 minutes on the side of the road with the two cops and then they don’t know who they are looking for is pretty weird.
If this guy Jerry Kane is such a suspect WS and previously arrested for no drivers license (arrested?) why could the not figure out who he is?
“How do you know there was no plate on the van that was originally stopped?”
Oh, I am sure the police “removed” it during the chase...happens ALL the TIME doesn’t it.
The dimwitt had already been arrested in another state for driving WITHOUT a driver license....Do you want to make a wager that he DID have a plate?
Yea, I’ll take that bet especially since it is reported that it did and that he removed it after the traffic stop and before Walmart. :)
100% agreed.
The question is why??? What in gods name made them feel like they had to do such a horrible thing.
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