Vegas Shooters Liked Dressing as Batman Characters

The assailants who gunned down two police officers and a bystander before killing themselves in Las Vegas yesterday were deeply committed to racist, anti-government views—and planned to keep on killing, police officials said. The Lafayette Journal & Courier has identified them as Jerad Miller, 31, and his wife, Amanda Miller, 22. "We believe that they equate government and law enforcement fascism with Nazis," said a sheriff's department official, CNN reports. "In other words they believe law enforcement is the oppressor." Other details are emerging:

• Investigators confiscated a box of papers found in a neighbor's apartment—which described plans to execute public officials and take over a courthouse, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports. The neighbor, Kelley Fielder, said the Millers were her "best friends" and she had no idea they were "that crazy."
• The Millers liked to go out dressed as Batman characters the Joker and his girlfriend, Harley Quinn, and would pose with tourists on the street.
• The Millers visited Cliven Bundy's ranch in Nevada in April, in an effort to join the militia in a standoff with federal agents. "I really don’t want violence toward them but if they're gonna come and bring violence to us, well, if that’s the language they want to speak, we’ll learn it," Jerad Miller said in a TV interview at the time. Bundy's son says the Millers were kicked off the ranch because they were too radical, the AP reports.
• The Revolutionary War-era Gadsden flag that the Millers placed over the dead police officers yesterday has come back in vogue with the tea party movement.
• The bystander killed in yesterday's attack was Robert Wilcox, 31, of Las Vegas. Carrying a concealed weapon, he confronted Jerad and was shot dead by Amanda "lying in wait," an official said. Wilcox didn't get off a shot.
• Police surrounded the perimeter of the Millers' apartment complex last night at 7:30pm, and locals heard an explosion two hours later, the Las Vegas Sun reports. SWAT vehicles left 90 minutes after that, and officials declined to comment on the explosion, saying they would wait until a press conference scheduled for today.
• Jerad Miller has a criminal history going back to 2002 in Washington state, including convictions for obstructing a public officer, DUI, malicious mischief, theft, and harassment. Federal law officers interviewed them in January after the Millers threatened to "shoot up" a DMV office in Colorado.
• The Millers have posted their anti-government views on Facebook, including: "There is no greater cause to die for than liberty. To die for that cause is easy, to live for it is another matter. I will willingly die for liberty." Read what the Review-Journal calls their "manifesto" here, or see Amanda Miller's Facebook page.

Read about the shooting, or more about the Millers. (More police shooting stories.)