two of my friends viciously gunned down (duplicate threads merged)

two of my friends viciously gunned down

http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/local_news/article/0,1406,KNS_347_4697448,00.html

Deputy's autopsy shows 33 wounds
Roane sheriff: Bill Jones' body riddled by bullets in attack

By DON JACOBS, [email protected]
May 14, 2006


KINGSTON - The body of a slain Roane County sheriff's deputy bore 33 wounds from an alleged ambush by two brothers at a rural farmhouse, Sheriff David Haggard said Saturday.
Autopsies were performed Saturday at the University of Tennessee forensic center on the bodies of deputy Bill Jones and his close friend, Mike Brown. Haggard said he had no information about the findings of Brown's autopsy.





"It would seem there were 33 bullet wounds in his body," Haggard said of Jones. "I don't know how many were entry or exit wounds."

Asked which part of Jones' body was shot, Haggard said, "He was pretty much shot all over."

The men were killed about 6 p.m. Thursday while still sitting in Jones' cruiser on Barnard Narrows Road in Roane County.

Jones had been with the Roane County Sheriff's Office about nine months, but had served more than 25 years in law enforcement with various agencies, Haggard said. Brown and Jones were close friends and Brown was just accompanying Jones on patrol on the day of the shooting.

Brown was unemployed at the time, Haggard said, but he had been an officer with the Crossville Police Department when Jones was with that agency.

With the surrender Friday night of Clifford Leon Houston, 47, a manhunt that involved hundreds of officers from a score of area law enforcement agencies ended without further violence. Houston's brother, Rocky Joe Houston, 46, was arrested soon after the slayings when he sought medical treatment for his own bullet wounds at Oak Ridge Methodist Hospital.

"I'm more at ease now that Leon Houston is in custody," the sheriff said Saturday. "To know that no one else got hurt is a relief."

Haggard said there is a chance Rocky Houston was shot by his brother during the alleged assault on the 53-year-old Jones and Brown. Rocky Houston suffer wounds to his hand and his abdomen.

Haggard initially said Rocky Houston's wounds were superficial.

"It was more serious than I was told at first," the sheriff said Saturday. "I understand he had some reconstructive surgery on his abdomen."

Rocky Houston is under armed guard at the University of Tennessee Medical Center, where he was transferred after first appearing at the Oak Ridge hospital. Haggard said the suspect is expected to be released from the hospital in 3-5 days.

Until a forensics examination by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is finished, Haggard said authorities can't be sure that Rocky Houston wasn't shot by his brother.

Jones was on routine patrol in the area when he drove by Leon Houston's residence on Barnard Narrows Road, the sheriff said. But Jones also knew there were outstanding felony warrants alleging aggravated assault for both brothers.

When Jones passed by the house, an unidentified man and woman visiting the brothers told the Houstons of the cruiser's presence, Haggard said.

"There was a discussion about the deputy going by and when they came by the second time, that's when they decided to launch their attack," Haggard said.

On Jones' return trip to the residence, he radioed to dispatchers that he was getting out of the cruiser on Barnard Narrows Road, but he didn't mention the Houstons, the sheriff said. The cruiser was found with two wheels still on the road and two on the pull-off area at the house.

"When Bill came by again, that's when Rocky came off the porch shooting," Haggard said. "Leon came off the porch and he was firing, also."

The sheriff said Rocky Houston, armed with an assault weapon with double banana ammunition clips taped together, fired continuously at the cruiser as he circled around behind it and then to the passenger side. Banana clips can hold about 30 rounds each, affording more firepower to a semiautomatic weapon.

If Rocky Houston was shooting from the passenger side and Leon Houston was firing at the cruiser's driver's side facing the house, Rocky Houston may have been shot by his brother, the sheriff said.

Haggard said Jones was armed with a .357-caliber semiautomatic pistol, but he's unsure if it was fired.

The sheriff said the two Roane County residents visiting the Houston brothers fled when the shooting began. Authorities have questioned the pair.

Haggard said "there's a strong possibility they'll be indicted" in connection with the alleged ambush.

Immediately after the shooting, the brothers drove to a nearby uncle's house on Dogtown Road with a four-wheeler and asked for help. The uncle, 65-year-old Ray Johnson, took several weapons from the brothers and started to drive to the hospital in Oak Ridge.

Along the way, Leon Houston asked to be let out of Johnson's 2003 Buick LeSabre at Midway Cemetery, about 1 miles from the shooting scene.

Leon Houston surrendered to the Tennessee Highway Patrol about 11 p.m. Friday after eluding a manhunt that involved hundreds of officers combing the heavily wooded mountainous terrain.

Houston was covered with ticks from his time in the woods, the sheriff said.

"It seemed like he had no conscience at all about what he had done," Haggard said. "He was kind of cocky and arrogant."

Haggard said Houston appeared about 8-8:30 p.m. Friday at his cousin's house in Paint Rock about five miles from the shooting scene. The cousin, Larry West, was at work at the time, Haggard said, but West's wife was home.

West's wife called her husband about Houston's appearance at their home and the man came home. After giving the fugitive fresh clothing, West drove to the searchers' command center at Midway High School to find a state trooper to take custody of Leon Houston

When Houston showed up at West's house, he was armed with a .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun, Haggard said.

"We had found .45-caliber spent cartridges at the shooting site and hadn't located the gun, so we knew he was probably armed," the sheriff said.

The Houston brothers for years have claimed harassment by law enforcement. The harassment, they allege, resulted from their attempts to expose local corruption. Haggard said his officers knew the brothers were volatile, but he suspected they would get worse with the death last month of their mother.

"I figured when their mother passes, thing will escalate and that's exactly what did happen," the sheriff said. "She was more of the authority figure in the family."

For now the brothers are held on charges of aggravated assault stemming from an unspecified event prior to the shootings, Haggard said. The sheriff said the district attorney general's office recommended going to a grand jury June 19 for possible charges involving the slayings of Jones and Brown.

The Houstons are slated to be arraigned June 26 in Roane County Criminal Court on the aggravated assault charges.

"Hopefully by that time they'll be indicted on the murder charges," Haggard said.

The sheriff declined to say where Leon Houston is being held without bond pending court dates. When Rocky Houston is released from the hospital, he'll be held in a different facility, Haggard said.

Haggard didn't hesitate when asked if he considered the double slayings a capital punishment case.

"You better believe it," he said. "If there's ever been a death penalty case, this is it."

Don Jacobs may be reached at 865-342-6345

May they rest and peace, and may their killers never know peace.

I'm sorry for your loss Bill.

RIP, brothers. RIH, killers.

My deepest sympathies...

I'm sorry

Sorry about your loss. Tough Gig.

What state?

Regards,

7.62mm

I'm so sorry.

hillbilly

Lots of details missing there, things don't make a whole lot of sense really.

I'm sure the families and friends are going through a lot of pain right now.

I'm truly sorry for your loss and that of the families involved.
While I won't even try to justify what the brothers did I think it might become more commonplace in comming years. A few years ago a guy in California killed some government health inspectors because they were going to close down his business. Now this. Times are getting harder and people are getting more short-tempered. When .gov (in any form) pushes too far the guys who have to man the front lines are going to feel the heat first. I would have to think long and hard nowadays before I took a job as a LEO.
MY sig line pretty well sums it up.

full story

It will be interesting to follow this story as it unfolds. I don't think we have the full story at all.

This incident was pretty local to me. I'm sure there will be more details coming out in the news over the next few days. Anyone that "ambushes" an unsuspecting person, LEO or not.. should not be allowed to breath our air.

Tragic. And what Oldfart said.

--------------------------

http://ussliberty.org
http://ssunitedstates,org

"You kick a dog so long, he'll bite you."

Keyword: Dog

Well this is horribly incomplete reporting, as usual. I had to try hard just to figure out where this even took place, and I'm still not entirely sure. These reports are useless without SPECIFIC DETAILS. Who did what to whom when where and how. EXACTLY. I'm sick of this slapdash nonsense that gets passed off as journalism.

Who was riding with the deputy and why? It took me two readings to figure out there was a second victim, but I still can't tell what they were doing there.
Why is this an "ambush"? Was the deputy duped into coming to the location or was he really just serving a warrant?
Who was armed with what and when? The reports jump around between times, places and people.
Were the victims in the cruiser? Was it parked or moving? Was it on the road or on the suspects' property? This idiot jumps from the number of bullet holes to background biography on the victims and suspects, then back to what may have happened, then back to background, then back to what may have happened but this time with slightly different details.

The fact that the newspaper opted to lead with the number of bullet wounds in the Deputy's body is sick. I guess the bullet holes are a sales point. I'd be happy with some traditional reporting that tells us who was killed when and where, then goes step-by-step through the story with no jumping around.

Read the paragraph below taken from his Wachenhut dismissal letter.

_____________

Houstons long have claimed to be targets of government plot

By JAMIE SATTERFIELD, [email protected]
May 12, 2006


Two brothers suspected in the fatal shooting of a Roane County deputy and his ride-along passenger have claimed for years that they were the targets of a potentially deadly government plot.

Rocky Joe Houston, 46, and his brother, Clifford Leon Houston, 47, both of Ten Mile, are accused in a double homicide Thursday at a home in the Dogtown Road-Barnard Narrows Road area of Roane County, according to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. The shooting occurred near where they live.

According to a slew of lawsuits filed in U.S. District Court by the brothers dating as far back as 2001, the pair repeatedly has claimed that their lives are at risk in a plot by an army of government workers bent on stopping the Houstons from exposing public corruption.

Rocky Houston has filed at least nine lawsuits in federal court in the past five years, taking aim at officials ranging from Roane County deputies and judges to TBI agents to federal court clerks and judges.

His brother has filed a half-dozen federal complaints with similar allegations.

The lawsuits offer a peek inside the lives and minds of the pair.

Rocky Houston's voluminous court filings reveal that he was a longtime employee of Wackenhut Services Inc., a private security force employed at the U.S. Department of Energy's myriad facilities in Oak Ridge.

He was hired there as an armed security guard in 1988, court records show. He was fired in August 2003.

In his termination letter, Wackenhut Director Steve Gibbs described Rocky Houston as a time bomb.

"Your pattern of behavior, including threatening a judge attempts to intimidate and arrest another judge, threats and harassment to an attorney, engaging in notorious misconduct, including barricading yourself in your family's compound and refusal to surrender to lawful authorities, which culminated in the involvement of multiple law enforcement agencies and required the governor of the state of Tennessee to authorize a SWAT team to bring you to justice constitute a complete disregard for (Wackenhut) policies and your responsibilities as an armed (guard) defending a highly sensitive federal facility," Gibbs wrote.

In another document, TBI Agent Jason Legg described a June 2001 incident in Harriman City Court in which Rocky Houston allegedly threatened Judge Charlie Crass.

"The defendant then made a statement to Judge Crass to the effect of 'Watch yourself and watch your family. If you thought Waco was something, then you haven't seen (expletive) yet,' " Legg wrote.

Both brothers repeatedly wrote in lawsuits that they "feared for our lives." In one lawsuit, Rocky Houston wrote that he had a tape recording of various Roane County officials discussing how they wanted to see him "dead, imprisoned or run out of the county."

In Rocky Houston's latest lawsuit, in 2005, he alleged that in August he was "surrounded" by Roane County lawmen as he traveled on state Highway 58. The lawmen, he claimed, intentionally caused him to crash his car and then arrested him.

During the ride to the jail, Rocky Houston alleged that one deputy "whispered" in his ear "that this could not go to court."

The brothers insist the plot against their lives is a cover-up, a move to block the pair from revealing corruption that includes "insurance fraud, jury tampering, extortion, obstruction of justice and domestic terrorism."

The lawsuits do not reveal, however, any specific examples of the government corruption they allege.

All of the lawsuits filed since 2001 have been dismissed. The Houston brothers have also filed legal action in various state courts. Those, too, have been dismissed.

Jamie Satterfield may be reached at 865-342-6308.

Copyright 2006, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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^ WOW!

Why was one deputy attempting to execute a felony warrant? Against two individuals, no less? And with a ride-along? Of course I do not know every detail (not even most details, really) but it sounds like there may have been some questionable decision-making that put this deputy at a severe disadvantage.

Horrible...

Terrible tragedy. These brothers seem a true menace. Although the reporting was indeed terrible the lack of solid facts in the report seems reasonable. The only people who really know exactly what happened are either dead or under arrest and unlikely to be giving interviews. Most everything is conjecture. The best question seems to be from the previous poster Sgt. Sabre. Why only one guy to serve a warrant to two guys such as these? Why a ride along under these circumstances? A lot of questions need to be answered.

No suprise the two men were killed. Not much you can do to defend yourself from a car when attacked with semi-auto rifle fire except drive away. I'll be suprised if the wounds suffered by one of the assailants was caused by the officer, it seems more likely the one brother shot the other.

I for one would appreciate the original poster keeping us all up to date on this case as it unfolds.

I have rode patrol with Bill many years ago when we worked for the same department. i knew him pretty well and had the utmost respect for him.

the ride along was not an ordinary citizen. Mike was bills best friend they met at the department where Bill and i worked together, I also attended Police science classes with mike at a local college. mike had many years of law enforcement experience also, worked for 4 different agencies and had graduated the TN police training academy.

I have studied every article i could find on this since it happened.(Too many to post) Bill was NOT sent there to serve the warrant. they were on patrol and spotted the brothers sitting on the front porch of the house. bill should have known of the warrants on file.(setting fires and then intimidating firemen with guns) anyway, bill radio'd only that he'd be "out of the car" on that road, giving no address. the result was that they lay wounded for 15 min before dispatch was even notified of the shooting.

why bill stopped, it is my personal theory, that bill only wanted to speak to the brothers from the road, maybe gain their trust, and build raport. hoping this could help get the brothers to surrender peacefully. in hind sight it was a mistake, although a well intentioned one. a calculated risk, afterall you would think they would at least let you get out of the vehicle and see what you wanted? it wasn't like that one patrol car contained a swat team. the reward would have been worth it in terms of avoiding a drwnout shootout/standoff with possibly many more wounded or dead. JMO

bill was about safety and respect. he'd sit and talk it out if it would end the situation peacefully. he wasn't a cowboy that thought he could ride in there whip'em all and drag'em out.

as for what old fart said, its true, things will get increasingly hotter for LEO's. not just with the people that can't take it anymore but from the increasing viciousness of the ordinary criminal.

but these two, had a mutual paranoia thing going, it even extended to most of the family. the fathers comment as an example. a speeding ticket is a Government conspirocy? Refusing to stop for the police, fleeing at a high speed and crashing into obviously occupied vehicles is a government plot? threatening a judge and his family is govenment pushing you?

the 15 federal lawsuits may seem to add some credibility to the brothers, and it would had an attorney represented them. they could afford it(family owns approx 200 acres and several homes), if they couldn't and the complaint were credible a civil rights organization may have took up the case. these were i assume written by the brothers themselves and filed by themselves. anyone can do so, i have been sued in federal court myself on a handwritten(NOT EVEN TYPED) lawsuit on notebook paper. then at court one fakes a heart attack and attempts to arrest the Judge. that throws credibility out the window.

i hope this answers some questions and maybe sheds a little light on what happened or may have happened. i can only speak from persoonal experience with bill and the numorous articles i have read and reports i have watched.

Thanks for that insight. That makes a lot more sense than the newspaper account. It sounds like a good man got bushwhacked.

Prayers fot the families sent.

I'm so sorry to hear of this. I hope for execution of the murderers involved.

I'm so sorry. Sounds like Bill was a good man.