A man who gunned down two police officers and a woman Sunday in Las Vegas left behind social media postings that show his concerns over Benghazi, chemtrails, gun control laws, and the government’s treatment of rancher Cliven Bundy.
Neighbors identified Jerad and Amanda Miller as the suspects who shot the officers execution-style as they ate lunch at a pizza restaurant, and then shot a woman outside a Walmart in the same plaza.
The couple’s apartment was searched Monday morning, and authorities in Lafayette, Indiana,confirmed that Las Vegas police had contacted them about the case.
[Updates added below, showing the couple's postings on right-wing websites such as InfoWars and Breitbart.]
Witnesses said the couple announced the shootings were the start of a revolution and draped the victims’ bodies with American Revolution-era Gadsden flags — bearing the slogan “Don’t tread on me” — that have become symbols of the Tea Party movement.
The couple exchanged gunfire with police as they pursued them into the store, but Amanda Miller apparently shot her husband to death before turning the gun on herself.
Jerad Miller’s last Facebook post, made Saturday, hinted at the couple’s plans.
“The dawn of a new day. May all of our coming sacrifices be worth it,” he posted.
A shirtless, crying Jerad Miller posted a video in July 2013 professing his love for Amanda Miller before he began serving a jail term.
“I’m going to miss your smile and your laugh, and the way you can always bring a smile to my face eventually, no matter how crabby of a mood I’m in because of the New World Order and sh-t,” he said. “I just wish we could wake up our families, I wish we could live in a happy-go-lucky world and not have to worry about none of this. I wish we didn’t have to go through this sh-t, but we do.”
Neighbors said Jerad Miller claimed he had gone to the Bundy ranch but was asked to leave, and he made similar claims on YouTube.
“I was out there but they told me and my wife to leave because I am a felon,” Miller commented April 19. “They don’t seem to understand that they are all felons now for intimidating law enforcement with deadly weapons. So don’t tell you that they need people. We sold everything we had to buy supplies and quit our jobs to be there 24/7. How dare you ask for help and shun us dedicated patriots!”
He was quoted on air by KRNV-DT from the Bundy ranch, suggesting the scofflaw rancher’s supporters would respond with violence if it was initiated by federal authorities.
“I feel sorry for any federal agents that want to come in here and try to push us around or anything like that,” Jerad Miller said. “I really don’t want violence toward them, but if they’re going to come bring violence to us, well, if that’s the language they want to speak, we’ll learn it.”
The suspects’ names, along with screen shots of their social media postings, were initially reported by Bob Schooley on Twitter, although he removed them late Monday morning.
Amanda Miller set stricter privacy settings than her husband on her own Facebook page, although publicly available photos show the couple dressed as the Joker and Harley Quinn and visiting various sites along the Las Vegas Strip.
Another photo shows Amanda Miller holding a pair of books — “Shooter’s Bible” and “Extreme Survival” — she received last Christmas from her grandmother, and she posted a pair of photos of herself firing an AK-47 at a shooting range in December.
Her photos also document the couple’s January move from Indiana to Nevada, where Jerad Miller worked as a street performer. Amanda Miller indicated on Facebook that he had previously rented costumes until his boss was arrested, so the couple made their own costumes and dressed up as the comic book villains to earn tips from tourists.
Jerad Miller outlined his political views, which were largely based on conspiracy theories promoted by Fox News and Alex Jones, in his social media postings, and he posted frequently about firearms and violent revolution.
“We can hope for peace,” he posted June 2. “We must, however, prepare for war. We face an enemy that is not only well funded, but who believe they fight for freedom and justice. Those of us who know the truth and dare speak it, know that the enemy we face are indeed our brothers. Even though they share the same masters as we all do. They fail to recognize the chains that bind them. To stop this oppression, I fear, can only be accomplished with bloodshed.”
Jerad and Amanda Miller posted comments at InfoWars, Breitbart
A May 28, 2012, post on Jones’ InfoWars site appears to have been made by Jerad Miller, who expressed frustration with his arrest on drug charges and vowed he would rather die than be labeled a criminal.
“I am like a wild coyote,” he wrote, using the user name “Jerad” and a Gadsden flag as his avatar. “You corner me, I will fight to the death.”
He goes on to say he’s “broken hearted” to see other Americans placated by materialism and celebrity worship as they submitted to tyranny.
“So, do I kill cops and make a stand when they come to get me?” the post continues. “I would prefer to die than sit in their jail, when I have done nothing to hurt anyone.”
That post attracted an appreciative comment from another InfoWars user, Amanda, whose profile uses the same maiden name – Woodruff – as Amanda Miller, along with the same birth year and hometown as the shooting suspect.
“Jerad, baby, I love you with all my heart and I’ll stand behind you no matter what,” wrote Amanda, whose avatar appears to be Amanda Miller. “It’s true that its not fair that i can’t have a gun because you live with me. I know its not right that my rights get taken away from me because I live in the same home as you but I would love to see them try and enforce that. My love for you is deep and forever and f-ck what they have to say cause they have no right to do what they say is not right.”
The InfoWars user Amanda also claims the same job — head of the needlepoint department for Hobby Lobby — as Amanda Miller’s Facebook profile.
The InfoWars user Jerad also complains in a 2012 post that he hadn’t seen a dentist in 14 years because he lacks insurance, Medicaid, and a job.
“How the Gov. spends billions of dollars on the war on drugs and all these missles and bombs to kill people,” posted Jerad, who indicates that he was 29 – the same age as Jerad Miller – at the time. “I think about all that money that could do to helping people instead. Creating jobs, creating happy, healthy people. I dont want a hand out. I just need a foundation to stand on. One that wont be pulled out from under me as soon as i step up on it.”
Jerad also shared a short story he’d written about a man who shot police as they marched against protesters, although it was apparently removed from InfoWars but remains visible in a cached version.
“Fiveteen bullets and fiveteen dead cops who failed to uphold their oath,” Jerad wrote in a story posted June 20, 2012. “His trust had been betrayed. Maybe now something will change, he thought. Maybe now they will see the error of their ways.”
The same InfoWars user complained that chemtrails were causing higher levels of respiratory illness, including strep throat and “bronchidus,” and he also warned that “Im sure the floride isnt helping much either.”
A commenter who identified himself as Jerad Miller, using the same “patriot” avatar as the killer’s Facebook profile, commented April 27, 2013, on a Breitbart story on Vice President Joe Biden’s claim that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) might have won the 2008 election if the economy hadn’t stalled.
Jerad Miller complained in his Breitbart comment that President Barack Obama was exploiting gun violence to strip Americans of their Second Amendment rights.
“Watching the tyrant Obama stand on the graves of children to push this agenda has opened a lot of peoples eyes to how pathetic this push for gun control really is,” Jerad Miller wrote. “The fact that Obama may be baiting the next civil war with this action is disturbing. Millions would die in the event of civil war, many of them, would be unarmed civilians just speaking out against Obama and the (National Defense Authorization Act).”
He shared a viral image son his Facebook page suggesting the U.S. trade five Democratic lawmakers for a U.S. Marine who has been held for two months on weapons charges in Mexico after crossing the border with legally purchased firearms – a suggestion jokingly made last week by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY).
Jerad Miller also shared a post by David Lory VanDerBeek, the Independent American Partycandidate for Nevada governor, that suggested last month’s fatal shooting spree near the University of California, Santa Barbara, was a “false flag” operation enacted by the government to suppress gun rights.
“I see Obama’s Socialist agenda of anti-2nd Amendment, pro-amnesty, Agenda 21 de-industrialization is in trouble,” VanDerBeek posted. “They need to grease the wheels of fear and politicizing a shooting in CA is not going to do it. People become numbed to the politics of shootings.”
That shooting spree, which left seven people dead and another seven wounded, prompted Jerad Miller to share a viral image that described that gunman as a liberal.
“So yet another liberal left-wing wack job goes on yet another fatal mass shooting spree because he couldn’t get laid and that’s the NRA’s fault???” the caption reads. “Jeez, it’s no wonder liberalism’s regarded as a mental disorder.”
Amanda Miller posted frequently about the Bundy ranch standoff on her Google Plus page, where she also claimed she and her husband had moved to Nevada to support VanDerBeek’s gubernatorial campaign.
Jerad Miller reached out to VanDerBeek in the comments of Healthy Eating blog post on genetically modified organisms.
“I will see you soon, I will be in touch,” Jerad Miller posted. “My wife and I are planning to move to Nevada soon to help you in your resistance to tyranny. This is proof you are making an impact. Do not quit, my wife and I under your authority to receive training to protect you at all costs. We will take bullets to protect you to the best of our ability. We love you brother and all those who seek liberty.”
Neighbors said the couple spoke frequently about their guns and anti-government views, and they also made racist statements.
“They were handing out white-power propaganda and were talking about doing the next Columbine,” said neighbor Brandon Moore.
The couple did not associate with other residents of their apartment building, but they were well know to others.
“Yap, yap, yap,” said neighbor Sue Hale. “They were always running their mouths.”
Jerad Miller sketched out his interests with the groups and individuals he “liked” on Facebook, including Operation American Spring, Alliance Defending Freedom, the National Rifle Association, The Heritage Foundation, Rand Paul 2016, Three Percenter Nation, and Ron Paul.
Amanda Miller also “liked” Ron Paul, Freedom Works, and Three Percenter Nation, in addition to various paranormal groups, Stop Amnesty, and Drudge Report.
Jerad Miller posted a photo of himself Feb. 8 standing alongside former Sheriff Richard Mack, who promotes the posse comitatus idea that county sheriffs represent the supreme law of the land, during a libertarian sheriff’s debate.
He complained in a July 2013 video that the couple’s “brainwashed” family members would not help them during a dispute with their landlord, but one of those relatives disputed the characterization.
“Amanda was fine before you came around,” said Julie Clites. “Now she sits there doing everything you say because YOU have brainwashed her. Everyone of the grandkids has a future. Amanda married you and immediately lost hers. We won’t help either of you because it is disgusting what you two believe in and stand for.”
Jerad Miller had been arrested numerous times since 2007 on weapons, battery, drug, criminal recklessness, and strangulation battery charges.
Court records show he twice violated the terms of his in-house arrest on drug charges last year. He complained about his punishment in this video, which also addresses surveillance by drones.
Jerad Miller indicated in the video made before his jail term that the couple had bonded over their shared views.
“I know it feels like it’s you and me versus the world – it kind of is – you know, a bunch of zombies out there, a bunch of sheeple, just ignorantly working until their deaths, they don’t even care where their money goes or nothing,” he said. “I’m so glad you’re not like that, baby, I’m so glad that I found you.”
Watch this video posted online by Jerad Miller:
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