Think Kenny needs some meds? Or is off his meds?
Ken, you're wasting all that talent, you should be the CEO of ACORN or better yet a Massachusetts Senator!
TS
Nazi flag flying high over East Mesa againBy Ashley Meeks Sun-News reporter
Posted: 09/16/2009 12:00:00 AM MDT
- The U.S. Secret Service confirmed it is investigating a Las Cruces man's not-unprecedented threats against the government.
Ken Triplett, 54, whose Nazi flag caught the attention of neighbors and veterans last week, is on three years' supervisory release after a 2008 conviction for felony assault on a federal officer, U.S. Attorney spokesman Norm Cairns and U.S. Probation Office Deputy Chief Jose Cordova confirmed.
Triplett's flags - which he said signified protest against what he viewed as unjust government action and impending communism - were taken down Sept. 11 but went back up Monday, a Nazi flag still on top but the American flag right-side-up this time. A call to Triplett at his business, New Mexico Roof Coating Co., met with no reply and a hang-up. A subsequent message left there, seeking comment, was not immediately returned.
Alleged threats on Labor Day, that Triplett "said that he was heavily armed and that if he had to, he would strap bombs to himself and go to Washington, D.C., to take care of the government," reported by neighbors to Las Cruces police, got the attention of the Secret Service.
Agents "went door to door" Sunday, said neighbor Victor Mu-oz, 45, a Marine Corps veteran who said Triplett once told him he'd sold ammunition to the Iraqis as a Blackwater employee.
Secret Service Special Agent and spokesman Rich Ferretti confirmed the visit and said the investigation, which includes interviews and a check into Triplett's claims
of military service, is still in its very early stages.
"We're still conducting a background investigation," Ferretti said. "If we feel something's a criminal act, we present it to the U.S. Attorney. If we feel someone's a threat to our protectees, we monitor those individuals."
Triplett is on supervisory release after a November 2007 altercation at the Border Patrol checkpoint on Interstate 25 north of the city, where Triplett - accompanied by his two young sons - threatened to suicide-bomb the checkpoint, according to documents filed by a FBI agent in U.S. District Court.
"I was in Iraq for several years fighting for you guys," and "You are the reason I carry a shotgun," Triplett reportedly said, coming at one agent who had to push him away and warn him, according to the documents.
Once a supervisor arrived, "Triplett made threats of violence towards all the agents assigned to the checkpoint. Triplett stated that the next time he came through, he would have his vehicle packed with explosives and would detonate it, killing everyone and destroying the checkpoint," the documents state. Asked by the supervisor if he had a shotgun, Triplett said he did "and would use it if necessary ... that he (Triplett) would be the only person to touch it and if he did it would not be pleasant."
Finally allowing agents to search his truck, Triplett was overheard on his cell phone "stating that he needed 'backup' and to bring weapons and heavy artillery and told the person 'you know where I am.'"
As a supervisor was notifying his superiors, an agent told the supervisor Triplett had gotten a knife and was reaching into the area he'd said the shotgun was, at which point agents were told to arrest him and close off the vehicle ramp to the Border Patrol checkpoint to keep passing motorists away. When ordered to drop his knife, Triplett refused and waved it "in a fashion that appeared to the agents that Triplett was trained in knife-fighting." He continued to wave the knife even when a supervisor drew his gun and another agent sprayed him with pepper spray, at which time two agents took Triplett to the ground, where he dropped the knife and was handcuffed, the documents state.
Triplett also told the agents he was a Green Beret in the Special Forces - claims denied last week by spokesmen for both U.S. Army Special Forces Command and the JFK Special Warfare Center and School in Fort Bragg, N.C.
Under his conditions of supervision, Triplett was ordered to successfully complete both a mental health treatment program and anger management counseling and to not possess any firearms, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court.
Neighbors who showed up on Labor Day to look at Triplett's upside-down American flag, flying below a Nazi flag, told police Triplett stopped mowing the lawn and obtained a long-range, high-powered rifle with a scope.
Federal officers searched the Triplett's East Mesa residence Sept. 9. After investigating an alleged weapons violation of Triplett's supervised release, the U.S. Probation office found no violation.
"We are not investigating him on any new charges," said Cordova. "Right now, there's no violations that we're aware of, based on whatever investigation FBI did."
Cordova said the office is "not aware of any firearm. We looked into the allegations. There's not, as far as - our determination is there's not anything sufficient for a probation violation."
While he said he was glad to see the Secret Service looking into the alleged bomb statements, Mu-oz said the reappearance of the flags worried him.
"I'm concerned about the safety of the neighborhood," Mu-oz said. "Who knows what somebody's going to do over here. For the most part, it's been real civil and quiet, but you never know. Somebody might get tired of this guy doing this and want to do something."
Greg Baker, 32, a veteran who served in the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines, Weapons Company, said he would be contacting the city's Veterans of Foreign Wars posts to see if they could convince Triplett to take down the Nazi flag.
"That's only one thing it's showing - hate. That's what it represents, not communism. He needs to get his story straight," Baker said, adding that if Triplett wanted to make a statement about communism, he should at least be flying the sickle and hammer. The Nazi flag, he said, "is nothing but hate."
Ashley Meeks can be reached at
ameeks@lcsun-news.com; (575) 541-5462
http://www.lcsun-news.com/ci_13346193