Four arrested in possible plot to assassinate Barack Obama
BY LEO STANDORA AND JAMES GORDON MEEK
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Four people with links to white supremacist groups are under arrest in connection with a possible plot to kill Barack Obama at his Thursday night acceptance speech, a U.S. counterterror official confirmed last night.
Secret Service investigators don't consider the suspects, one of them a woman, as serious threats to the Democratic presidential candidate, they said. All are being held on either drug or weapons charges.
The FBI is investigating, but officials said they don't believe the plot was real.
"We're absolutely confident there is no credible threat to the candidate, the Democratic National Convention or the people of Colorado," U.S. Attorney Troy Eid said in a statement.
"It could also turn out that these were nothing but a bunch of knuckleheads, meth heads," a U.S. government official told The Associated Press.
A Denver law enforcement official told the Daily News, "These are not the smartest guys in the world."
Once in custody, one of the suspects turned on the others, telling investigators there was a plot to kill Obama.
Denver's CBS4 reported the suspect told authorities the thugs were "going to shoot Obama from a high vantage point using a rifle sighted at 750 yards."
The threat of an assassination plot began emerging Sunday morning when police arrested 28-year-old Tharin Gartrell, who was driving a rented pickup truck erratically, according to the television report. Sources told CBS4 that cops found two high-powered, scoped rifles in the vehicle, along with camouflage clothing, walkie-talkies, a bulletproof vest, a spotting scope, licenses in the names of other people and the speed drug methamphetamine.
Authorities went to a hotel to contact Shawn Robert Adolf, an associate of Gartrell's, but Adolf, wanted on numerous warrants, jumped out of a sixth-floor window.
Adolf, 33, broke his ankle in the fall and was captured moments later. He was wearing a ring with a swastika.
A third man, 32-year-old Nathan Johnson, and an unidentified woman were arrested at an area motel.
Federal authorities have scheduled a press conference on the case for Tuesday.
Mr. Starks
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