The Secret Service arrested a suspect in the shooting of an Idaho pastor after the man threw several items over the White House fence, authorities said.
Kyle Andrew Odom, 30, was taken into custody without incident Tuesday night in Washington.
His arrest came after he threw flash drives and other unknown objects over the White House fence, police said.
Hazmat and bomb teams determined the items were nonhazardous, the Secret Service said.
Idaho shooting
Odom is suspected of shooting Pastor Tim Remington several times Sunday outside a church in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.
The shooting occurred a day after the pastor led the prayer at a weekend campaign rally for Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz.
The pastor was found in the parking lot of the Altar Church on Sunday afternoon with several gunshot wounds. He is expected to survive.
Couer d’Alene Police described the shooting as preplanned, but said the motive is unclear.
Suspect flew from Idaho
After the shooting, Odom flew from Boise, Idaho, to Washington, despite a felony warrant, Coeur d’Alene Police Chief Lee White said.
“As soon as he was identified … we put a warrant in the system in our national database for attempted first degree murder,” White said.
“As far as the inner workings of the TSA and how someone with a felony warrant could board an airplane, I’m not the person to answer that.”
White said information on the suspect’s travel plans is still preliminary. But his car was found in Boise and secured by law enforcement officials.
List of names
The suspect left behind writings that included the names of the pastor shot and several lawmakers.
“There were a number of people listed in that manifesto. There were a number of U.S. senators and House representatives, along with some Israeli government officials,” White said.
He said their review of evidence had revealed some disturbing details on the suspect, and they took the “extensive” list of names seriously.
While he declined to provide details on the list, he said it did not contain any specific threats.
“It’s an interesting read,” he said.
Letter to parents
Odom had sent a letter to his parents along with a flash drive containing multiple electronic documents, authorities said.
Some media members also received copies of the letter and similar flash drives.
Those documents show Odom planned to attack Remington and another church member, Detective Jared Reneau said in a statement. Police declined to comment on the content of the letter or flash drive files.
Remington delivered the invocation Saturday at a rally for Cruz, the Republican presidential candidate.
“We’ve been waiting for somebody who represented God for a long time,” Remington said at the rally. “We are here to pray that God’s will be done.”
Police have not found any information indicating the shooting was politically motivated.(Faith Karimi and Steve Almasy)
Link: http://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/08/us/idaho-pastor-shooting/index.html
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