‘Plot to kill Obama’ scare: four arrested

August 25, 2008

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US police have arrested four people – one allegedly a white supremacist -over a possible plot to kill Barack Obama on Thursday night during his acceptance speech in Denver.

FBI spokeswoman Kathy Wright confirmed the FBI was investigating the reports but declined to elaborate. The Joint Information Centre – a command set up by Denver, state and federal authorities to field media inquiries during the Democratic convention – said it had no immediate comment.

But US Attorney Troy Eid told local media he was “absolutely confident there is no credible threat” to Obama or the Democratic Convention.

One of the suspects reportedly told authorities they were “going to shoot Obama from a high vantage point using a … rifle sighted at 750 yards”, Denver TV station CBS4 reported.

The four – believed to be three men and one woman – were now being held on drugs or weapons charges, CBS4 said.

One of the suspects “was directly asked if they had come to Denver to kill Obama … [and] he responded in the affirmative”, the TV station said.

One man was arrested yesterday after police found two high-powered rifles in a rented pick-up truck he was driving, it added.

Police Detective Marcus Dudley later told The Associated Press that 28-year-old Tharin Robert Gartrell was arrested in a routine traffic stop in the Denver suburb of Aurora. He is being investigated for possible methamphetamine and firearms violations.

Authorities in Denver were trying to find out whether the reported threats to Obama were valid.

“It could also turn out that these were nothing but a bunch of knuckleheads, meth heads,” a US government official familiar with the investigation said.

Gartrell was being held at the Arapahoe County jail on $US50,000 bail on a felony charge of special offender, drug violations. The jail said he did not have a lawyer yet but was due in court on Friday.

Police then traced a friend of the arrested man to the Cherry Creek Hotel, Denver, CBS4 said.

The man, wanted on numerous warrants, jumped out of a sixth floor hotel window onto an awning when police arrived, FOXNews.com reported.

He broke his ankle in the fall and was caught by police. The man was found wearing a ring with a swastika, and was thought to have ties to white supremacist organisations, CBS4 said.

– with agencies