Scott Michael Greene, who was taken into custody as a suspect in the fatal shooting of two Iowa police officers in an ambush early Wednesday morning, reportedly has had previous run-ins with police.
The officers were shot and killed while sitting in their patrol cars in what’s being called “unprovoked ambushes,” Reuters reported. Greene, 46, was taken into custody hours later and is believed to have acted alone, the news agency said.
The two officers have been identified as Sgt. Anthony Beminio of the Des Moines Police Department and Officer Justin Martin of the Urbandale Police Department, Reuters noted.
A motive for the killings hasn't been determined. Urbandale Police Chief Ross McCarty said Greene had a recent run-in with local police over the waving of a Confederate battle flag at a high school football game, Reuters reported. McCarty said Greene waved the Confederate flag in the crowd while the national anthem was playing. Greene was removed from the stadium.
Greene reportedly posted a YouTube video that shows him arguing with local cops, moments after he was removed from the football game, The New York Daily News reported.
The video was titled “Police Abuse, Civil Rights Violation at Urbandale High School 10/14/16.”
In the video, you can hear Greene, who is white, saying that African-American people inside the stadium assaulted him and stole his flag, but police said he was “standing in front of several African-American people” when he started waving the flag, The Daily News noted.
Greene said he was “peacefully protesting” and using his “constitutional rights.”
He then sent the video to local news station WHO-TV, according to The Daily News.
“He said, ‘I have a story about someone’s civil liberties being violated and I have this video,” assignment editor Amanda Vizcarra told the Daily News.
“We didn’t do anything with it,” she added.
A man with the same name and date of birth as the suspect was charged with interference with official acts in 2014, when he resisted an attempt by officers to pat him down for weapons, The Des Moines Register reported. Two weeks later, the man reportedly threatened to kill man in an apartment complex parking lot, the newspaper noted, adding that he pleaded guilty to harassment. He also reportedly was listed as a victim in a domestic dispute with his mother.
U.S. Attorney General Lynch addressed Wednesday's shootings, saying “This is a time of particular tension and mistrust between law enforcement and many communities. There is no message in murder. Violence creates nothing. It only destroys,” Reuters reported.
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