A gun-toting couple reportedly linked to anti-government militias killed two US cops execution-style and left a swastika on the bodies, in America's latest chilling shooting rampage.
The couple shot the police in cold blood at a Las Vegas pizza restaurant, before killing a civilian at a nearby Walmart and then committing suicide.
Jerad and Amanda Miller saw police as Nazi-style oppressors, and claimed links to a Nevada cattle rancher who won a high-profile stand-off with authorities two months ago with the help of pro-gun militias.
"This is the beginning of the revolution," read a note pinned on one of the bodies by Jerad Miller, 31, after he and his 22-year-old wife slaughtered the police officers on Sunday, said assistant sheriff Kevin McMahill.
"There's no doubt that the suspects have some apparent ideology that's along the lines of militia and white supremacists," he said on Monday, after the massacre which left five dead.
The couple entered the restaurant, walked past the booth where the officers were eating, and then Jerad Miller "pulled a handgun out and shot officer (Igor) Soldo one time in the back of his head", said McMahill.
"Officer Soldo immediately succumbed to his injuries. At that time, officer (Alyn) Beck immediately began to react, when he was confronted by lethal gunfire from Jerad Miller, and he was shot once in the throat area," he told reporters.
The couple then both shot multiple rounds into the two officers, before pulling the bodies out of the restaurant booth on to the floor.
They covered one of them with a banner of a flag with the image of a coiled snake and the words "Don't tread on me" - an image used during the 18th century American Revolutionary War.
They "also threw a swastika on top of his body". Jerad Miller then "pinned a note to officer Soldo basically stating that this is the beginning of the revolution".
The suspects then left the pizzeria and entered a nearby Walmart, a large discount store. Inside a customer who was legally carrying a concealed weapon approached Jerad Miller.
But the customer, Joseph Wilcox, 31, didn't know Amanda Miller was an accomplice and she slipped behind Wilcox and shot him dead at close range, according to police.
As officers entered the store through the front and back, the two suspects manoeuvred into "tactically advantageous positions to engage any officers approaching", McMahill said.
Police officers exchanged fire with the suspects as they moved to the rear and isolated them, he said. The two suspects then ended the brief stand-off in a blaze of gunfire, with Amanda Miller, who was wounded, firing several rounds into Jerad and then killing herself with a single shot to the head.
Officers were still investigating the motive for the attack.
While suggesting some kind of militia link, McMahill said: "We believe at this point, with the swastika, we don't necessarily believe that they are white supremacists or associated with the Nazi movement.
"We believe ... that they equate government and law enforcement ... and those who support it with Nazis .... They believe that law enforcement is the oppressor."
Police were investigating links to Cliven Bundy, a Nevada cattle rancher who billed himself as a people's hero, who was locked in a showdown with US federal authorities earlier this year.
Bundy also became the unlikely ring-leader of a spontaneous armed right-wing militia, who sprang to his defence to prevent federal police from removing his cattle.
Jerad Miller said on his Facebook page that he was at the Bundy ranch, further north in Nevada, during the cattle stand-off. CNN reported Miller was seen in video of the Bundy stand-off in April.
The Millers only moved to Nevada from Indiana in January. Jerad Miller had a criminal record in Washington state and wrote on Facebook he was kicked out of the Bundy ranch because of his criminal background, said McMahill.
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