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Man accused of shooting RTD guard at Union Station was former soldier who posted about police, Islam
 A former soldier from Texas who made social media postings about police brutality, U.S. sovereignty and Islamic teachings is accused of fatally shooting an armed Regional Transportation District security officer in the head late Tuesday outside of Denver Union Station.Authorities say the attack appears to be both unprovoked and random, but they worried that the alleged shooter -- 37-year-old Joshua Cummings -- targeted the contract guard because of his uniform, which resembles that of Denver police. Witnesses told investigators that the suspect put a gun to the security officer’s neck and said, "Do as I tell you," and then pulled the trigger. "We have concerns," Denver police Cmdr. Barb Archer told reporters at a Wednesday morning news conference. "Was the officer a target because he was wearing a uniform?" Cummings was arrested after being found hiding a few blocks away from the shooting scene. He was being held without bail at Denver’s downtown jail for investigation of first-degree murder. A man with his same name and date of birth served in the Army from July 1997 to December 2002. Army records show Cummings, whose last station was Schweinfurt, Germany, was an infantryman and was not deployed. His last rank was sergeant. One of the women who witnessed the shooting told investigators the suspect had "a swollen face and different/weird-looking eyes," according to court documents. Denver Police Chief Robert White said officers responded to the shooting scene within minutes, quickly reviewed security camera footage from nearby stores and tracked down Cummings within a half-hour. Investigators said Cummings was found with a gun. According to a probable-cause statement for Cummings, he was found with a 9mm handgun with a live round in its chamber. The weapon also had an eight-round capacity magazine loaded with seven rounds. The rounds in the gun were FC 9mm Luger ammunition. Cummings apparently came to Denver from Pampa, Texas, a small town northeast of Amarillo, where he ran Pampa Jiu-Jitsu Academy. Troy Schwiegerath, who also runs a martial arts studio in Pampa, said Cummings briefly trained at his studio before breaking off to open his own dojo. Soon after, Schwiegerath says Cummings began bad-mouthing him. Cummings then began posting Islamic teachings at his academy and on Facebook, according to Schwiegerath, eventually going around to the churches in town and saying they should be teaching from the Koran. "This dude was just straight-up crazy," said Schwiegerath, who splits his time between Texas and Denver, where he works as a firefighter. "It got to the point where I told everybody not to have any contact with him whatsoever. I actually had an armed security guard at the door because I was so afraid because of how radicalized he got that he was going to come into the dojo and shoot it up." Schwiegerath said eventually law enforcement began tracking Cummings. A Pampa police sergeant Wednesday night declined to comment and directed questions about Cummings to the FBI’s bureau in Dallas. A Dallas FBI spokeswoman referred questions about Cummings to Denver police. "Wake up, people," Cummings said in a June 2016 post on Twitter. "America is a failed state. It’s about to get so real." In a posting the next month, he said an Arizona police officer accused of brutality should be put to death for treason. Denver investigators say the shooting was unprovoked as far as they know. White, however, said that detectives will also investigate whether the suspect shot Von Lanken for a personal reason. White said there is no reason to believe Cummings had an accomplice. Denver police issued a warning Wednesday to all of its officers because of the nature of the shooting. While this seems to be a "sudden jihad" syndrome case, I suspect this guy is just bat shit crazy. Posted by: DarthVader 2017-02-02 |
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