Scott Roeder, under arrest for the murder of Dr. George Tiller, is a poster boy for that DHS report on “right wing extremism” that was so vilified and distorted.

He was involved in the “Freemen” movement, and arrested in 1996 with a load of bomb-making equipment in his car: Suspect in George Tiller shooting is linked to anti-government group.

“Freemen” was a term adopted by those who claimed sovereignty from government jurisdiction and operated under their own legal system, which they called common-law courts. Adherents declared themselves exempt from laws, regulations and taxes and often filed liens against judges, prosecutors and others, claiming that money was owed to them as compensation.

In April 1996, Roeder was arrested in Topeka after Shawnee County sheriff’s deputies stopped him for not having a proper license plate. In his car, officers said they found ammunition, a blasting cap, a fuse cord, a one-pound can of gunpowder and two 9-volt batteries, with one connected to a switch that could have been used to trigger a bomb.

Jim Jimerson, supervisor of the Kansas City ATF’s bomb and arson unit, worked on the case.

“There wasn’t enough there to blow up a building,” Jimerson said at the time, but he said it could make several powerful pipe bombs.

Roeder was also connected to groups promoting the idea that killing doctors who perform abortions is “justifiable homicide.”

Those who know Roeder said he believed that killing abortion doctors was an act of justifiable homicide.

“I know that he believed in justifiable homicide,” said Regina Dinwiddie, a Kansas City abortion opponent who made headlines in 1995 when she was ordered by a federal judge to stop using a bullhorn within 500 feet of any abortion clinic. “I know he very strongly believed that abortion was murder and that you ought to defend the little ones, both born and unborn.”

Dinwiddie said she met Roeder while picketing outside the Kansas City Planned Parenthood clinic in 1996. Roeder walked into the clinic and asked to see the doctor, Robert Crist, she said.

“Robert Crist came out and he stared at him for approximately 45 seconds,” she said. “Then he (Roeder) said, ‘I’ve seen you now.’ Then he turned his back and walked away, and they were scared to death. On the way out, he gave me a great big hug and he said, ‘I’ve seen you in the newspaper. I just love what you’re doing.’ ”

Roeder also was a subscriber to Prayer and Action News, a magazine that advocated the justifiable homicide position, said publisher Dave Leach, an anti-abortion activist from Des Moines. “I met him once, and he wrote to me a few times,” Leach said. “I remember that he was sympathetic to our cause, but I don’t remember any details.”

Leach said he met Roeder in Topeka when he went there to visit Shelley Shannon, who was in prison for the 1993 shooting of Tiller.

Read the whole article. The Roeder case should prompt another, more sober look at that DHS report, because it’s very clear that there are dangerous right wing extremists, capable of doing violence, who fit the DHS profiles to a T.

UPDATE at 6/1/09 2:24:18 pm:

Scott Roeder wasn’t just a subscriber to pro-murder magazine “Prayer and Action News” — he was a contributor. And now they’re calling him a “hero.”

Scott Roeder had written several opinion pieces about Dr. Tiller for Prayer and Action News. In fact, many in the anti-abortion movement already consider Roeder a martyr and a hero.

UPDATE at 6/1/09 2:27:39 pm:

The owner of “Prayer and Action News” says that Roeder didn’t commit a crime, and that his actions were supported by Christian scripture.

Scott Roeder, 51, of Merriam, Kan., whom authorities have described as a suspect in Sunday’s fatal shooting here of George Tiller, was once a subscriber and occasional contributor to a newsletter, Prayer and Action News, said Dave Leach, an anti-abortion activist from Des Moines who runs the newsletter. Mr. Leach said that he had met Mr. Roeder once, and that Mr. Roeder had described similar views to his own on abortion.

Commenting on Dr. Tiller’s death, Mr. Leach said, “To call this a crime is too simplistic.” He added, “There is Christian scripture that would support this.”