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February 8, 2013

Family Research Council Shooter Pleads Guilty to Terrorism

FRC president Tony Perkins continues to speak out against the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Floyd Lee Corkins II, the man who opened fire at the Family Research Council (FRC) headquarters in August 2012, has pleaded guilty to three felony charges—including a terrorism offense.

According to a press statement from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), "Corkins ... pled guilty in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to charges of committing an act of terrorism while armed, assault with intent to kill while armed, and interstate transportation of a firearm and ammunition." He will be sentenced on April 29.

This is the first time anyone has been convicted of a committing an act of terrorism with "intent to 'intimidate or coerce a significant portion of the civilian population of the District of Columbia or the United States.'"

The DOJ also reports that Corkins specifically targeted FRC in his attack, consulting a Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) list of organizations that oppose homosexuality. The SPLC connection was first raised by FRC president Tony Perkins less than a week after the attack.

Perkins voiced a similar sentiment in a statement Wednesday:

The Southern Poverty Law Center can no longer say that it is not a source for those bent on committing acts of violence. Only by ending its hate labeling practices will the SPLC send a message that it no longer wishes to be a source for those who would commit acts of violence that are only designed to intimidate and silence Christians and others who support natural marriage and traditional morality.
Once again, I call on the SPLC to put an immediate stop to its practice of labeling organizations that oppose their promotion of homosexuality.

CT previously reported news of the shooting after it occurred, then weighed in on the debate surrounding Perkins' "caustic rhetoric" in an editorial.

Comments

He was NOT charged with a "hate crime". Also he stated his intent with those Chick-fil-a sandwiches was to cram them into the mouths of his dead victims.

I expected the main stream media hypocrites to ignore this story & they did...but sadly CT chose to neglect a few facts also!!!

chickadee, the article does not say he was charged with a hate crime, but he was charged with committing an act of terrorism, which carries a much heavier sentence. The article can't be expected to cover every word he said, it doesn't mean it was some kind of cover-up. IMHO, they should do away with hate crimes. Hate crimes are never used when a group of black teens gang-rapes a white woman who accidentally enters their "territory", it wasn't used when something like 100 Jewish owned businesses in NJ were torched, but you can bet your life that if 100 Muslim owned businesses were torched one night, the person or people who did it would definitely be charged with a "hate-crime". It's only used when certain groups are involved with other groups. Whites will be charged with hate crimes if the victim is black, and not the other way around. Whites will be charged for attacking a muslim business, but not the other way around. And if a black person attacked a muslim business, the hate crime charge would not be used. It Is just another way of bringing more divisiveness into our country, something that BHO and Eric Holder are experts at.

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