This is one story about a police shooting in Austin, Texas of a terrorist that will likely not be talked about all that much in conservative media like Fox News. That’s because it was a longtime white supremacist ticked off over President Obama’s immigration policy that shot up a federal courthouse, the Austin Police Department headquarters and the Mexican Consulate before cops dropped him on Friday. He was the only casualty after he fired 200 rounds in ten minutes.

Capital Bay

The 49-year-old man who was shot dead by police after firing about 200 rounds in downtown Austin and attempted to burn the Mexican Consulate was a ‘homegrown, American extremist’.

Larry McQuilliams was a ‘terrorist’ who harbored extremist right-wing views, and appeared to be planning a broader attack against churches and government facilities, Austin police have said.

Convicted bank robber McQuilliams went on a rampage in Austin in the early hours of Friday, carrying multiple weapons and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.

McQuilliams, started his attack on the Mexican Consulate building and a federal courthouse shortly after 2.20am.

After firing about 200 rounds, he was killed by a single shot to the chest from a police officer as he shot at police headquarters. 

Written in marker on his chest were the words, ‘Let me die,’ Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo said. 

When police searched his rented van they found books associated with a right-wing Christian sect known as the Phineas Priesthood, which holds extremist, anti-Semitic and racist views.

Police found a copy of ‘Vigilantes of Christendom,’ a book describes the Phineas Priesthood as Christian guerrillas who avenge Judeo-Christian traitors.

Inside the book was a handwritten note that referred to McQuilliams as a ‘priest in the fight against anti-God people,’ Acevedo said. 

Officers who searched his home found a map of 34 downtown buildings that likely were potential targets of further attacks, including two churches.

Investigators said McQuilliams left no note describing a specific motive or why he picked his targets.

Christopher Combs, FBI special agent in charge of the San Antonio division, which includes Austin, also noted that some people who knew McQuilliams told investigators he’d been upset that he couldn’t find a job and believed immigrants were given more services than he was.

City and federal investigators say they are confident McQuilliams acted alone.

‘No one helped him. There’s not a larger conspiracy at all,’ said Combs. 

‘The one mistake he made was he came to the Austin police station and we were able to take him out pretty quickly,’ Acevedo said, describing McQuilliams as a ‘homegrown, American extremist’ and ‘terrorist.’

McQuilliams had rented a van that was parked outside the police station and was loaded with ammunition and propone fuel canisters typically used for camping.

McQuilliams tried to use fireworks with the canisters to make crude but ineffective bombs and used some at the Mexican Consulate, causing a fire that was quickly extinguished.

McQuilliams had served about seven years in federal prison for bank robbery and was released in 2000. As a convicted felon, he could not legally possess the firearms he used in his attack. Acevedo said investigators are still trying to determine how he got them.

What is the Phineas Prieshood?

Anti-Defamation League

• The “Phineas Priesthood” is a violent credo of vengeance that has gained some popularity among white supremacists and other extremists in recent years. Unlike other extremists groups, the Phineas Priesthood is not a membership organization in the traditional sense: there are no meetings, rallies or newsletters. Rather, extremists become “members” when they commit “Phineas acts:” any violent activity against “non-whites.” In this way, achieving Phineas Priesthood status has become the goal of extremists committed to perpetrating violent crimes.

• Hoskins is a Lynchburg, Virginia, investment advisor who has become a leading ideologue in the “Identity” movement. ” Identity” is a pseudo-religion that preaches that white Europeans are the true chosen people and that Jews are descendants of Satan. Identity also regards blacks and other non-whites as sub-human or, in their words, “mud people.”

• In 1990, Hoskins published his bizarre magnum opus, Vigilantes of Christendom: The Story of the Phineas Priesthood where he claimed that the “Phineas Priesthood” are Christian guerillas who avenge Judeo-Christian traitors. While assuming a posture of impartiality, he speaks with clear sympathy of The Order, of Adolf Hitler, and of murderers of homosexuals and interracial couples.

• Letters left at the scene of an April 1996 bank robbery in Spokane, Washington, contained Identity propaganda, diatribes against the banking system and were signed with the symbol of the “Phineas Priesthood.” The three men arrested, Charles Barbee, Robert Berry and Jay Merrell, were linked to white supremacist and “Identity” groups and were also charged with setting off bombs at a newspaper office and a Planned Parenthood clinic. All three were convicted.

• In 1994 and 1995, the Aryan Republican Army (ARA) robbed 22 banks in seven Midwestern states in order to finance white supremacist causes and overthrow the U.S. government. Following their arrest, the FBI found a video in which ARA’s leader, Peter Langan, rants at length about the gang’s plans to “take over the U.S.A.” and encourages like-minded extremists to kill law-enforcement agents. The video also promotes Hoskins’ Vigilantes of Christendom.

• Paul Hill, the anti-abortion activist, was convicted of murdering Dr. John Bayard Britton and his escort outside a Pensacola, Florida, abortion clinic in 1994. Hill had written an essay advocating the commission of “Phineas actions” a year before.

• Hoskins’ writings drew public attention in October 1991, when prosecutors in Mississippi linked white supremacist Byron de la Beckwith, then imprisoned while awaiting trial (and later convicted) for the 1963 slaying of civil rights leader Medgar Evers, to the Phineas Priesthood. Earlier in the year, Hoskins had printed a letter from Beckwith in his newsletter that concluded, “Phineas for president!”