Texas Prosecutor Gunned Down Outside Courthouse

A Texas prosecutor who handled drug and homicide cases was shot dead outside of the Kaufman County courthouse by a pair of gunmen, including one who was wearing a bullet proof vest, according to ABC News' Dallas/Fort Worth affiliate WFAA.

The shooting has spurred a complete lockdown of the area and there is a manhunt for two shooters.

Kaufman County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Pat Laney told WFAA that the suspects assaulted the prosecutor on his way in to court at around 8:50 a.m., shooting him multiple times.

The attackers then fled and the courthouse was locked down and closed.

The victim has been identified as Mark Hasse, a longtime prosecutor for the Dallas County District Attorney's Office and current assistant DA for Kaufman County, according to WFAA. He was a felony prosecutor who handled drug and murder cases.

Kaufman County Judge Bruce Wood told WFAA that Hasse was not working on any high-profile cases that would have required extra security. Investigators are looking into his caseload.

The Texas Department of Public Safety sent out an alert for troopers to be on the lookout for a silver "older model" Ford Taurus, according to WFAA. The alert said the suspects are wearing all black and at least one is wearing a tactical vest.

"When you get up into [this] level, you are really attacking society as a whole because our whole society is based on our criminal justice system and getting our day in court," Sheriff David Burn said at a news conference. "This is not how to handle our business."

Helicopters are also involved in the search.

All of the schools in the district are locked down during the manhunt.

The Kaufman County Courthouse remained closed Friday as investigators continued their search for clues in the wake of a brazen fatal shooting of a prosecutor just outside the building a day earlier, officials said.

During a Friday morning briefing, officials of North Texas law enforcement agencies said they were working through leads in the shooting death, which targeted the Dallas-area prosecutor as he headed to work Thursday.

Kaufman Police Chief Chris Aulbaugh said investigators had made no arrests in connection with the shooting of Kaufman County Asst. Dist. Atty. Mark Hasse, 57....

The shooting came the same day U.S. Department of Justice officials publicly thanked Hasse for his help in prosecuting members of the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, but Aulbaugh said investigators have yet to link that case to the shooting.

"We're not ruling out any involvement until we know. We have no specific information that Aryan Brotherhood is a factor here," the police chief said during the briefing. "It seems to be coincidence that this release from DOJ had to do with that case."

He said Hasse had not worked any other recent cases involving the Aryan Brotherhood....

Witnesses have described two suspects who approached Hasse in the courthouse parking lot that morning as dressed in black, wearing masks and tactical vests. They reportedly fled in a brown or silver sedan, possibly a Ford Taurus, but Aulbaugh said there was no additional information available Friday....

He said a Crimestoppers reward for information about the suspects, boosted by a match from the Dallas district attorney’s office Friday, had almost doubled since the day before to $64,500.

"We encourage anyone who may have seen something, call it in to our tip line -- we will follow every lead we receive," Aulbaugh said.

Kaufman County Criminal Dist. Atty. Mike McLelland said the courthouse, placed on lockdown after the shooting, is expected to reopen in a few days.

"This is new territory for everybody," he said.

Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife Cynthia were found shot dead inside their Forney home on Saturday night, a chilling crime that put law enforcement agencies across Texas on high alert and shook prosecutors, defense attorneys and others in legal circles around North Texas.

Late Saturday night, sources said a .223-caliber assault rifle, similar to an AR-15, was used in the murders, with approximately 14 rounds being fired....

The front door of the McLellands' 3,000 square foot residence was found kicked in, sources added. Kaufman County deputies, the FBI, Texas Rangers, the Texas Department of Public Safety and Forney police are all involved in the investigation.

"It is very unusual to see public officials killed in this manner," said ABC News senior justice correspondent Pierre Thomas on "Good Morning America." "If prosecutors are being executed, this is a nightmare scenario; so that's why you see the ATF and FBI actively assisting."

Late Saturday night, news media was asked to leave their positions near the house as law enforcement agencies widened the crime scene.

A neighbor told News 8 police were outside the house when she returned home around 9 p.m. Saturday. The neighbor said McLelland and his wife were friendly people.

"I'm very very scared," said Vanessa Hernandez. "It's really hard to imagine something like this happening in the neighborhood."

One district attorney in a neighboring county has already asked for increased security, and the McLelland case could lead to additional measures being taken at courthouses throughout the region.

"This appears to be a bonafide mystery... and a potentially chilling one at that," Thomas said.

According to the district attorney's official biography, the McLellands have five children, one of whom is a Dallas police officer.

Elected officials outside of Dallas were given extra security Sunday after a local district attorney and his wife were shot to death inside their suburban home, Kaufman County Sheriff David Byrnes said.

The bodies of Kaufman County District Attorney Michael McLelland and his wife Cynthia were found Saturday, just two months after another prosecutor in the county was murdered on his way to work.

No suspects or motives have been identified in any of the three murders.

Byrnes said it wasn't clear the three murders were connected. "We have nothing indicating that for sure," he said.

But elected officials believe the three murders are linked. "It does appear that these are targeted attacks,'' said Darren Rozell, mayor of Forney, where the district attorney lived.

McLellan, 63, and his wife Cynthia, 65, a psychiatric nurse at a state hospital, were probably killed Friday night when neighbors heard shots that they mistook for thunder during a storm. Friends discovered the bodies Saturday, and the sheriff's office was called about 6 p.m.

WFAA-TV in Dallas reported that 14 shells from a .223 caliber rifle were found at the scene. The station also reported that the district attorney's body was found in the hallway and his wife in a front room. USA TODAY could not independently verify the information.

Investigators have not yet connected to killings to the murder of assistant district attorney Mark Hasse, 57, one of a dozen prosecutors who worked for McLelland.

The FBI and Texas Rangers have joined local authorities in the investigations. Hasse was shot just before 9 a.m. on Jan. 31 after he got out of his car in a parking lot behind the county courthouse on his way to work.

"There will be increased security at the courthouse tomorrow -- visible security," the sheriff said.

"This is unnerving, unnerving to elected officials. It's unnerving to the community at large," Byrnes said.

Investigators in Hasse's shooting had various theories, including the possibility that the violent white supremacist gang, the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, was involved in the killing.

In November, the FBI announced that 34 members of the Aryan Brotherhood, including four senior leaders, were indicted by a federal grand jury in Houston for racketeering.

Robert Kepple, executive director of the Texas District Attorney's Association, said Sunday that law enforcement and his members — about 5,000 prosecutors across the state — received a bulletin late last year from Texas Department of Public Safety, warning that the Aryan Brotherhood might be plotting retaliation against law enforcement officials.

"Our people took notice of that, but it is hard to guard against these kinds of acts,'' said Kepple, who cautioned that investigators had not yet linked the latest killings to gang-related retaliation. "I know that is the working theory, but I don't want to prejudge this.''

The FBI checked to see if Hasse's killing was connected to the Mar. 19 killing of Colorado Department of Corrections chief Tom Clements, who was gunned down after answering the doorbell at his home.

Evan Spencer Ebel, a former Colorado inmate and white supremacist who authorities believe killed Clements and a pizza delivery man two days earlier, was killed in a Mar. 21 shootout with Texas deputies about 100 miles from Kaufman County.

Investigators in that case, however, have not found any links to Hasse's murder. A source who has knowledge of the cases but is not authorized to comment publicly told USA TODAY that investigators compared ballistics evidence in both cases but did not find an immediate match.

Although barely two months separate the Kaufman County slayings, murders of prosecutors are still relatively rare.

Before the Kaufman County cases, the last prosecutor murdered in Texas was Gil Epstein, an assistant district attorney in Fort Bend County near Houston in 1996.

Epstein was shot to death in an armed robbery when authorities said the gunman, Marcus Cotton, noticed Epstein's badge. Cotton was executed in 2004.

McLelland was a former platoon leader and company commander in the U.S. Army infantry. Born in the small town of Wortham, Texas, he'd gone to junior college on a football scholarship and got a history degree from the University of Texas at Austin, according to his biography on the county web site.

He got a degree in psychology and got his law degree while working as a psychologist for the state of Texas. He had five children, including a son who is a Dallas police officer.

McLelland was a "well respected prosecutor who pulled together his staff'' following Hasse's slaying, Kepple said. "He (McLelland) was a strong and good public servant.''

Originally posted by Breacher:
It's not exactly my nightmare scenario. It's theirs. Let them wallow in it.

Originally posted by drjarhead:
A TX cop I know says it is looking Aryan Brotherhood, arranged from within prison.

The bullet that killed the CO guy and Hasse match up apparently.

Not sure what it is about women. They seem to think a door must be opened just as they think a phone must be answered.