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Crime

Did the Accused Family Research Council Shooter Target a Second Christian Group Too?

Aug. 18, 2012 8:47am Madeleine Morgenstern

Local and federal investigators work to gather evidence after a security guard was shot in the arm at the headquarters of the Family Research Council Aug. 15, 2012 in Washington, D.C. The head of a second conservative Christian organization said Friday the accused shooter had a note with her group's contact information and may have targeted them, too. (Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The head of a second Christian conservative organization said Friday she was told by authorities that a note containing her group’s contact information was found in the pocket of a man charged with opening fire at the Washington offices of another such group, wounding a security guard.

Traditional Values Coalition President Andrea Lafferty said FBI agents visited her group’s Capitol Hill offices hours after the Wednesday morning shooting as part of their investigation. The next day, she said, members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force came by and confirmed that “our information was in his pocket,” including the location of the group’s offices.

“I was stunned,” Lafferty told The Associated Press, adding that she believes her group may have been targeted.

It wasn’t immediately clear if that was the case.

An FBI representative could not be immediately reached for comment late Friday.

The accused shooter, Floyd Lee Corkins II, of Herndon, Va., was ordered held without bond Thursday on accusations he opened fire in the lobby of the Family Research Council in downtown Washington.

Corkins, whose parents said he strongly supported gay rights, had a backpack full of Chick-fil-A sandwiches and a box of ammunition when he said words to the effect of “I don’t like your politics” and shot a security guard, authorities said.

The guard was shot in the left arm but nonetheless managed to help take down the gunman, preventing what the police said could have been a deadly attack.

It wasn’t immediately clear why Corkins, 28, had the chicken sandwiches.

Like the FRC, the Traditional Values Coalition has supported the president of Chick-Fil-A and his staunch opposition to same-sex marriage.

Tony Perkins, who heads the Family Research Council, hinted Thursday at a news conference that the FRC was not the only group targeted, although he did not elaborate.

“Maybe, going forward, you may find out more information that we may not have been the only one,” he said.

While blaming Corkins for the shooting, Perkins also faulted the Southern Poverty Law Center, an Alabama-based civil rights organization that tracks and litigates against hate groups. On its website, the law center labels both Washington conservative organizations as “active anti-gay groups.”

Lafferty also was critical of the law center. “We have been on their hit list longer than any other group,” she said.

Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the SPLC, had called Perkins’ accusation “outrageous.” He said the council earned the designation for spreading false propaganda about the gay community, not for its opposition to same-sex marriage.

Lafferty said she has written Attorney General Eric Holder seeking protection for her group, but that authorities have not been responsive.

“Under this Justice Department, Christians are a very low priority on their lists of concerns,” she said

Corkins had recently been volunteering at a D.C. community center for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. He lived with his parents in northern Virginia.

Prosecutors requested a mental health evaluation, and Corkins’ public defender did not address the allegations in court.

Corkins faces charges of assault with intent to kill and bringing firearms across state. The judge ordered him held pending a hearing next week.

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Comments (121)

yohannbiimu
Posted on August 20, 2012 at 11:02am
The only hate that I see is coming from the so-called “gay” folks. They want to get married in churches, and Christ’s church only marries men and women. Their disdain for God Word can only be defined as “hate” for what the definition of marriage is. It is a holy institution, and homosexuality is not considered behavior that is acknowledged by ANY religion ANYWHERE. If they want legal recognition that excludes being married by ministers who do not regard homosexuality as God-sanctified behavior, then so be it. When politicians want to decide upon who and where “same-sex couples” can marry one-another, then they trod upon the first amendment.

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Soul Leister
Posted on August 20, 2012 at 12:41am
Really… I hope the FBI checked the 15 Chick-Fil-A sandwiches to see if they had been poisoned!!! He was posing as a delivery man (sounds like plan “A” was make them choke on Chick-Fil-A sandwiches but the guard was having none of it and duffus had to switch to plan “B” start shooting).

I think the FBI dropped the ball by throwing away the sandwiches before anyone could check them for poison… everything is going to hell under Obama, it would seem.

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Snidely
Posted on August 19, 2012 at 1:42am
“an Alabama-based civil rights organization that tracks and litigates against hate groups” Madeleine Morgenstern, do you realize you were duped into the liberal’s hateful rhetoric?

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LibertyAtStake
Posted on August 18, 2012 at 6:43pm
“It wasn’t immediately clear why Corkins, 28, had the chicken sandwiches.”

Leftist Lunacy is hungry work, that’s all. Total coincidence.

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Nebraskatypewriter
Posted on August 18, 2012 at 5:29pm
Marxists and their progressive leftist dupes play the PR game of claiming to want only “peace and tolerance.” What they mean is: “Peace and tolerance for us only.” As the founder of modern Socialism, Marx taught that change in society only comes through violence and revolution. This is why Marxist, leftist regimes are the most violent in history. To the political left, only the “people” as a “collective” have rights. Individuals have none.

Christianity teaches that each individual life has value, and individual rights are the only rights that truly exist. They do not see the “collective” as the highest power, they acknowledge, as our Founding Fathers did, that the rights of every individual are “endowed by their creator.”

Diametrically opposed to individual rights and liberty, the left, now in panic as the election slips away from them, are determined to use dupes like Floyd Lee Corkins to do the work of violence they are too afraid (for now) to do themselves. They hope to frighten and coerce, through fear, those who reject their “collective.”

Christianity has survived for 2000 years through all manner of murder and violence. The Marxist left is only the latest historical group to attempt to destroy religion and Christianity. The left only know how to create a society of death and failure through the use of violence and murder.

See: Lenin, Stalin, Mao, etc.

They will fail here as well, as they always have.

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Quixotic-911
Posted on August 18, 2012 at 3:38pm
Sadly, the the vast majority of homosexuals are neurotics. Just watch a pride parade, does that look normal?To prove my point, try asking the next gay person you meet when they where molested. Even if you know nothing else about them you will still have an 85% of being correct. Sadly, hard core liberalism is a mental disorder also. It should be no surprise then that ,being crazy, they are more prone to violent outbursts than the rest of the populace. I don’t hate crazy people but I certainly don’t regard madness as equal to sanity anymore than I regard being wheelchair bound as equal to jogging..

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- Verceofreason
  Posted on August 19, 2012 at 1:29am
  That makes absolutely no sense.
  I have never met a gay person who was molested as a child. I live in NYC.
  God make homosexuals not molesters. why do you feel the need to display your ignorance?
  The crime is YOUR religious beliefs.
  
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- Git-R-Done
  Posted on August 20, 2012 at 1:34am
  Voiceofnoreason – You idiotic Marxists don’t have any scientific evidence that homosexuality is born that way.
  
  No surprise that you Marxists hate freedom of religion in this country.
  
  Report this comment
hades3
Posted on August 18, 2012 at 3:15pm
What a dummy ! Evryone knows it’s illegal to have a gun in DC. For crimrny sakes, the anti gun nuts are outraged that anyone would ignore their anti gun laws. I know ! They should pass more anti gun laws. That will show the bad guys they reeeeealy mean business. What a bunch of dunder heads !!!

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- Soul Leister
  Posted on August 20, 2012 at 12:48am
  Reminds me of that scene in “a few good men” when Demi Moore objects and is over ruled by the judge but instead of sitting down and shutting her pie hole she demonstratively “strenuously objects” (what a moronic thing to do… as is pointed out by one of the crack members of her legal team)… art immatating democrats in real life.
  
  …its illegal to have a gun in DC (already), so teams of democrat legal giants rush to a mic to demand another law making even more illegal (like that is going to solve the problem… “what a bunch of loons”).
  
  Report this comment
762x51
Posted on August 18, 2012 at 3:06pm
In addition to the SPLC we need to blame the real culprits here, the MSM and Barack Obama. These people are the ones who set the tone and broadcast and amplify the message giving license for violence against christian conservatives.

Lefties want to play rough, bring it. We have you out manned and outgunned.

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- Verceofreason
  Posted on August 19, 2012 at 1:30am
  I think it was the MSG in those god awful greasy sandwiches that set him off.
  
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- Git-R-Done
  Posted on August 20, 2012 at 1:35am
  Voiceofnoreason – It’s the crazy Marxist rhetoric that you lefties spew out that caused him to commit the shooting. Lefties are far more dangerous to this country than any MSG.
  
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JeanetteVictoria
Posted on August 18, 2012 at 2:38pm
“Under this Justice Department, Christians are a very low priority on their lists of concerns,” Actually it is worse than that the Justice Department actively targets Christians for prosecution.

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