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ITN
Four held over 'Obama assassination plot'
Four held over 'Obama assassination plot'
Three men and a woman have been arrested over a possible plot to assassinate US presidential candidate Barack Obama. In Denver, Colorado - where the Democratic National Convention is being held - police are holding Tharin Gartrell, 28, after a routine arrest in the early hours of Sunday morning in the city's Aurora suburb. Gartrell was spotted driving erratically and when police searched his rented truck, they found two high-powered rifles, including one with a telescopic sight, a bulletproof vest, camouflage clothing, boxes of ammunition, walkie-talkie radios, licenses in the names of other people and methamphetamine. A few hours later, authorities went to a hotel in Denver where an associate of Gartrell, Nathan Johnson, 32, was held. A third man, Shawn Robert Adolf, was located at a hotel in Aurora but jumped out of a sixth floor hotel window, breaking his ankle. He was found a few blocks away and subsequently arrested. Adolf was reportedly wearing a ring with a swastika and is thought to have ties to white supremacist organisations. A woman, believed to be the girlfriend of one of the men, is also being held. According to local television reports, one of the suspects "was directly asked if they had come to Denver to kill Obama. He responded in the affirmative." It was also claimed one of the suspects told authorities they were going to "shoot Obama from a high vantage point using a....rifle sighted at 750 yards". A US government official said it is too soon to determine whether it was a valid threat and whether it could have been carried out. "It could also turn out that these were nothing but a bunch of knuckleheads," the official said. US Attorney Troy Eid confirmed the incident is being investigated but said there was no credible threat to Mr Obama, the Democratic National Convention or the people of Colorado. FBI spokeswoman Kathy Wright confirmed the FBI is investigating the reports, but declined to elaborate. Officials with the FBI, Secret Service, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and Aurora police are scheduled to hold a press conference later. Elsewhere in the city, Michelle Obama, 44, the wife the 47-year-old Illinois senator, gave a prime-time television address and said her husband offers "new hope" for America and would make an "extraordinary president". She used her most high-profile speech of the campaign to date to expose details of Mr Obama's personal story to a wider audience and to introduce the man she married to America. Mrs Obama said: "What struck me when I first met Barack was that even though he had this funny name, and even though he had grown up all the way across the continent in Hawaii, his family was so much like mine." She emphasised her husband, who has struggled to attract support from working class Americans, was raised by working class grandparents. Mrs Obama told voters who are focused on the troubled US economy that his family had struggled to pay the bills; and she said that their families had the same values, a belief in truth and honesty, and that "you can make it if you try". To loud applause from the delegates, Mrs Obama also praised her husband's former rival Hillary Clinton for putting "those 18 million cracks in that glass ceiling so that our daughters and our sons can dream a little bigger and aim a little higher". Mrs Obama said her husband was running for president to end the war in Iraq responsibly, to build an economy that helps every family, and to make sure that healthcare was available to every American. "The world as it is just won't do, that we have an obligation to fight for a world as it should be and that is the thread that connects our hearts," she said. "That is the thread that runs through my journey, and Barack's journey, and so many other improbably journeys that have brought us here tonight where the current of history meets this new tide of hope." To a standing ovation, she went on: "And, you see, that is why I love this country." The couple's two children, Malia, ten, and Sasha, seven, joined their mother on the stage at the end of her speech. Later, Mr Obama, appearing via video link from Kansas City, Missouri, spoke to his wife and daughters on the stage, with both girls saying: "I love you, Daddy".
ITN | August 26, 2008
