KAUFMAN -- Local law enforcement officials at first seemed to down play a possible link between the murder of Kaufman County Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse on Jan. 31 and threats from the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, but the violent group now appears to be the main focus of the multi-agency investigation.
On the day of Hasse's death in a courthouse parking lot, the Federal Bureau of Investigation of Houston released a statement announcing the guilty pleas of two members of the white supremacist organization.
At the conclusion of the statement, the FBI credited a multi-agency task force for securing indictments in October 2012 against 34 ABT members that named the Kaufman County, Texas District Attorney's Office. The two ABT members, Ben Christian "Tuff" Dillon, 40, of Houston, and James Marshall "Dirty" Meldrum, 40, of Dallas, entered their guilty pleas to conspiracy in racketeering.
In December 2012 the Texas Department of Public Safety issued an alert that the ABT planned to retaliate against the 20 federal, state, county and local law enforcement agencies that helped secure the indictments in Houston.
Kaufman County was the only law enforcement agency in the Cedar Creek Lake area identified, but it did mention Fort Worth and Tarrant County.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups and their activities, has identified the ABT as "particularly violent."
The Aryan Brotherhood is a 50-year-old large, nationwide prison gang that is "infamous for its violence and its sprawling criminal empire," according to the law center. Members usually join the white supremacist group in prison, and they continue their involvement for life outside of prison walls.
ABT is known to be involved in illegal drug traffic, and its members will work with groups like the Mexican Mafia and other ethnic groups in criminal enterprises, according to the law center.
The Aryan Brotherhood prison gang formed in California and spread to Texas in about 1980, according to the law center.
The law center has documented at least 10 violent crimes committed by members of the ABT since 2001, including the racially-motivated murder of James Byrd Jr. in 2010 in Jasper, Texas, when he was dragged to death behind a pickup truck. The state's hate crime law is named after Byrd.
