A murder in Clay County

From the American Spectator:

MANCHESTER, Kentucky -- Rodney Miller has lived nearly all his 56 years in Clay County, the only exception being when, as a young man, he moved to Indianapolis. He lived in the big city for two year without ever knowing his neighbors' names.

"The best people in the world live here," says Miller, sitting in the office of the Manchester Enterprise, where he directs advertising sales. "Down here, everybody knows everybody else."

Bill Sparkman was not from Clay County. A 51-year-old Florida native, Sparkman lived in neighboring Laurel County. Yet when Sparkman's body was found hanging Sept. 12 in a cemetery a dozen miles west of Manchester, the media seems to have placed blame for the apparent murder on Clay County.

The community has suffered plenty of bad publicity in recent years, with a long-running federal corruption investigation that has resulted in charges against eight local officials on vote-rigging. The county also has a reputation for growing marijuana and producing illegal methamphetamine. And on top of these local P.R. problems, the murder also gave national media a chance to recycle stereotypes of rural Kentuckians, much to the annoyance of Clay County residents like Miller.

"Ignorant, backwards hillbillies," he says, recalling a recent cable-news report about Sparkman's death in which the reporter evidently sought out his network's idea of the perfect interview subject for any news story from Kentucky: A toothless, ill-shaven man in overalls.

Yet the Sparkman murder provided liberal bloggers chance to create an entirely new stereotype of Kentuckians as violent right-wingers. Sparkman was employed part-time by the Census Bureau. When his nude body was found hanged from a tree, his federal identification card was taped his shoulder and the word "FED" had been scrawled on his chest.

An Associated Press report said the FBI was "investigating whether anti-government sentiment" played a role in Sparkman's death. Law enforcement officials criticized that story, but the liberal blogosphere seized on it as proving that conservatives had fomented a killing rage among the yokels.

"Send the body to Glenn Beck," Internet pundit Rick Ungar proclaimed Thursday, also indicting Minnesota Rep. Michelle Bachmann (a Republican who had warned that census date could be abused) among right-wingers presumed complicit in Sparkman's murder.

Saturday, the Atlantic Monthly's Andrew Sullivan fretted over "the most worrying possibility," namely that Sparkman's death was "Southern populist terrorism whipped up by the GOP and its Fox and talk radio cohorts."

Rodney Miller dismisses such speculation with blunt language -- bovine excrement, so to speak -- and explains that "fed" as an epithet has a specific localized meaning in Clay County. "Half our public officials are in jail and the other half have been indicted," he says, somewhat exaggerating the result of the federal corruption probe. "So, yeah, there are a lot of a people here who don't like 'feds.'"

Federal agents are also often involved in busting eastern Kentucky's marijuana growers, who are known to plant their crops in the Daniel Boone National Forest, which encompasses much of Clay County. And the success of law enforcement efforts against local drug traffickers -- last month a multi-agency undercover investigation called "Operation Borrowed Time" resulted in more than 50 drug arrests in the county -- may have heightened the animosity toward government officials snooping around, as Sparkman's Census job would have required.

The FBI and Kentucky State Police, who are leading the Sparkman investigation, refuse to discuss possible motives for his murder. Asked about the theories being discussed on the Internet, KSP spokesman Don Trosper said, "It's just speculation and rumors.…We concern ourselves with facts."

Local folks have their own speculation and rumors about the case, most of it centered on the possibility that Sparkman somehow fell afoul of local drug dealers, who may have mistaken his federal identification for proof that he was an undercover informant. One man who lives in London offered a variation on that theory: Perhaps Sparkman actually did report on suspected drug-related activity, and his murder was an act of revenge by associates of someone arrested as the result of a tip from Sparkman.

Go read the rest.

I've been following this story on the news since it happened but since I don't swim in the cesspool of left-wing blogs I have been spared most of the speculation about how this murder could be laid at the feet of those who tell the truth about the little tin messiah.

When I first heard that the area where the body was found was known for marijuana growing and meth labs I was satisfied that the answer had been found.

I mean that it is possible that the killing was done by right-wing zealots protesting the census - possible in the sense that it wouldn't violate the laws of physics - but it just isn't likely. While drug dealers/producers use violence, or the threat of it, to protect their operations every day.

As the old saying goes, "when you hear hoof-beats think horses not zebras".

For more on this you can visit The Other McCain where blogger Robert Stacy McCain has actually traveled to Clay County to conduct his own investigation.

Murder rampage in Alabama

SAMSON, Ala. (AP) - A gunman on a terrifying rampage across two southern Alabama counties killed at least nine people Tuesday, including members of his own family and apparent strangers, and burned down his mother's home before shooting himself at a metals plant, authorities said.

Police were investigating shootings in at least four different locations in several communities, all of which were believed to be the work of a single gunman who had not yet been identified by investigators.

The afternoon of bloodshed began in Kinston, near the Alabama-Florida border, where the shooter burned down his mother's house, according to the Coffee County coroner, Robert Preachers. Officials located the woman's body inside the house, but they had not been able to get inside the still-burning house to determine if he shot her first.

The gunman then headed east, into Geneva County, where he shot and killed five people—four adults and a child—at a home in the nearby town of Samson. Then he killed one person each in two other homes. The identities of all the victims were unknown, but Preachers said they included other members of the shooter's family.

"He started in his mother's house," Preachers said. "Then he went to Samson and he killed his granny and granddaddy and aunt and uncle."

"We don't know what triggered it," Preachers added.

The gunman also shot at a state trooper's car, striking the vehicle seven times and wounding the trooper with broken glass.

He then killed someone at a Samson supply store, and another person at a service station.

My opinion: The guy had lost his job and saw his whole life going down the drain. He wanted to end it all but couldn't stand the idea of his family living on after him and thinking that he was a loser so he took them all with him.

And anyone else who got in his way or just happened to catch his eye.

Given that this was Alabama and not Illinois I'm surprised that there wasn't someone with a gun somewhere along his path to take him out.

Two things go without saying. One is that he was mentally ill and the other is that if Bush were still president and the economy were tanking as badly as it is under Obama the left would be screaming that this man was the first victim of the "Bush Recession".

Two more things go without saying. One is that the usual suspectes will try to use this tragedy to call for more gun control and the other is that the House Democrat leadership will not want any part of it. They're all too afraid that the Obama recession is turning into the Obama depression and the prospect of being voted out of office in 2010 is beginning to be eclipsed by the fear of being lynched (literally, congressman, rope, tree - some assembly required). They will not want to pour gasoline on the fires of voter discontent by enacting something as deeply unpopular as a gun control law.

Murder, suicide, accident?

From AOL Sports:

Billey Joe Johnson was considered one of the top high school football recruits in Mississippi, as well as the country, until his shocking death early Monday morning.

Johnson, hailing from Jackson, Miss., rushed for more than 1,500 yards his last season, totaling over 4,000 for his career, and received scholarship offers from a number of major schools including Alabama, LSU and Mississippi as a top-rated recruit by both Scout and Rivals.

Johnson died of a (possibly self-inflicted) gun wound early Monday after being pulled by a sheriff's deputy.

It's not clear why 17-year-old Billey Joe Johnson was stopped in Lucedale, but authorities say the junior tailback shot himself with a shotgun after the deputy walked back to the patrol car to run a license check.

"The deputy was sitting in his patrol vehicle ... when he heard a gunshot and saw the victim laying on the ground by the driver's side door of the vehicle that Johnson was driving. A shotgun was lying on the victim," according to a statement from the George County Sheriff's Department.

Authorities would not immediately say whether they believed the shooting was a suicide or an accident.

The last portion of that quote is particularly perplexing, because it is hard to believe that Johnson would have attempted to pull a shotgun on police officers ...although equally confounding is the notion that Johnson would kill himself at what, according to all current reports, appears to be a basic traffic stop.

Nothing is ever certain, but this story appears to be so odd, at least in the manner of death, that it would be even more shocking if further details didn't at least emerge as to why the young man apparently panicked and pulled a gun that resulted in the tragic and early end to his life.

If you follow the link to this story and read the comments you will see that there are three theories as to what happened. One, he was murdered by the cop. Two, he accidentally shot himself while pulling the gun out of the car in order to shoot the cop. Three, he committed suicide because he feared that the cop would discover something that would ruin his chances of playing college ball, like drugs or other contraband. A variation on this last theory is that the stress of having all the expectations of family and friends (and himself) that he live up to his potential was weighing him down and he took the easy way out.

First, if the deputy had found any kind of contraband in the kid's car he would have cuffed him and put him in the back of the patrol car, not left him alone. Second, it is unlikely that the cop murdered the young man. There certainly are police out there who are capable of doing such a thing but it would have been hard to get an young athlete in superb physical condition to cooperate in administering a contact shotgun wound. There simply would be too many signs of a struggle.

However there is a problem with the theory that he shot himself, either intentionally or otherwise. When a person shoots himself the gun is seldom found still in his hand or on his body. The recoil coupled with the bodies reaction to being shot generally propels the gun away from the body.

Of course the fact that he was standing in contact or nearly in contact with the car could have limited how the body could have reacted to the gunshot.

I have little doubt that the investigation will paint a much clearer picture of what happened, in time. Until then I counsel against forming conclusions.

Daughter involved in Texas family murder

I told you that when all the facts came out that the teenage daughter of the murdered family in Texas would be shown to have been involved. Here are the details:

EMORY, Texas (March 2) - Angry that her parents demanded she break up with her boyfriend, a teenage girl helped kill her mother and two brothers during a grisly weekend ambush on the family's rural, wooded home, authorities said Sunday.

The 16-year-old girl joined her boyfriend and two others in shooting and stabbing members of the Caffey family in their bedrooms before setting the house on fire, authorities said, confirming what most in this farming town had known since the pre-dawn attack Saturday.

The lone survivor was Terry Caffey, the father. He was shot five times — including twice in the back — before he dragged his bloodied body through the woods in search of help. He awaited surgery Sunday to remove the bullets, Rains County Sheriff David Traylor said.

Killed were Penny Caffey, 37, and sons Tyler, 8, and Mathew, 13.

"We feel confident that the motive was the fact that the juvenile daughter and one of the individuals in custody were dating and that the parents were attempting to break the relationship up," Traylor said, "which led to the crime that was committed."

The girl, who was not identified because of her age, was arraigned Sunday on three counts of capital murder and being held on $1.5 million bond. Charlie James Wilkinson, the girl's 19-year-old boyfriend, and two others were arraigned on the same charges.

Charles Allen Waid, 20, and Bobbi Gale Johnson, 18, were the others charged with three counts each of capital murder.

Waid, Johnson and Wilkinson were being held in Rains County jail on $1.5 million bond. The Caffeys' daugter was being held in neighboring Hunt County's juvenile detention center in Greenville. Traylor said he wasn't aware if they had attorneys yet.

The killings gripped everyone and everything in Emory, from the Sunday morning church services to lunch conversations at small cafes along the two-lane road running through this town of just 1,500.

Classmates of the Caffeys' daughter and Wilkinson described the couple as inseparable and with few other friends on campus. Stunning most here was the arrest of Johnson, who was widely described as a good student active in theater at Rains High School.

Jennifer McClanahan, a senior at Rains, said that Wilkinson had been scolded during her English class last week for being on the computer. Wilkinson, she said, in turn told the teacher that her girlfriend's father had hacked into his MySpace page.

McClanahan and others described Wilkinson as not really a troublemaker, other than constantly being told to remove the cowboy hat he always wore to school.

"That's Charlie," said McClanahan, 17. "He would start an argument over something like a hat."

Carl Johnson, a friend of the family, said the Caffeys moved about two years ago to just outside Emory. He called them good Christians and said he often told the daughter he wanted her soft singing voice to perform at his funeral.

"(The parents) didn't like the boy and were trying to break them up," Johnson said. "They told me at church they didn't have any use for him."

The attack occurred on about 20 acres of pine-canopied, remote land in Alba on a narrow gravel road with just two other homes. The area is so secluded that even the closest neighbors reported only faintly hearing what sound liked thunder early Saturday, and few saw the blaze.

Authorities said that Terry Caffey crawled 300 yards to his closest neighbor to get help, leaving a bloody trail. He was shot in the head, twice in the back and twice near his shoulder, Traylor said.

The Rev. Todd McGahee of Miracle Faith Baptist Church, where the Caffeys worshipped and were the house musicians, wept and struggled to stay composed during his Sunday sermon.

"When I first heard, I was like, I don't even think I would have crawled out of the house," McGahee told his congregation. "But God has a purpose for Terry's life. God has a reason. God gave him the strength to get out."

One gun and one knife were used in the attack, Traylor said. He would not detail which suspects he believed were responsible for which acts, saying only that all four were there at the time.

Police found the daughter hiding in the home of one of the suspects, Traylor said.

The family members were asleep in their bedrooms when the ambush began, Traylor said. Penny Caffey and Mathew suffered gunshots and stab wounds; the youngest, Tyler, had only stab wounds.

In today's world attempting to disiciplin your children can be a capital offense. Sadly it doesn't surprise me all that much that the young couple would murder her family over her parent's attempt to break them up but what does shock me is that they were able to get another couple to help them. The other man arrested, besides the boyfriend, is 20-years-old so he has been out of high school for two years. You'd think he would have known how microscopically small his chances of getting away with something like this were.

And Texas not only has the death penalty but actually carries it out.

The article doesn't say exactly why Mr. and Mrs. Caffey were trying to separate their daughter from Mr. Wilkinson. Perhaps it was because they sensed that he had the potential to murder them in their sleep?

There is an important lessons here. Look at the way that Mr. Caffey was able to escape the house and crawl 300 yards to get help in spite of the way he had been shot five times. In movies or television when a person is shot they mostly fall down and die. In real life unless your central nervous system is hit (brain or spinal cord) or your heart is destroyed or an artery is severed you can remain awake and active for a surprisingly long time. You can access a weapon and return fire or fight back in other ways. You can escape or play dead until your attacker leaves.

The point is that even if you are shot you have options as long as you keep your head. If you are absolutely convinced that taking a bullet means that you must fall down, pass out and/or die then that is probably what you will do. If you believe that you can keep on going despite being injured that is probably what you will do.

Family murdered in Texas

ALBA, Texas (AP) - A mother and two children were killed in a predawn attack at their remote East Texas ranch, which burned to the ground, and four young people who knew the family will be charged with murder, authorities said.

The father was in critical condition with a gunshot wound, Rains County Sheriff David Traylor said at a news conference.

Three high school students and a juvenile were arrested and booked into the Rains County jail. The two males and two females will be charged with three counts each of capital murder, Traylor said.

The family had a teenage daughter, but Traylor did not provide information on her whereabouts. The dead were a 39-year-old woman and two boys, ages 8 and 13, Traylor said.

"It's the scariest thing," Traylor said. "You don't know what to make. I guess you imagine the worst and hope for the best."

Authorities were tightlipped on details, but Traylor said autopsies have been ordered.

The house sat on at least 20 acres of pine-canopied, remote land on a narrow gravel road with just two other homes, Traylor said. Alba is about 60 miles northeast of Dallas.

Harold Read, who lives about a mile away, said he was awakened by what he thought was thunder around 4 a.m., the time when authorities were first called to the house.

"All you read about out here are ticky-tacky crimes in the local paper," said Read, 67. "I never lock my doors. This is a quiet place."

By late Saturday, firefighters sifted through the ash and singed metal that was all that remained from the house. A wooden sign tacked to a tree in the family's dirt driveway read "Joshua 24:15," and a burned van was parked near where the home once stood.

Joshua 24:15, a verse from the Old Testament, reads in part, "But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD."

It is likely that the "missing" teenage daughter will be involved in some way. Either as an instigator or as the one whom the attack was really aimed at. I have no reason to think this other than my knowledge of human nature.

Thoughts on the roots of gun control as a political movement

I ran across this in my morning surfing on a left-wing NC blog:

North Carolina Senator Elizabeth Dole has reportedly joined a movement to allow individuals to carry firearms in our national parks. The movement begun by Republican Senator Mike Crapo from Idaho is pressuring the Department of the Interior to remove the federal ban on guns in our currently gun free national parks. According to reports by extreme North Carolina gun rights organizations Senator Dole has written a letter to the department asking them to lift the ban—in effect opening the door to all park visitors to carry concealed weapons provided they have a permit.

National Park Service ordinance 36 CFR 2.4, and 50 CFR 27.42(Fish and Wildlife Service), prohibits all individuals from possessing a firearm on lands managed by these agencies. These ordinances currently ensure that the national parks system remain a safe environment for visitors and visiting families. At the present time, families who travel nationwide visiting our park system can expect consistent rules and regulations throughout the country. It is likely that families may no longer feel at ease visiting a variety of national parks if they can not anticipate conditions upon arrival---put simply: they will not visit without knowing if it is a gun-free vacation spot.

I did some digging and confirmed that Sen. Dole is one of the Senators attempting to change Park Service rules to allow citizens with valid concealed carry permits to carry on national park property [more info here].

Note the hysterical fear of law abiding citizens with legally carried firearms in the above post. I wonder if 24-year-old Meredith Emerson felt the same way before she was abducted, tortured, raped and murdered while hiking in a Georgia state park?

Do you suppose that John Bryant was glad that he was disarmed by law in the Pisgah National Forest as he watched some two-legged animal beat his wife Irene to death before kidnapping him and taking him to God alone knows what fate?

I wonder if the above liberal blogger knows that every year there are more firearms crimes committed by sworn police officers than by civilians with concealed carry permits?

The fear that some people have of armed citizens is a product of either ignorance or ideology. Those who are ignorant can be shown the facts and will change their opinion. Those who are motivated by anti-gun ideology are immune (and even hostile) to facts because their belief system tells them that firearms are bad.

If you keep digging down to the root of their dislike of firearms you will generally find that what is really motivating them is a hatred not of the firearm itself, which is an inanimate object after all, but rather a deep hatred of the kind of person who chooses to own and carry a firearm for self protection.

The person who chooses to carry a firearm is above all stating that he or she is willing to take responsibility for their own life and safety. This is why gun control is a fixture of the political left because the idea of individuals taking responsibility for themselves is anathema to the left. The left's ideal of the perfect world is a population mired in helpless dependency upon the state (which will be ruled by the enlightened masters of the Left) for every necessity of life from protection from crime to their housing and health care to their next meal.

The self reliant individual threatens the leftist Utopia because he/she needs nothing from the state other than the basic constitutionally mandated services of a national defense and the maintenance of the domestic rule of law. These things the individualist is happy to pay for through reasonable taxation, but any attempt to deprive the individualist of his wealth or liberty in exchange for the provision of government services which the individualist could provide for himself in a more efficient manner will be met with resentment and resistance.

This makes the individualist and the collectivist, or to put it into American political terms the Republican and the Democrat or conservative and liberal, natural enemies. The fundamental difference in the world views of the two types of people make any kind of national unity impossible as long as the two conflicting philosophies are deeply embedded in large segments of the population.

People like the liberal blogger above see me as an intolerable obstacle to their version of the perfect state and would, if her kind ever gained enough power, happily send me to a labor camp for "reeducation" whereas I see her and those like her as a bunch of sordid little Stalin wannabes who remind me of Jefferson's observation that the Tree of Liberty needs occasional watering with the blood of tyrants.

I thought so

CARNATION, Wash. - Two people were arrested Wednesday evening after the bodies of six people were found earlier in the day at a rural property east of Seattle, a sheriff's sergeant said.

One of two suspects in the slayings of six people near Carnation that occurred in the afternoon of Christmas Eve is the daughter of the oldest victims, police said.

Family members said the six victims are Wayne and Judy Anderson, who own the property, their adult son Scott Anderson and his wife Erica of Black Diamond, and their 6-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son.

The two suspects under arrest are Wayne and Judy's youngest daughter, 29-year-old Michelle Anderson, and her boyfriend who live on the property.

The pair came to the crime scene after investigators arrived there this morning, were questioned by investigators, then arrested shortly after 4 p.m.

Both were booked into the King County Jail Wednesday evening. Sources said both suspects admitted to the murders independently. There is no indication of drug or alcohol use and so far, the murder weapon has not been found.

Investigators had not determined a motive for the deaths, but a family member said there had been tension between Michelle and the family for years.

I wish I could say that this was a surprise. Mom and dad have a daughter who turns out to be white trash but they still love her so they let her and her white trash boyfriend live on their property rent free (I'll bet big bucks they were parking an old single-wide there). Then one day the pair decide that they are tired of being looked down on by better off family members who just got lucky in life (by doing things like staying in school and showing up for work sober and on time) and decided to get even.

Of course getting some extra cash for drugs might well have figured into the mix as well. However if the motive had been only cash they could have gone to the next town and robbed a gas station with far less chance of being caught.

This was mostly the hate that those who have screwed up their own lives tend to feel for those who haven't.

Christmas family massacre

CARNATION, Wash. - The King County Sheriff's Office says six bodies, including the bodies of two children, have been found at a home near the small town of Carnation.

Sheriff's Sgt. John Urquhart. says the victims are most likely three generations of family.

Police say they have ruled out the possibility of a murder-suicide, but say they're looking for possible suspects. They said they do not have a specific suspect in mind.

The homicides happened on Christmas Eve, either late afternoon or early evening. The victims include a man and a woman who appear to be in their 50s, a man and a woman appearing to be in their 30s, a 6-year-old girl and a 3-year-old boy. They likely died of gunshots, police say.

Sgt. Jim Laing says the bodies were discovered about 8 a.m. in a home in the 1800 block of 346th Avenue NE. They were found by a co-worker of one of the victims who worked at a post office. The co-worker went to the home when the usually reliable postal employee failed to show up for work.

Detective Bob Conner, says there is "no ongoing threat to the community" related to the killings. He said Carnation is a very close-knit community, and he wasn't aware of police being called to the crime scene address for past incidents.

The home appears to be a large older house on isolated property in the mostly rural area. A mobile home is also located on the property.

King County's "Guardian One" helicopter could be seen flying over the area.

Detectives are searching outbuildings as well as the home. They towed away a black pickup truck sealed with evidence tape.

"It's a very wide area here. Very dense, wooded, and part of the investigation is checking the whole area and terrain out to make sure there isn't other evidence or possibly other victims," said Conner.

It seems to be hard now days to get through a major holiday like Christmas without at least one of these kind of incidents making the news. I did a criminal background check on a job applicant today who had just gotten out of state prison for breaking into someone's home on Christmas Eve back in 1993 and killing them.

I have just one question for the cops out there. If they don't know that the murderer is dead at the scene and they are looking for possible suspects then how in hell can they say that there is no ongoing threat to the community?

If some person or persons capable of butchering an entire family, including children, is running around free I would say that the community is in some danger. Wouldn't you?

Armed citizens defend themselves or criminals having a shootout?

This story was emailed to me this morning with a request that I shed some light on it since I live so close to the South Carolina border:

BEAUFORT, S.C. - A 19-year-old man picked the wrong time to shoot at two brothers, opening fire just as they got ready to do some target practice, police said. Antoine Robinson was shot once in the arm during the shootout around 4:15 p.m. Monday, Beaufort County deputies said.

Robinson pulled up to the Beaufort home, got out of his car and started firing at brothers Rodmond Singleton, 24, and Titus Singleton, 18, authorities said.

The brothers said they were getting ready to shoot target practice and grabbed their guns and fired back, hitting Robinson once, deputies said.

Robinson was taken to the hospital and released to jail later that night. He has been charged with two counts of assault and battery with intent to kill, authorities said.

The brothers were not hit, deputies said.

Up to this point I thought that the question in the reader's mind concerned the fact that the brothers were apparently getting ready to do some target shooting (most likely plinking) at their home. For someone who lives in a built up urban area and/or in a state with leftist anti-gun laws the idea of simply going out into your back yard and shooting can be difficult to get one's mind around.

I was all set to explain that in the rural South many people have large yards with terrain features which make them natural shooting ranges. The only law that you might violate by shooting in your yard is a county noise ordinance but they typically only kick in after 10:00 PM.

But then I read the last line of the story and knew what the reader's puzzlement was all about:

Deputies continue to investigate the shooting, in part trying to determine if the brothers were licensed to fire the guns, sheriff's spokeswoman Robin McIntosh said.

Does South Carolina law require one to obtain a license to fire a gun?

The answer is no. This is poorly written but what it has to mean is that police are running the serial numbers of the guns to make sure they haven't been reported stolen and are running criminal background checks on the brothers to make sure they aren't legally prohibited from owning firearms.

Part of this is just routine. All of the firearms involved in the shooting are evidence and need to be processed. However part of this has to stem from the desire of the police to find out why the shooting took place. In the normal course of an honest citizen's life another person does not simply drive up into his yard, get out of his car and open fire on him for no reason. People do not target strangers for first degree murder as a rule. Yes there are serial killers, but as the old saying goes "when you hear hoof beats think horses not zebras".

Robinson had a reason to go to that specific home and shoot one or both of those brothers. More often than not an incident like this will grow out of some criminal activity shared by the shooter and his victim(s).

The cops are looking at this and thinking that the brothers screwed Robinson on a drug deal, or that they stole ill gotten gains from him or that they are drug dealers fighting over territory or something of that nature. They want to find out exactly what went on and why because there is the potential for more violence if there are additional criminal associates of the men still at large.

Unfortunately the kind of gang activity which was once only associated with large cities has penetrated the rural South. MS-13 is operating in North and South Carolina and Los Angeles based gangs like the Crips (or whatever they are calling themselves now).
We also have a plague of meth labs being operated either directly by the bike gangs which control methamphetamine production and distribution or by freelancers who sell to the bike gangs.

Any of these things could have been behind that gunfight and the cops will do what they can to get to the bottom of it.

Of course there is one other possibility. There are still folks down here, some of them wearing badges, who just think that ni**ers shouldn't have guns and will seize upon any excuse to disarm them.