VENTURA : Man Charged With Threats to Presidents
A New Mexico man arrested in Ventura last month on suspicion of murder after an all-night standoff with police, has been charged with threatening the lives of two former Presidents, officials said.
Paul Randall Cooper, 33, of Albuquerque has been charged in Los Angeles with the federal crime of threatening a former president, Assistant U.S. Atty. Mark Larson told the Associated Press.
Cooper allegedly admitted telling Albuquerque police investigators “he had intentions to go out (to California) and kill President Reagan and President Nixon,” said Albuquerque Police Lt. Chris Padilla.
A Ventura police SWAT team arrested Cooper May 19 at a beachside motel in Ventura’s Pierpont area, after he had holed up in a room with guns and explosives and refused a police request to surrender.
After SWAT negotiators coaxed Cooper into giving up, ending the 10-hour standoff, police seized two handguns, a long-barreled rifle, a suspected pipe bomb and a quantity of black powder in his room.
Cooper had reportedly called his sister in Malibu and told her he had stabbed someone to death in Albuquerque, officials said after his arrest. Albuquerque police then found the body of Gary Steven Marquez, 40, of Santa Fe in Cooper’s tiny studio apartment. Police believe he died two days before Cooper’s arrest in Ventura.
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