Post offfice hostage taker angry at Tea Bagger targets: Obama, taxes, gun control

A wheel-chair bound registered sex offender, angry at the typical targets of the "Tea Bagger" movement: taxes, gun control, and the nation's first black president, Barack Obama, and distressed because his two year old pick up truck was about to be repossessed, took three people hostage using handguns and a fake bomb.

The man, with a criminal record and registered as a sex offender in Florida, railed about Obama and taxes, at first seemed intent on killing people. According to one of the hostages, quoted in an Associated Press article printed in the Austin Statesman:

"There was no mission statement. No demands made. No purpose in what he was doing. There was no reason for any of it," said Jimmy Oliver, 41, one of the hostages. "He just wanted to destroy a federal building with a lot of people. Once we established a relationship, he decided destroying people wasn't in the cards."

The gunman said he had no money, and his 2007 Dodge diesel pickup was about to be repossessed. Mostly, he railed against the government — high taxes, gun control and President Barack Obama.

"He was really down on the government," Oliver said. "About the government taking over the right to bear arms ... he was angry at the government overtaxing us."

After eight hours, he turned the hostages loose and surrendered to authorities, later apologizing during a arraignment in U.S. District Court that he had "got everyone out on Christmas."