The man who says he sought to kill Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh contacted his sister on his way to the justice’s home, officials say — and that conversation may have swayed him from his original murderous plan.
“The suspect arrived by taxi and observed the U.S. marshals, and he turned around to contemplate his next move,” Montgomery County Police Chief Marcus Jones said, according to The Washington Post. “This is when he texted his sister and told her of his intentions, and she convinced him to call 911, which he did.”
Twenty-six-year-old Nicholas Roske told authorities that he flew from California with the intent to kill the justice. He took a taxi to Kavanaugh’s Chevy Chase, Maryland home in the middle of the night on Wednesday. He was walking down the streets of Kavanaugh’s neighborhood when he called 911 and ultimately surrendered to authorities.
Investigators have shown great interest in exactly why Roske made the 911 call, The Post reported, suggesting that Roske’s sister may have played a pivotal role in stopping the 26-year-old’s plan to break into the Kavanaugh home and kill the justice.
It is not immediately clear what Roske and his sister texted about or how long they communicated, according to the publication. About 33 minutes passed between Roske seeing two deputy U.S. marshals near Kavanaugh’s home and Roske calling 911, court records and Montgomery County 911 recordings reviewed by MSN indicate.
He walked around the corner from Kavanaugh’s house during this period of time and stood about 1.5 blocks away, the publication reported.
“We believe the presence of the deputies assigned outside of Justice Kavanaugh’s home served as the deterrent in this incident,” Drew J. Wade, chief of the Office of Public Affairs for the U.S. Marshals Service, said. “While the deputies did not witness anything that would have resulted in an enforcement action, their vigilance and posture averted a potential violent act against the Justice.”
A DOJ affidavit details how Roske allegedly traveled to Kavanaugh’s home armed with weapons and burglary tools with the intent to kill the justice and prevent him from ruling on Second Amendment and abortion cases.
“On June 8, 2022, at approximately 1:05 a.m., two United States Deputy Marshals saw an individual dressed in black clothing and carrying a backpack and a suitcase, get out of a taxicab that had stopped in front of the Montgomery County, Maryland, residence of a current Justice of the United States Supreme Court,” the affidavit said.
Roske looked at the two U.S. Marshals standing by their parked cars and then walked down the street, according to the affidavit.
The Montgomery County Emergency Communications Center then received a call from an individual who identified himself as Nicholas John Roske. He said he had suicidal thoughts, had a gun in his suitcase, and had come from California to kill “a specific United States Supreme Court Justice.”
Police were dispatched to the justice’s home, where they encountered Roske still on the phone with the Montgomery County Emergency Communications Center. The officers took Roske into custody “without incident.”
“An inventory search of the seized suitcase and backpack revealed a black tactical chest rig and tactical knife, a Glock 17 pistol with two magazines and ammunition, paper spray, zip ties, a hammer, screwdriver, nail punch, crow bar, pistol light, duct tape, hiking boots with padding on the outside of the soles, and other items,” the affidavit said.
Roske told authorities that he was upset about the “leak of a recent Supreme Court draft decision regarding the right to abortion as well as the recent school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.” He indicated that “he believed the Justice that he intended to kill would side with Second Amendment decisions that would loosen gun control laws.”
“Roske stated that he began thinking about how to give his life a purpose and decided that he would kill the Supreme Court Justice after finding the Justice’s Montgomery County address on the Internet,” the affidavit said. “Roske further indicated that he had purchased the Glock pistol and other items for the purpose of breaking into the Justice’s residence and killing the Justice as well as himself.”
It is not immediately clear whether the Kavanaugh family was at home when this incident occurred. The FBI would not comment further to The Daily Wire on the Kavanaugh family’s whereabouts.
Top Republicans have attributed the attack to incendiary rhetoric from Democratic politicians. Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz warned last week: “The Biden admin encouraged protests outside of justices’ homes. Schumer threatened: ‘You have released the whirlwind & you will pay the price!’ Now a would-be assassin went to the home of a Supreme Court Justice.”
The arrest comes after several weeks of angry protests at the Supreme Court and at the homes of conservative justices in the wake of the leak of a draft decision that would overturn Roe v. Wade. Pro-abortion protesters and some Democratic lawmakers have deemed the court as “illegitimate” in anticipation of the ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
Source: Dailywire
