Suspect in Florida Deputy's Murder Had Bragged of 'Hunting Cops'
............  

The Sun-Sentinel


SHANNON O'BOYE, JON BURSTEIN & PAULA MCMAHON
Courtesy of The Sun-Sentinel

A man who authorities say nursed a bitter attitude toward police, an interest in child pornography and a love of weapons hid in his house Thursday morning and waited until the police officers who had arrived to arrest him came into view.

Kenneth P. Wilk raised his hunting rifle and squeezed the trigger, authorities said, striking Broward Sheriff's Office Detective Todd Fatta in the chest near the heart. Fatta's protective vest was no match.

Wilk shot one other deputy, Sgt. Angelo "Angie" Cedeno, in the hand and shoulder before police took him into custody uninjured, Sheriff Ken Jenne said.

The shootings appear to be the latest, most violent chapter in a long-running confrontation between Wilk, his boyfriend, and several law enforcement agencies. Among the hobbies Wilk once listed on his internet profile: "guns, shoot competitions and hunting cops."

Fort Lauderdale medics sped both deputies from the house in the 1900 block of Northeast 57th Street to North Broward Medical Center under a police escort. Fatta, 33, died shortly after arrival. Doctors rushed Cedeno, 36, who suffered wounds to the hand and shoulder, into surgery. He was in serious condition Thursday night but was expected to recover.

The deputies were members of the LEACH -- or Law Enforcement Against Child Harm -- Task Force, a multi-agency group that combats child pornography, and were attempting to serve a search warrant at Wilk's home Thursday morning.

Wilk's lover, Kelly Ray Jones, a registered sex offender, was arrested last month on child-pornography charges. He had just been released from prison in June after serving time for a 2001 child pornography arrest. The same undercover officer who busted Jones in 2001, St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office Detective Neil Spector, worked the case that led to Jones' most recent arrest.

Jenne said Thursday that investigators knew Wilk, 42, had been bragging that when detectives arrested Jones in June, they didn't get all of the child pornography in the house. Thursday's warrant was meant to find the rest of the illegal porn, and arrest Wilk.

Shortly after speaking with the deputies' families, an emotionally distraught Jenne reminded people how dangerous law enforcement is.

"Every day, we fail to realize that whether it's the LEACH Task Force, or warrants, or anything that goes on, these police officers and deputies and federal agents put their lives at jeopardy," he said. "It's a hard thing calling their parents" when one of them dies in the line of duty.

It is unclear why the LEACH Task Force members did not ask for assistance from a SWAT team in serving the warrant. They knew Wilk had high-powered weapons in the house and had made vicious threats against law enforcement in the past.

"Our people were confident they had an adequate number of [officers]," Sheriff's Office spokesman Jim Leljedal said.

The team consisted of about 12 officers from Fort Lauderdale, Wilton Manors, the Sheriff's Office, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

"These are all experienced law enforcement officers," Leljedal said. "They have worked together before to serve warrants in LEACH cases. Again, if we had anticipated this level of resistance, we certainly would have had more people involved ... This was not at the level where we believed the SWAT team was necessary."

In Palm Beach County, the sheriff's Emergency Response Team, similar to SWAT, typically hands out LEACH's search warrants, said Palm Beach County Sheriff's Lt. Michael Reardon, a member of the same child porn task force.

When investigators were preparing the search warrant in July, Jones' federal probation officer told them Jones and Wilk had "weapons at the home [rifles] which are to be in a locked gun box," according to court records. Those weapons were not seized in the July 15 raid, according to the search warrant inventory.

In addition, Wilk had a history of making threats against law enforcement officials, according to St. Lucie County court records. Spector accused Wilk of making online threats to him in September 2001 after Jones was arrested.

The detective said he was online using one of his undercover screen names when he got messages from someone he thought to be Wilk, according to court records.

The messages read: "I hope you can live with yourself, I will hunt you down the rest of my life." When the detective asked who he was, the suspect replied: "The last person you will see on earth ... Promise." When the detective asked how that would happen, the suspect replied: "You figure it out Spector."

Spector checked the member profile for the messenger's screen name. It identified the person as "an exposer of Florida police undercover cops" and listed his hobbies as "working out, boxing, horseback riding, acting, guns, shoot competitions, and hunting cops."

A subpoena revealed the screen name was billed to Kenneth Wilk at his and Jones' home.

In July 2001, a female FBI agent reported that Wilk threatened to beat her up as she walked by him in court at a hearing in Jones' case.

Spector wrote that he felt "Wilk is a danger to the law enforcement community." Wilk was charged with retaliation against a witness and making a written threat to kill or do bodily injury, but the case was dropped in 2003.

Wilk filed a complaint with Fort Lauderdale police in September 2001 accusing Spector of threatening him online, according to the court records.

Thursday wasn't the first time law enforcement officers had encountered violence at Jones and Wilk's home.

When investigators arrived to arrest Jones on federal child pornography charges in June 2001, "Jones tried to shut the front door and instantly spun around the corner and ran to a laptop computer in the north bedroom," according to an FBI report obtained by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Two Fort Lauderdale officers were injured during a tussle with Jones. They said they fought to get handcuffs on him as he struggled to delete information from his computer. The investigators said Jones was engaged in several online chats, including one that dealt with "sex with babies and child pornography."

Jones argued in court documents that the officers slammed his head against a solid oak desk, but the officers said he hurt himself by jumping up in handcuffs and banging his head on his laptop computer.

Bobby Alpert, the owner of the now-defunct Acting Studio in Miami, said Wilk took classes there several years ago in exchange for helping with set construction and other work to put on theatrical productions.

"He was a very nice guy," Alpert said. "But we could see how frustrated he was" over Jones' legal troubles. "He was p----- off because the cops were going after his boyfriend."

Alpert said Wilk would brag about going into the same chat rooms frequented by Jones to warn other people that police were monitoring and, in Wilk's words, "entrapping" unsuspecting computer users. Wilk claimed the cop who set Jones up never claimed to be underage.

Alpert also said Wilk was upset about the financial toll Jones' legal troubles was taking on him. "He lost everything," Alpert said.

Wilk is being held at the federal detention center in downtown Miami, where he will appear before a federal magistrate today to answer a criminal complaint charging him with conspiring to possess child pornography and trying to obstruct justice by corrupting, harassing or intimidating a witness. Charges against Wilk for the death of Detective Fatta and the shooting of Sgt. Cedeno are pending, a Sheriff's Office spokesman said.

Investigators described Wilk as "indifferent and unconcerned" Thursday night.

Arlene Marcus, a neighbor who saw deputies walk Wilk out of his house Thursday morning, said he wore an ugly smirk on his face. He looked, she said, "like he was very proud of what he'd just done."

Staff Writers Rafael Olmeda, Jaime Hernandez, Akilah Johnson and Ann W. O'Neill and Staff Researchers William Lucey and Tracy Ahringer contributed to this report

RIP

Wow, a fag into kiddie porn and killing cops.  Can we skip trial and go straight to his drawing and quartering?

Quoted: Among the hobbies Wilk once listed on his internet profile: "guns, shoot competitions and hunting cops."

I wonder which one(s) of the tin foil hat type of  internet gun boards just lost a dedicated poster.

[sarcasm]I thought that there was no link between child porn and homosexuality.[/sarcasm]

We desperately need a dose of chlorine.

Quoted: Quoted: Among the hobbies Wilk once listed on his internet profile: "guns, shoot competitions and hunting cops." I wonder which one(s) of the tin foil hat type of  internet gun boards just lost a dedicated poster.

Assault Web?

If this maggot is breathing on January 1 THAT is proof our system is out of whack.  I do not agree with the death penalty in most cases (i.e. shooting someone in a fit of anger or accidentally in the commision of a crime), but this is where it should be applied - and in short order.  No freeking 20 years on death row.  The perp is an oxygen thief.

While this dirtbag will get mad props in prison for killing a cop, his asshole and his life will be short-lived by the resident tough guys in prison. Bubba loves pedophiles.

He'll get a first class ticket to the resurrection!

HS1

Quoted: Assault Web?

We'll know when they post a thread for the legal defense fund for their poor misunderstood internet brother in arms.

*Imbroglio*

This is the same treatment any of us would get if we ever tried the "From our cold dead hands* Approach.

*Imbroglio*

Quoted: Wow, a fag into kiddie porn and killing cops.  Can we skip trial and go straight to his drawing and quartering?

+1

It's been a particularly bad summer for cops this year.

Quoted: Quoted: Wow, a fag into kiddie porn and killing cops.  Can we skip trial and go straight to his drawing and quartering? +1

+2

I wish they could of just dropped a 500lb bomb on the house.

After this piece of shit is convicted of murder and sentenced to death, I would vote for tying him up and standing him up on this police department's rifle range. The squad of 9 men, made up from this cop's closest friends would then proceed to shoot until the bolt locks open. Then take his body down and toss it into a piranha filled pond. And since he was a fag into child porn, stick a 12" dildo in his mouth and another in his ass and use them as handles as they cart his disgusting carcass away.

Quoted: After this piece of shit is convicted of murder and sentenced to death, I would vote for tying him up and standing him up on this police department's rifle range. The squad of 9 men, made up from this cop's closest friends would then proceed to shoot until the bolt locks open. Then take his body down and toss it into a piranha filled pond. And since he was a fag into child porn, stick a 12" dildo in his mouth and another in his ass and use them as handles as they cart his disgusting carcass away.

Its too quick and not painful enough.  See my comment above on how to do it.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Wow, a fag into kiddie porn and killing cops.  Can we skip trial and go straight to his drawing and quartering? +1 +2

+3

Prayers sent to the deputy's family. Too bad the other deputies didn't waste that bastard.

A man who authorities say nursed a bitter attitude toward police, an interest in child pornography and a love of weapons hid in his house Thursday morning and waited until the police officers who had arrived to arrest him came into view. Kenneth P. Wilk raised his hunting rifle and squeezed the trigger, authorities said, striking Broward Sheriff's Office Detective Todd Fatta in the chest near the heart. Fatta's protective vest was no match. Wilk shot one other deputy, Sgt. Angelo "Angie" Cedeno, in the hand and shoulder before police took him into custody uninjured, Sheriff Ken Jenne said.

Now that would not have happened in Chicago!  

And his identity on DU was....?

It is unclear why the LEACH Task Force members did not ask for assistance from a SWAT team in serving the warrant.

Well everyone knows that SWAT teams are nothing but a way for the Man to propogate more JBT'ery against the citizens of this nation.

These officers were just handling the problem with a modicum of respect for everyone's rights.

Did I read that article right-did it say HUNTING RIFLE????  You mean, it didn't say ASSAULT WEAPON??  Have we turned the corner??


wow!!  What a combo!!  A violent, homosexual power-gay kiddie-porn lover.

Not suprised at the JBT's tactics.  They did the same thing at Waco, even though their own search warrant listed numerous "M-16 Machineguns" from Olympic Arms.  They should have known better.

We just had a guy with a mini14 set up his house to pick off cops as they approached, and fired off a shit load of rounds in his house to get the neighbors' attention: it did.

Final score:
Cops 1
Bad Guy 0

Jay

Quoted: It's been a particularly bad summer for cops this year.

No kidding! Watch your six, you can't argue with me on Arfcom if you're killed at work

I hope the guy spends the next five years being ass raped...

He'll probably enjoy it.

I vote for the death penalty if they can make the execution last about 5 years. The actual execution, that is, not just the waiting time. I figure he'll get it, which is too good for him.

Hey, we're sending a lot of jobs overseas. Could we outsource some of our prison population to a couple of countries that have mastered notoriously sadistic methods of punishment?? Of course we could do it here, but someone would take a picture of it, and then the newsrags and liberals would crap all over themselves....

RIP brother.