EAGAR - A national leader of the militia movement has been killed and an Apache County sheriff's deputy wounded in a shootout, authorities said.
William Milton Cooper, 58, of Eager, had hosted a talk show broadcast on the Worldwide Christian Radio out of Nashville, which receives it via phone from his home in St. Johns. He had millions of listeners worldwide, including Timothy McVeigh.
The deputy, whose name was being withheld by authorities, was shot twice in the head while trying to arrest Cooper, a state Department of Public Safety spokesman said today. Cooper was killed by another officer.
Several deputies were attempting to arrest Cooper, who was armed with a handgun, said Officer Steve Volden, a spokesman for the DPS, which was investigating the shooting.
He said details of the shooting would be released later today.
The deputy was in critical condition at a Phoenix hospital early today, Volden said.
Cooper was one of the most widely known prophets of the "patriot movement," railing at the federal government and talking of doomsday omens in his radio broadcast.
McVeigh, who was executed in May for the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, listened to Cooper's broadcasts for inspiration, according to testimony by James Nichols, brother of Oklahoma bombing co-defendant Terry Nichols during a 1996 pretrial hearing.
Like some other patriot leaders, Cooper refused to get a driver's license or pay federal income taxes, saying he is willing to risk getting ticketed and has found a legal way to avoid the taxes.
The patriot movement grew during the 1990s, fed by a series of news events - the siege of Randy Weaver in Idaho, the raid on the Branch Davidians near Waco, Texas and the signing of gun-control laws.