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BY TOM LANKSORD and TED PEARSON “News staff writers | At 17, when other boys his fown age were obsessed with cam’ shafts and four-barreled rcarburetors, he openly boast- red he could take fbands and a little wire” and ‘convert an M-l carbine into a fully automatic weapon “Damn Jews, I'm going to “kil them,” he was fond of fr And among those he id it to were police infor- both here and in because long before ~- Thomas A. Tarrants Ht s reached adulthood he was patente being watched and ;; Mants Mobile, shadowed by both metropoli- ‘Ltan police in Alabama and the uP FE. . t emerged today of the 22-year E old Mobile man who was gunned down in Meridian ear- Bly Sunday as he allegedly IF attempted {0 dyPamite the j; home of Meridian business- : man and Jewish leader Meyer f. Davidson. Today, he ties seriuusly Founded in a Meridian hospi- © tal, shot down by police bul- “SJets after a suspected bomb jot went awry and as ke “rubber; This is the picture that! bullets are nothing new Tarrants. i He was obsessed with them, He began coming to Birm- ingham long before his 20th birthday, usually staying at the headquarters of the radi- cal National States Rights Party here out on Bessemer | Road. The party has since "moved its main operations to Augusta, Ga And during his visits here, with word of his rock hard attitudes and his love for guns already commonplace, police shadowed his every move. Unknown to Tarrants, was frequently flanked by police informants. The troubles of both South and the nation, quently claimed, lay in “| n r i the he fret NG: om mu nist-Jewish” con »Suiracy.’ From time to. time, he; “|showed up with picket signs in Hront of Jewish stores in| Mobile. He made periodic trips back here between 1963 ! and 1965, each time his move- Tents carefully observed by tocal Police and, by 1965, the | » In Mobile, his home town, i “all t At 17 when wv saived off shgtzua, fell agaist 4 tol he ; own to gue pros as a “Bluegrass... . He was charged under fed- eral laws regulating such weapons and pleaded not guil- ty before Federal Judge Dan- iel Thomas in Mobile on Oct. 2, 1964, Tarrants later changed his {plea to guilty and was placed ‘ on probation for a period “not - exceeding his majority,” “which means that he was clear on his 21st birthday. So just a few days after the ail important birthday, he was found in a car with notorious segregationist leader Sam Bowers of Mississippi. Inside the car was a submachine / gun, the same type of weapon allegedly used in Sunday's | early-hours shootout at Meridian. For gun lover Tarrants, the road has led not unexpectedly to deep trouble. ©". 7! On Sunday, he was charged for attempted murder as he? writhed in pain on a hospital bed, badly wounded. «* . . Monday, a grand jury in: "Hinds County, Miss., indicted him for the $48,000 armed robbery of ‘a grocery store last May. Armed robbery in j ippi is a capital # (Indicate page, name of newspaper, City and state.) oe THE BIRMINGHAM NEWS ~~ BIRMINGHAM POST- HERALD BIRNINGTAM, ALA 7-2-68 eo Bat ae Date: Classifteation Submitiing Ottice: RIRMINGHAM 3 Cl Being Investigated