http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...rss=rss_nation
State and federal law enforcement officials on Thursday dismissed the suggestion from a news service report that the man, William Sparkman, 51, may have been targeted because he worked for the federal government, calling that speculative.
"I think to give this impression that he was strung up because he was a federal employee is giving a bad impression to the nation," said David Beyer, spokesman for the FBI field office in Louisville, which is working with state officials on the investigation.
Beyer, who has worked in the FBI's Louisville office since 1993, said that violence against federal employees in Kentucky is rare.
"It's an unusual occurrence for a federal employee to be assaulted, and since I've been here there hasn't been one killed because of their employment. It's very unusual for that to occur."