Five people in the Fairbanks area were arrested Thursday by state and federal law enforcement on charges connected with an alleged plot to kidnap or kill state troopers and a Fairbanks judge, according to the Alaska State Troopers.
Francis "Schaeffer" Cox, Lonnie Vernon, Karen Vernon, Coleman Barney and Michael Anderson are accused of conspiring to commit murder, kidnapping, and arson, as well as weapons misconduct, hindering prosecution and tampering with evidence, according to trooper spokeswoman Megan Peters in a written statement late Thursday.
An investigation "revealed extensive plans to kidnap or kill Alaska state troopers and a Fairbanks judge," the statement said. The plans included "extensive surveillance" on the homes of two Fairbanks troopers, the statement said.
"Investigation also revealed that extensive surveillance on troopers in the Fairbanks area had occurred, specifically on the locations of the homes for two Alaska state troopers," the statement said. "Furthermore, Cox et. al. had acquired a large cache of weapons in order to carry out attacks against their targeted victims. Some of the weapons known to be in the cache are prohibited by state or federal law."
U.S. Attorney Karen Loeffler said Lonnie Vernon, 55, was arrested for threatening to kill a federal judge. She said more information about federal charges would be released today Fairbanks Police Chief Loren Zager said the operation involved multiple police actions related to Fairbanks-area members of the "sovereign citizen" movement.
In late May, a father-son pair of so-called “sovereign citizens” shot and killed two police officers in West Memphis, Arkansas after being pulled over on a routine traffic stop. Militia-like “sovereign citizens” take right-wing “tenther” beliefs to their logical extreme, declaring themselves exempt from federal law and from paying taxes, and believing they “don’t have to answer to any government authority.” The FBI lists the movement as a “domestic terror threat,” and as NBC Nightly News reported last night, the West Memphis shooting highlights that this growing anti-government movement may become violent:
While the sovereign citizen movement has existed for some time, its popularity appears to be growing in a climate where the anti-government rhetoric of the tea party movement has become commonplace. Former President Clinton, speaking at the Center for American Progress Action Fund in April, “drew parallels” between the anti-government tone that preceded the Oklahoma City Bombing “and the political tumult of today.” Sadly, several recent incidents of right-wing extremist violence — including the West Memphis shootings — suggest he may be right.
The thing came out last week on April 7th. Roger Hedgecock and a couple people found it, made it public yesterday afternoon. As I said, I got my copy at 2:30 in the afternoon. This is being made and widely disseminated now on the day prior to the tea parties as well. Here's another excerpt. "Rightwing extremist chatter on the Internet continues to focus on the economy, the perceived loss of US jobs in the manufacturing and construction sectors, and home foreclosures. Anti-Semitic extremists attribute these losses to a deliberate conspiracy conducted by a cabal of Jewish 'financial elites.'" Right-wing extremist chatter is spreading this kind of stuff around? "These 'accusatory' tactics are employed to draw new recruits into rightwing extremist groups and further radicalize those already--"
So you have a report from Janet Napolitano and Barack Obama, Department of Homeland Security portraying standard, ordinary, everyday conservatives as posing a bigger threat to this country than Al-Qaeda terrorists or genuine enemies of this country like Kim Jong Il. They wouldn't write anything about Jim Jong Il like this. They wouldn't write anything about Osama Bin Laden like this.
Don't forget, this is the same bunch that once suggested the speech code in which references to jihad and Islamofascism were to be purged. We were not to discuss terrorism with those words. It was not to be discussed in the country; it was not to be discussed in the government. The same people who wanted to purge references to jihad or Islamofascism are now out with this report, which is a genuine hit job on standard run-of-the-mill, mainstream ordinary Americans. "DHS/I&A will be working with its state and local partners over the next several months to ascertain with greater regional specificity the rise in rightwing extremist activity in the United States, with a particular emphasis on the political, economic, and social factors that drive rightwing extremist radicalization."
That's just a portion of it; it's nine pages long. Homeland security warning of radicals on the right, defined as groups that reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority. Anybody opposed to federal authority, expanding federal authority will now be tagged as a member of right-wing extremist groups.