It's difficult to tell what really goes on in the mind of Norm Olson, Baptist pastor, former gun shop owner, leader of Alaska's Citizen Militia, friend to patriots and someone who sometimes seems to welcome death by gunfire. In an interview this week about developments in the Schaeffer Cox sovereign citizens case, Olson said if law enforcement comes to arrest him, too, he sees no way out but a final, fiery farewell.
"I would probably get shot down in my own driveway making sure my grandchildren and my family saw it. I don't want to waste away in some federal prison someplace. I wish I had an alternative. I wish I knew what else to do. I am a patriot. And I stand for the Constitution. And the federal government is the enemy of the Constitution," he said from his home on Alaska's Kenai Peninsula.
On Jan. 11, Olson sent out a warning to followers that "Schaeffer Cox is facing additional federal charges involving 'conspiracy to murder!!'" Cox and several other members of Cox's Alaska Peacemakers Militia were arrested in March 2011 in a state-federal investigation alleging they were amassing illegal weapons and plotting to kill judges and state troopers. The current case against Cox centers on federal weapons violations, although he did at one time face murder and kidnapping conspiracy charges at the state level. That case was thrown out late last year.
Olson has supported Cox, and has been vocal about his distrust of the government's tactics and motives. Nevertheless, Olson isn't mentioned in any of the cases as a member of the alleged conspiracies or as a defendant. He doesn't face charges, and in fact his name has rarely come up.
"I wouldn't be surprised to get a visit from the Feds," Olson posted to his Internet forum. "They'll probably have 'conspiracy to aid and abet a fugitive' or 'hampering a federal investigation' or some such BS to charge me with. The Feds are hungry and are itching for a showdown. They don't seem to understand the law of unintended consequences," he wrote.
Such statements aren't new for Olson. In fact, he's voiced a similar refrain for more than a decade. "We're itching for a standoff someplace," the Southern Poverty Law Center quotes him from a 1999 interview with the Washington Post. "Any movement needs a good and noble rallying point, an Alamo or a 'Remember the Maine,' and this could be it."
Back then, the "this" in "this could be it" was the doom predicted to accompany the new millennium.
Now, the "this" is the prospect of his possible arrest by federal authorities, how that might end and the implications for the larger militia-patriot-sovereign-citizen movement, a movement the FBI recently likened to domestic terrorism.
"I do think it is interesting that the federals may be 'casting the net' over a wider group of patriots," Olson continued in his post.
"Please do not give any credence to the rumors that I assisted in any way Schaeffer's arrest. Do not break ranks, fellow patriots ... Don't be rattled. Maintain faith and allegiance (The Soldier's Creed)," he urged in a post later that same day. "On the surface, it appears that the Feds are cooking up something ... With the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) and unlimited federal powers to detain, arrest, and hold, I would think that these unusual events must have a wider purpose."
Olson closes with a call for Alaska's militia groups to be vigilant and prepared: "Maybe I'm wrong … I'm not paranoid at all, but I am concerned about the cohesiveness of the militia here in Alaska should the Feds be staging something. Too often we've seen people cut and run when the heat gets turned up."
For 20 years, Olson has professed his dislike of the government and distrust of the courts. His allegiances, in order, are to God, family, and country. Obeying what he perceives to be an illegitimate government is not among them.
This has become an era with more and more violent law enforcement run-ins with sovereign citizens -- enough that the FBI now considers "sovereign-citizen extremists as comprising a domestic terrorist movement." At the same time, a charismatic young militia leader remains under arrest in Alaska following charges he and others planned to harm government officials. So what's Olson's message?
"A lot of it is rhetoric. I am a propagandist. I want to raise people's vigilance," Olson said in an interview Thursday. "There are times when you have to warn people that things are happening and things that are very suspicious are coming together."
Olson denies that he ever encouraged Cox to flee prosecution. He may not have doled out that advice word for word, but philosophically Olson admitted he isn't opposed to running to stay out of courtrooms and avoid jail. "We are trying to win this war of defiance and resistance against a corrupted government," he said. "If that takes fleeing them, then are we any less guilty than the founding fathers?"
As for violence, he says that, too, is a last resort. Defiance "does not mean neutralizing a threat. It means evade, duck them, do not volunteer information. That's my understanding of what it means to be a patriot under a corrupted government," he said. But what about the hypothetical, bloody showdown Olson mentioned? Pressed further to explain why getting shot dead would be a better alternative than being taken into custody and fighting to clear his name, Olson softened his vision of what might come.
If the FBI or U.S. Marshals came to him without aggression, without guns drawn, he said he'd be willing to listen to what they might have to say -- even if they bore news of his impending arrest. He'd request 24 hours to think about what to do next and talk it over with his family. But if forced into a split-second decision, there's no question, he said, that the outcome would be bad.
"I am a patriot. And I stand for the Constitution. And the federal government is the enemy of the Constitution," he reiterated. "I cannot respect that authority when the courts have been corrupted. I cannot respect the courts today. Disobedience to tyranny is obedience to God."
Yet if Cox's defense needs Olson to testify on his friend's behalf, Olson said he'd be happy to do so -- if he could be assured that it wasn't a ploy by the government to get him to the courthouse to be arrested. At this point, however, there's no indication the government takes Olson as seriously as Olson takes himself. But if the police come knocking on his door, it may not matter to the man who says he's already accomplished a lot in is his lifetime.
"My life is over. The only thing that would be left for me would be to die like a patriot," he said.
Contact Jill Burke at jill(at)alaskadispatch.com