Alaska News

Eerie similarities between Alaska, Michigan militia extremists

American citizens angry with the U.S. government are increasingly becoming a form of job security for federal law enforcement agents. Radicalized anti-government activists are a growing domestic terrorism threat, according to the FBI. Two high-profile cases currently making headlines demonstrate that thwarting the violent aspirations of home-grown extremists can take months and years of surveillance and infiltration.

In Alaska, it's Alaska Peacemakers Militia leader Schaeffer Cox and a handful of his associates who stand accused of plotting to kidnap and kill federal and state officials, including state troopers, IRS agents and judges. In Michigan, it's a tri-state group of eight members of the Hutaree militia, led by David Stone, Sr., who face similar charges. The Anti-Defamation League estimates there may be hundreds of thousands of sovereign citizens within the U.S. Of those, experts believe only a tiny fraction has the potential to be radicalized.

If a Hollywood producer ever decides to make a sign-of-the-times movie about the sovereign movement and the people out to stop its radical fringe, Cox and Stone -- both sons of preachers -- have paved the way for an easy plot line, rich with conspiracy theories, tainted spies, guns, death plots, threats to societal order and the quest for personal liberty. Cutting through the very serious charges both men face is a common refrain from their defense attorneys: the government went too far, the men and their followers have a right to speak their mind, and the informants actually instigated the bad acts -- if any actually occurred.

The trial against Stone and his colleagues, including two of his sons, began Monday in a Michigan courtroom. The Feds played show-and-tell with a cache of weapons seized during the investigation, and the defense attorneys cried it was all huffing and puffing, over-reaching reaction to a bunch of people doing nothing more than blowing off steam with a lot of big talk.

But prosecutors in both states continue to insist the groups were ready, willing and able to pull off their deadly plans.

The investigation into the Hutaree began in 2008, when a source came forward and shared a disturbing tale with the FBI that, for all of the fear and violence it suggests, reads a bit like a comedy. The informant found himself at a Michigan training compound when, for reasons unspecified, a teenager fired a gun at him and a bullet whizzed by his head, according to court records. The group did little to reprimand the shooter. The informant's anxiety grew when he became worried he might step on and kill one of the many chihuahuas that were running free on the property, brought in by a woman. The dogs were so small they disappeared easily into the grass and were hard to see. He described some trainees on the property as having poor hygiene, missing teeth and questionable intelligence who practice cult-like behavior. Two women later escorted him off the property at gunpoint.

The backdrop for all of this was weapons and tactical training, and the source reported various members of the Hutaree bragged about having law enforcement on their side as well as the ability to blow things up.

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Coupled with Stone's belief that the U.S. government is a fraud and an enemy of "true patriots," there was cause for alarm.

By March 2010, around the time Cox's own legal troubles were beginning to mount, Stone and several of his supporters were under arrest. They'd been monitored nearly 19 months by informants and undercover agents, and were ultimately charged with sedition, conspiracy, and weapons crimes.

A year later, Cox and his Alaska associates were nabbed after an investigation that also relied on infiltrators. Investigators have said Cox was simultaneously looking to go on the run while arming himself for war. His trial is scheduled to begin in May.

One curious cross-over between the cases is the presence, in name only, of former Michigan Militia founder Norm Olson, who relocated to Alaska several years ago. According to the FBI's informant in the Stone case, at least one militia member in Michigan thought that training videos that surfaced on YouTube in 2008, were filmed on Michigan property owned by Olson. Olson's name also recently came up in the Cox case, when an informant suggested he may have urged Cox to go on the run, something that Olson denies.

Contact Jill Burke at jill(at)alaskadispatch.com

Jill Burke

Jill Burke is a former writer and columnist for Alaska Dispatch News.

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