Extremist ‘Patriot’ Pastor Videotapes Another Tense Traffic-Stop Encounter
You might recall this guy as the pastor who was praying for President Obama’s death, and this church as the one the assault weapon toter who went to Obama’s Phoenix speech attends.
Radical conservative Pastor Stephen Anderson’s personal antigovernment reality-TV show has unveiled a new episode.
Reprising a “role” he created and played last year, the firebrand leader of Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Ariz., once again had a video camera rolling during a routine police traffic stop that turned contentious as a combative Anderson and his passengers defied police officers’ instructions. Unlike last year, when a stop at a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint in Arizona resulted in Anderson being tased and thrown to the ground, this week’s tense confrontation in Benson, Ariz., ended peacefully. (The original footage can be viewed here – YouTube account required to view).
But with the surge in Americans claiming to be “sovereign citizens” not subject to federal or state laws or jurisdiction – and who sometimes resist police and government authority with lethal violence – the encounter illustrated anew how readily normal police work can hold hidden peril for officers.