Florida ‘Sovereign Citizen’ Killed After Allegedly Threatening Police
An armed “sovereign citizen,” accused of printing his own currency and defying government authority, was shot and killed in Florida last weekend after a four-hour standoff with a police SWAT team.
Like so many law enforcement encounters with sovereign citizens, the case involving Jeffrey Allen Wright began with a routine traffic stop before quickly escalating. Wright attempted to pay his traffic fine with counterfeit money, then refused to acknowledge courts had jurisdiction over him when additional charges were filed against him.
When Santa Rosa County sheriff’s deputies and other officers went to Wright’s home in Navarre, Fla., last Friday night to arrest him on counterfeiting charges, the 55-year-old man barricaded himself in the residence and fired a shot, apparently from an automatic firearm, officials said.
Ordered by deputies to come out unarmed, Wright responded, “Come and get me,” according to a press release from the Santa Rose County Sheriff’s Office.
When SWAT team members fired tear gas into the second story of the home’s attached garage, Wright began breaking out windows with a handgun, the release said. Moments later, when SWAT officers entered the home, they found Wright sitting at the top of a stairwell. The department’s press release said that Wright raised his pistol and pointed it directly at the SWAT members. Three officers simultaneously shot Wright, who was pronounced dead at the scene.
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