Intelligence Report: Sovereign Citizen Cop Killers
The “sovereign citizens” movement, based on a bizarre ideology promoted by a father-son team that murdered two police officers recently in West Memphis, Ark., is growing at a rapid pace, according to the latest issue of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Report, released today.
In the new issue, the SPLC explores the strange world of the sovereign citizen movement and estimates there are now as many as 300,000 followers in the United States. About a third of those are considered hardcore adherents, with the rest testing out sovereign citizen techniques for resisting everything from speeding tickets to drug charges to home foreclosures.
Sovereign citizens believe most Americans have no obligation to obey laws, regulations or tax codes, especially those imposed by the federal government. They justify their beliefs on the basis of decades-old conspiracy theories and intricate, nonsensical legal theories.