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Seven Arrested in FBI Raids Linked to Christian Militia Group
At least seven people, including some from Michigan, have been arrested in raids by a FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana as part of an investigation into an Adrian-based Christian militia group, a person familiar with the matter said.
Hutaree militia take a break from preparing for the arrival and battle with the anti-Christ to pose for group photo. The suspects are expected to make an initial appearance in U.S. District Court in Detroit on Monday.
On Sunday, a source close to the investigation in Washington, D.C. confirmed that FBI agents were conducting activities in Washtenaw and Lenawee counties over the weekend in connection to Hutaree, a Christian militia group. Detroit FBI Special Agent Sandra Berchtold told The Detroit News the federal warrants in the case are under court seal and declined further comment.
Sources have said the FBI was in the second day of raids around the southeastern Michigan city of Adrian that are connected to a militia group, known as the Hutaree, an Adrian-based group whose members describe themselves as Christian soldiers preparing for the arrival and battle with the anti-Christ.
WXYZ-TV reports that helicopters were spotted in the sky for much of Saturday night, and agents set up checkpoints throughout the area. Witnesses told the station that it was like a small army had descended on the area. The Department of Homeland Security and the Joint Terrorism Task Force are also involved in the raids.
Mike Lackomar, of Michiganmilitia.com, said both The Southeast Michigan Volunteer Militia and the Michiganmilitia.com were not a part of the raid.
Lackomar said he heard from other militia members that the FBI targeted the Hutaree after its members made threats of violence against Islamic organizations.
"Last night and into today the FBI conducted a raid against homes belonging to the Hutaree. They are a religious cult. They are not part of our militia community," he said.
Lackomar said he was told there were five arrests Saturday and another five early Sunday. The FBI declined to comment.
One of the Hutaree members called a Michigan militia leader for assistance Saturday after federal agents had already began their raid, Lackomar said, but the militia member -- who is of Islamic decent and had heard about the threats -- declined to offer help. That Michigan militia leader is now working with federal officials to provide information on the Hutaree member for the investigation, Lackomar said Sunday.
"They are more of survivalist group and in an emergency they withdraw and stand their ground. They are actively training to be alongside Jesus," he said.
Sources from the Michigan militia community said one of the FBI raids took place Saturday during a wake for a Hutaree member who had died of natural causes. A Hutaree leader was arrested during the wake while at the same time agents were conducting raids at other locations.
The Associated Press is reporting that FBI spokesman Scott Wilson in Cleveland said agents arrested two people Saturday in northwest Ohio. A third arrest was made in Illinois on Sunday, a day after raids in northwest Indiana.
Dawud Walid, executive director of the Council on Islamic-American Relations of Michigan, made an announcement Sunday during the group's 10th anniversary banquet about receiving a call from a network journalist about the alleged threat against Muslims.
"Don't allow this news to scare you away from practicing your faith," said Walid.
Audible gasps were heard throughout the banquet hall when the news was announced. Walid said he will call local authorities about more information on the allegations. He urged local Muslims to recommitt themselves to their faith in light of the accusations.
David Shepardson and Oralandar Brand-Williams contributed to this report.
76 Comments so far
Show AllIs the government sending a message to all the Glen Beck, et al followers? From my point of view, sometimes living in a mild form of a police state seems alright. Does that mean I don't deserve my freedom? I don't know, but from my pragmatic view, I like it. And you anarchists can like it or lump it.
"...sometimes living in a mild form of a police state seems alright. Does that mean I don't deserve my freedom? I don't know, but from my pragmatic view, I like it..."
Why are you on a progressive website?
Shouldn't you be at a Tea Party meeting?
"...a police state seems alright..." ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
"...from my pragmatic view, I like it..." ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
Ya'know... the road to hell is paved with good intentions and the pragmatist says; "See... it's all good... I like it."
I kinda doubt that the tea baggers would welcome me, for applauding the arrest of people who seem rather like hard-core tea baggers.
Greg R - 1: how do you define 'mild police state? 2) I would think that if you condone a 'police state' environment you automatically forfeit some degree of your freedom - that is evidently okay by you, and 3) there is a huge difference between rule of law and consent of the governed and the origins, continuation and enlargement of the police state.
I define a mild police state as what we currently have, i.e. lock away some terrorists for extended periods without proper court benefits, allowing only special cordoned-off protest zones, undercover police snitches, and the occasional harsh treatment of right-wing militias. While I'm often unhappy with this, I will certainly not place any blanket condemnations on the entire system.
'Fraidy-cat.
'Fraidy-cat.
'Fraidy-cat.
When I read this sort of thing, then think of all of the people that struggled and died to establish political systems that were and are dedicated to upholding individual liberty while also upholding democratic equality, well, I just have no words!
In an attempt to treat you with a level of respect that I'm trying very hard to convince myself that you deserve, I'll remind you of a rather important fact:
A "mild" or even un-mild "police state" MIGHT be justified by a snivelling and cowardly people on the basis that it maintains their collective bodily safety.
BUT...
It first must be shown that the "police state" is actually WHY they are safe.
Denial of legal rights to those charged with "terrorist" crimes, denial of rights to those who wish to express dissent freely, abuse of rights by police agents, and politically prejudiced repression of Citizen Militias. These sorts of things must be shown to actually be necessary for our protection before we can even BEGIN to dialog about whether the "police state" is justified, or has some good points, or should not be given "blanket condemnation".
So far, I have seen little evidence that any of this is doing anything for the actual well-being of the people of the U.S..
On the contrary, it looks as if the "police state" is being used to make certain minorities a whole mess of unearned wealth while simultaneously keeping the majority too freaked-out to combat this, or the violations of democracy that accompany it in order to cement the unjust situation into permanence.
All this is notwithstanding the fact that anyone who believes even a teeny bit in liberty, democracy, and Constitutionality and the Rule of Law is OBLIGATED to thereby place a "blanket condemnation" on ANY system which fundamentally violates any of these principles, let alone one that violates all three, as this "police state" does.
Congrats, Greg R! You've just managed to employ the utimate liberal-wussy "no broad judgement/blanket condemnations" argument to talk yourself into being a modern-day Fascist!!
Enjoy the "safety" (from bogeymen) and oppression (by your true enemies)!
-matti.
Matti,
please tell me that
"to make certain minorities a whole mess of unearned wealth",
doesn't mean what it sounds like it means...
Sounds like something a 'good German' in Nazi Germany would say.
So it's OK with you if habeas corpus is tossed out, and free speech and freedom of assembly is trashed? "Harsh treatment"? You mean torture...
That's not just 'good German'; that's 'good Nazi'.
Sorry about Godwin's law, but that's what we have hear. You had better rethink your position -- and read the constitution.
I suspect that, at least for this thread, Greg R lives under a bridge.
If we had no "police state" with their undercover agents and some of your or bluepilgrim's friends or relatives had been blown up, one of you might think differently. Conspiracy laws, where no one has been injured, are sometimes troubling. But sometimes very necessary. There's a point somewhere on the anarchy-police state continuum that is acceptable to most. We're near there, but perhaps a bit too far toward the police state in my view. I think people deserve their day in court and without torture.
Actually, a college friend of mine was killed in WTC2.
So, take that little slimy opening the eff back, please.
Once again, attempting to give you perhaps undue credit:
You are confusing the police, and police agencies, with a "police state".
One group in empowered by the People to maintain the lawful peace and to bring those violating it -in their custody- to the Courts to determine guilt or not in violation of specific laws and the administration of legal punishment.
The other group is empowered by some form of Oligarchy to maintain an imposed and repressive order by blocking the People from expressing their inherent rights, especially the right to self-rule. For this task they may employ extralegal means and any means necessary where law is not relevant.
Conspiracy laws are completely untroubling as long as their adoption is a true expression of the democratic will, they are enforced with assurance of the suspected Citizens' rights, and the conspirators are found guilty by a Citizen Jury.
There is no anarchy-police state continuum.
-matti.
Ok, by your definitions we have very little to dispute.
Matti: you write, "Conspiracy laws are completely untroubling as long as their adoption is a true expression of the democratic will, they are enforced with assurance of the suspected Citizens' rights, and the conspirators are found guilty by a Citizen Jury."
I thought they were called witch hunts.
So you don't mind being found guilty for what you think, or for what you thought about doing, or what someone said you thought about doing, or what you might do sometime in the future, or for being on a list you did not make, or for what some FBI agents suggests you do with the explosives he procured?
I think you are getting into an area of very dubious legality there, which has been pretty badly abused when used by authorities so far.
What next? McCarthy was just a patriot doing his best to protect Americans?
I believe you misunderstood the point "stereohead" was making.. please reread his letter... thanks.
"lock away some terrorists for extended periods without proper court benefits, allowing only special cordoned-off protest zones, undercover police snitches, and the occasional harsh treatment of right-wing militias."
Brrrrrrrrrrrrr creepy... I say just the opposite that this sort of bust of militias and MSM demonization is just the flip side of the preemptive busts of MOVE and the Black Panthers in the 60s, and the "green scare" (do a google search) today. Pre-crime busts, heave duty MSM demonization of fringe groups, set ups, infiltrators, snitches, that is more like east germany than any place I want to live. And this is pre-crime they hadn't done anything yet all we have is the lying government and MSMs word that they were planning to do something, the same MSM that lied about Judi Bari and said she blew herself up when in fact she was bombed by right wing goons. She later in fact won a law suit proving just that:
http://www.judibari.org/
Where does it end? Should people like myself who locked down to timber company gates be disappeared to appease your fear? As clinched as it sounds and misused by many on the right, freedom is worth fighting for and we should never embrace a gilded cage for that is that most soulless solution possible, and I say that as an atheist. :(
I assume you probably consider yourself to be a moderate Greg? It's creepy Orwellian shit like this makes me think that pro "mainsream" "centrlist" "bi-partisan" moderates who passively accept tyranny and corporate rule because it is comfortable and easy and avert their eyes from the "loser "victims are among the biggest obstacles to peaceful non violent change towards a more free just equitable sustainable society, cut it out. Stop giving the oligarchy more *passive* warm bodies.
So, Greg R, I am well-known and trusted in certain law enforcement circles. I have submitted my report to them detailing your recent terrorist activities, along with similar reports regarding your conspirators. Because they have it on good authority that you have been plotting against the United States Government, they have decided that there will be no formal arrest, charge and trial but simply arrest and detention until they get around to investigating. However, there probably will be no investigation. You were arrested. You must be guilty. Too bad, you are probably innocent, but today in America we just can't take a chance on trying you. Simple open-ended detention will have to suffice. Geez, man, you shouldn't piss off your neighbors in a police state. Everyone knows that.
No, dude, I have lived in the real thing. You wouldn't like it.
And, yes, endorsement of such an institution does abrogate your claim to the alternative. Much as we hate what Beck & etc. have to say, we have to let them say it. At least that way we know who they are. You wouldn't enjoy the other side of that coin.
And, due to your train of though being fairly prevalent in our country _ 'if you're not doing anything wrong, what are you worried about?' _ you're going to be finding out before long ~exactly~ what it's like to be living in a police state.
"mild form of a police state"
If you accept living in a police state then, no, you don't deserve freedom.
Exactly Benjamin Franklin said:
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin
I remember having to pull this quote out to confront Bush supporters after the Patriot Act was passed sadly I never thought I'd have to point it out to a CD reader other than a neo-con troll. :(
Christian militia group, Muslim militia group, any difference?
-QUOTE-"They are more of survivalist group and in an emergency they withdraw and stand their ground. They are actively training to be alongside Jesus," he said.-QUOTE-
LOL, Jesus would be like the guy at a bar who's friend is hammered and making an ass of himself, "Oh no, I am not with him, not sure who he is."
I am of mixed feelings about this. I am no fan of Christian conservative nut bags with guns training for the Rapture, so there is an element of schadenfreude at their arrest. Conversely, I am no fan of the FBI doing what many a progressive (especially the old timers who lived during COINTELPRO) has experienced for themselves. In the end, I wish that the creepy crew from Dubya, Cheney, & Co. get this much deserved treatment, but that is highly unlikely.
I think we should demand full protection of rights for everyone, don't you?
Supension of rights for the extra-special bad guys sounds right out of Bush II/Cheney's Constitution-shredding playbook to me.
Why are we calling these people militia? Would not an appropriate label be a Christian Terrorist Group? Are they not targeting Islamic organizations?
Are they actually investigating the activities of this
militia?
Have they played any role in shutting down women's clinics?
And is this the result of GOP/NRA "get a gun" fear-mongering?
.
"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
I am of two minds on this news.
On the first hand, I am glad that the US PTB are finally treating the Tea Bag gun bunnies and Apocalyptic Christian militias as the criminals they are.
On the other, you *KNOW* Palin and the rest of the Corporate whores will use these incidents to whip the Tea Baggers and their ilk into a further froth that these are the actions of an incipient Islamo-Fascist 'Socialist Police State' led by Obama, the covert Muslim...
Exactly as Gingrich et al did in the '90s in response to Clinton's various and similar trangressions.
Are we in a remake?
This is why we have to have rule of law: no wild terrorists, and no wild police. So far this looks like a legal and appropriate operation on the part of the authorities, and let's hope that court proceedings bear that out.
Bullshit did you see the video of these busts? It was mililtarized police, homeland security trucks with satellite uplinks, and the FBI. It was wrong when the pigs murdered that Imam in Detroit in a similar set up
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin
and wrong when done to right wingers we may disagree with as well.
I would hope that if there a big crackdown on Muslim mosques from racist fear mongering about "terror" that most CD readers would heavily question the MSM narrative and sound the alarm? Does it ever occur to you that the exact same script of fear the terrorist/extremist is being run on us on the left a well to get us to support this also wrong heavy handed police state approach? Do many of you here *suddenly* find the MSM very credible after it has lied about left activists as being traitors, anti American, and all the other lying bullshit blah, blah, blah we have heard used against us for so long? *Always* approach heavy duty MSM smear jobs with extreme skepticism I say even and perhaps especially when done against people who disagree with us as that is when we are most vulnerable to accepting abuse of state power. I mean whew hey it's "them" not "us" why worry, paster Neimoller was paranoid wasn't he? Oops...
Thanks for the reminder stereohead. Good to keep this in mind.
Thank you for a sane voice of reason.
You are welcome. And just so it's perfectly clear to everyone I am not in favor of regressive Christian ideology as a proud athesit but police street is a far great evil IMO.
Wow, a 'Christian' group targeting Muslims. Are we talking about a right wing militia or the United States?
And the quote says, " They are actively training to be along side Jesus."
Gosh guys, I think Jesus said to his disciples, " I will make you fishers of men..."
I think some remedial reading is in order... that's FISHERS...not KILLERS!
Well said. I agree.
Moxy Fruvous is all over it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKy5tk7QOl0
Christian soldiers preparing for the arrival and battle with the anti-Christ.
"They are actively training to be alongside Jesus"
Or:
"At the time of the winter solstice, let reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is just myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds."
This seems like a no-brainer but … that is a given in religious settings… No brains…
If Jesus walked into their camp they'd probably gun him down before he had a chance to introduce himself - unless of course he was bug-eyed, red-faced, fat, and spewing loud filth as he came.
Throw all the teabagger terrorists in jail.
This message brought to you by the New Fascist Party.
jesus with an uzi
"Religion is just myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds."
Such is life in our nation's "bible belt": hardened hearts and very narrow, enslaved, minds.
If the MM and the SMVM wouldn't help these guys: "Hell,no." was the less than sympathetic response from the head of Michigan Militia when he was asked for help, you know these guys are out there.
These so-called milita folks think they can defeat the Anti-Christ with their little popguns? The Anti-Christ is a Supernatural Being with Supernatural Powers and will be absolutely unaffected by the projectiles spouted by those popguns. Have they no clue what they are supposedly fighting against, or is their claim to be preparing to fight the Anti-Christ a ruse as most suspect? More likely they suffer from Talk-Radio Intoxication.
in-talks-icated?
I like it.
;O)
Christ was killed by crucifixtion, wasn't he?
I'm guessing they ascribe to a slightly older Anti-Christ concept where the Anti-Christ is as much a man as Christ was, but doing the work of the Devil, not God.
Also, they're just the foot soldiers in the army of Jesus, fighting on the side of God. The foot soldiers in the army of the Anti-Christ, fighting on the side of the Devil will be just as human as they are.
That's why the "Left Behind" video-game has you fighting enemy soldiers, not demons.
I'm against the sort of repressive police/paramilitary action decribed in the article on at least two counts:
1. Rule of Law means Rule of Law, liberties should only bend to actual danger, and then only for the briefest moment, they should not bend to the FEAR that danger exists.
2. Giving these people a fight only confirms their worldview, like VC fighters convinced that Imperialism will attempt to smash the Revolution faced with French and U.S. Imperialist invasions.
But I believe we need to acknowledge just how disturbing these folks' philosphy really is.
They believe in an actual Global War to the Death between absolutely everyone on Earth in order to settle the God v Devil question once and for all (or for a 1000 years, or something else). While this idea is most certainly unreasonable, and may be irrational, it does have internal consistancy and is therefore persuasive.
-matti.
Christ allowed his execution. But that's not the point. Christian Militia is an oxymoron. Who are you to use violence in the political arena? You know very well that you are using Christ's name in vain as a means of advancing an agenda which has no place in Christianity. Jesus is coming, and boy will He be pissed.
Nice retort. I'm an atheist and find the whole Abrahamic Mythos disgusting and dangerous, from all 3 directions. I have said before that it is the greatest woe the world bears. I'm not certain the world would be better without it, but I would certainly like to see the peoples of the world ignore it and embrace a non-violent secular philosophy.
spot on, brother... and whatever happened to "yelling fire in a crowded theatre" for those "constitutionalists" who defend "free speech" so passionately?