Texas 'sovereign citizens' continue 12-year standoff

TRINIDAD, Texas  TRINIDAD, Texas Gary Thomas will never forget the letter he received in early 2000. It was from John Joe Gray, a suspect in a felony assault case, offering a not-so-subtle warning to the area's chief criminal investigator: He had no intention of answering charges that he had attacked a state trooper.

"What he said was this: 'If y'all come to get me, bring body bags,'" said Thomas, now a local justice of the peace.

Thomas remembers the message clearly, not because of its unvarnished threat, but because -- after 12 years -- Gray, who doesn't acknowledge the authority of any government, continues to dare police to come and get him.

Sequestered on a 50-acre, wooded compound in eastern Texas since jumping bail more than a decade ago, Gray and his clan have effectively outlasted the administrations of four local sheriffs, all of whom have decided that Gray's arrest is not worth the risk of a violent confrontation.

"The risk of loss of life on both ends is far too great," said Anderson County District Attorney Doug Lowe, who first sought to prosecute Gray involving a Christmas Eve 1999 assault on Texas Trooper Jim Cleland. "I believed it then; I still feel that way."

The stalemate, perhaps the longest-running standoff in the U.S. between law enforcement and a fugitive living in plain sight, is also emblematic of what the FBI believes is a troubling re-emergence of an anti-government movement that vaulted to notoriety in 1995.

Then, one of its disaffected sympathizers, Timothy McVeigh -- angered by the government's botched 1993 raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas -- detonated a truck bomb outside the Oklahoma City federal building, killing 168 people in what was at the time the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

In the past three years, there has been growing concern over activities of self-styled "sovereign citizens," who, like the Grays and many of their anti-government predecessors, "claim to exist beyond the realm of government authority," according to a January FBI bulletin to state and local law-enforcement officials warning of the potential for violence.

The sovereign movement, estimated by the Southern Poverty Law Center to number 100,000 ardent followers and about 200,000 sympathizers across the country, is rooted in an ideology that rejects government authority at its most basic levels, from its power to tax to the enforcement of criminal laws, including common traffic regulations.

The law center, which tracks extremist groups in the U.S., based its estimates partly on its reviews of tax disputes and court documents involving people who do not recognize government authority.

Although the FBI does not track sovereigns by number, the bureau does not dispute the law center's estimates, which have swelled dramatically within a national anti-government network of related "patriot" and "militia" groups. Since 2008, the number of groups surged from 149 to 1,274 in 2011, the law center reported this month.

The rapid growth, according to the law center, has been fueled by a collision of factors, from the troubles related to the struggling economy and foreclosure crisis to the election of President Barack Obama, the nation's first Black president. Obama's election prompted a "backlash" from extremist groups who were further angered by decisions to provide government assistance to Wall Street banks and automakers, the law center found.

Stuart McArthur, deputy assistant director of the FBI's Counterterrorism Division, said the sovereigns have become more active in seeking retaliation against government officials by filing fraudulent lawsuits and liens, seeking billions of dollars in judgments. The actions often follow arrests, evictions, court rulings and other interactions with authorities.

At its most extreme, McArthur said, sovereigns have been linked to threats of violence and the murders of six police officers since 2002, including the slaying of Officers Brandon Paudert and Bill Evans in West Memphis, Ark., in 2010.

"There are people at war with this country who are not international terrorists," said Robert Paudert, a former chief of the West Memphis Police Department and the father of one of the slain officers. "I had never heard of the sovereign-citizen movement before May 20, 2010 (the day of his son's murder). But these are people who are willing to kill or be killed for their beliefs."

At the end of a rutted dirt-gravel road about 70 miles southeast of Dallas sits John Joe Gray.

Gray and his family, after more than 12 years of living in isolation without electricity and modern plumbing, have no intention of surrendering to local authorities or engaging in much discussion about their plight.

A heavily armed patrol of three men -- each carrying holstered handguns, knives and rifles -- met visitors one late February afternoon at the family's property line.

Although the three confirmed to USA Today during the recent visit that they are members of the Gray family, they refused to provide their full names. The oldest -- a bearded man with a mane of long, wiry hair who most resembles Gray's booking photo -- said the family is not interested in discussing why they continue to defy authorities. Nor are they inclined to say how long they can hold out.

"We're doing all right," the older man said, adding that the family tends a sizable garden that yields much of their food. A herd of goats, fish from the adjacent Trinity River and wild game fill the pantry.

For the duration of the brief exchange, a stilted conversation at the fence line, the older, bearded man did much of the talking as the others looked on, their weapons hanging from worn gun belts and shoulder slings. The weapons, he said, are necessary to keep "trespassers" off their land, suggesting that would include unwelcome visits from law enforcement.

He was most adamant, though, in his refusal to discuss the circumstances that resulted in the unusual standoff with local law enforcement.

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