The men were wearing what Massachusetts State Police Col. Christopher Mason described as tactical vests and military style uniforms, along with body cameras, and they were carrying a mixture of long rifles and pistols. The men indicated they were traveling from Rhode Island for “training,” according to Mason.
The situation started around 1:30 a.m., when a state trooper saw two vehicles in the breakdown lane with their hazard lights on, Mason said.
The men claimed to be “from a group that does not recognize our laws,” according to a statement from the Wakefield Police Department.
Snipped the above pieces for those who don’t want to read the article. This is early news yes, and the article indicates that the individuals arrested do not consider themselves anti government.
I bow to your superior GoogleFu, I was trying to get more info out of the police dept link in the CNN report (which has even less info). Thanks for the help and new info Ann_Hedonia.
It’s a good thing I’m not one of the officers involved. Every time one of the suspects invoked his rights as a member of the Rise Of The Moors, I’d interrupt with “The Moops?”
It’s an interesting case, to be sure, since groups like this tend to be, let’s just say, of a different ethnic background than the men involved in this incident. If I had to guess, I would say that these Moorish militiamen were on their way to conduct some kind of “training exercise” in a remote area, training for something that’s never actually going to happen - like their white counterparts. These groups get a lot of media coverage and are often presented as being very scary, but I have a hard time being afraid of any of them since they rarely seem to actually do anything, other than get pulled over and arrested by cops.
As far as I can tell, the only major act of violence connected to a militia group in America was the Oklahoma City bombing, and even this connection seems tenuous because McVeigh didn’t seem to actually be acting on behalf of any militia. Was he even a member of one? I know he supported their ideology, but he seems to have acted alone, other than his accomplice Terry Nichols who according to his Wikipedia page was also not actually a member of any militia.
The bullshit with the Bundy group has been ongoing for a while but to my knowledge the only death resulting from any of their incidents was one of their own members being shot by the police.
All this is to say, I wouldn’t want to spend time around any of these people but as far as I can tell they’re not much more than grown men playing dress-up in the woods.
Yeah, these “militia” irregulars be they Proud Boys, Rise of the Moors, or what have you, seem to share that.
I mean, I see this report, and I think… ookaayy… let me see if I have this right, dudes: your militant group is heading out to do training… by travelling overtly uniformed and visibly armed in a convoy on a main highway through a gun-controlled state… Y’all haven’t ever been anywhere near a real revolution or even met anyone who was, have ya?
Best article I’ve found so far with background on what happened, statements from the individuals at the scene, short summary of the ‘Rise of the Moors’ and so forth. Will likely need to open in ‘incognito’ to avoid the usual browser demands.
Au contraire. As agent provocateurs these people are really dangerous. The Bundy ranch stand off could have ended very bloodily but the US government withdrew. The Proud Boys convoyed through Portland using bear spray, and that could have turned really ugly. The Wisconsin legislature takeover with long guns, and attempts to kidnap the governor. These are armed gangs, and they should be crushed immediately or else they think they have a free pass. Zero tolerance no matter what the skin color of these loons are.
If they want to go incognito, weapons in the trunk, stop and follow law enforcement directives. Then, it’s a free country, and that is acceptable behavior. This Sovern shit is way out there and law enforcement should crack down hard.
As a former president told the Proud Boys: “Stand back and stand by.” And they came roaring back to incite if not lead the capital insurrection.
Harrowing watching the recap, I watched it LIVE on CSPAN. I was originally just watching to catch the validation of the voting, and was actually playing Elder Scrolls Online, and something odd caught the corner of my eye, and I commented to my husband “Damn, that looks like something that happened back in the 80s in Honduras…” and then realized they weren’t showing some sort of archival footage, that was the freaking capitol of the US they were showing.
If they started in Rhode Island, they literally could not have driven more than 120 miles to get where they were, unless they were driving in circles. So yeah, if your’re insistent on breaking the law, fill your tank before you go.
I know they’re at least sov cit adjacent and are probably going to go with a “lack-of-joinder/admiralty court” defense, but I’m wondering if they’re also going to try the federal firearms transportation law, which allows for transportation of firearms through states as long as they’re legal to possess at both the origin and destination. The problem for them of course is that the law clearly states the firearms have to be inaccessible from the passenger compartment or in a locked container. So actually carrying them around completely invalidates that law’s protection.
So who are these people? A Muslim Moroccan equivalent to the Black Hebrew Israelites? Their creed seems kind of similar - they believe they are the true native people of America? That seems to be their claim.
Wonder if they’ll come up with some sort of “we’re travelling, not transporting” argument.
As far as I can tell this group is one of a set of Sovereign Citizen-inspired factions that call themselves “Moorish” having been founded by people who belonged to or were influenced by the Moorish Science Temple, an old US Africanist-religious-identity society similar to the BHI.
This flavor of SovCt are especially known for obnoxious practices of filing liens on other peoples’ properties and taking them over in the legit owners’ absence.
Apparently at least one such group, the Washitaw Nation, has tried to claim to be a sovereign Native Nation for decades now.
What I’m getting out of the Sov Cit crap is that women can be as nutso-coocoo as men. I cringed every time a leader was introduced and it was just another Ernest T Bass from the hills, but I welcomed the late Empress Verdiacee Tiari Washitaw Turner Goston El-Bey.
The article I quoted earlier quoted one of the members at the scene as saying
‘The police saw us on the side of the road with our guns secured, we were afraid, so we got out with our arms, and I have a body camera that has been recording the whole time,’ the Rise of the Moors member insisted.
So yup, looks like that’s their claim so far, of course we’ll have to see how their definition of secured matches up with that of the law.
From the same article.
Meanwhile, another clip titled ‘Moroccan Peace’ featured the man saying: 'According to the United States federal law, we have the right to peaceful journey, so with that being said we should not have been detained here.
The language ‘right to peaceful journey’ sounds exactly like the various stilted SovCit travelling arguments, so yeah, that is my read as well.
All suspects are facing charges of eight counts of unlawful possession of a firearm, unlawful possession of ammunition, use of body armor in commission of a crime, possession of a high capacity magazine, improper storage of firearms in a vehicle, and conspiracy to commit a crime, the statement said.
I wonder about the last one, the others seem to be inline with the current known circumstances - unless it’s conspiracy to commit the previous crimes (possession of inappropriate weapons transported across state lines).