Militia Follies

Being an informal chronicle of some of the crimes, mishaps and misstatements of the wonderful Patriot movement...

Last Updated February 3, 1996

The neo-militia movement has generated a nice little collection of anecdotes, quotes, incidents, mishaps and omens. Some are funny, some scary, but they all help to provide a clearer picture of the neo-militia movement. The following list is a list of various items culled from newspaper and magazine articles, militia newsletters and magazines, videotapes, and other sources.

Look at the Neo-Militia News for the latest news stories about the militia movement. This page contains early items and is not a substitute for the regularly updated and more comprehensive news section.

Items

Late 1993 (and at various points afterwards). Michigan militia leader Mark Koernke gives a speech in which he brandishes a coiled rope and says "Now I did some basic math the other day, not New World Order math, and I foudn that using the old-style math you can get about four politicians for about 120 feet of rope...Remember, when using it, always try and find a willow tree. The entertainment will last longer."
April 1994. Indianapolis lawyer and militia leader Linda Thompson calls for an armed march on Washington, D.C., and treason trials for American congressmen.
The Constitutional Common Law Militia, a Florida militia group, mails threatening letters to a jury hearing a fraud case against the members of the Pilot Connection society.
June 1994. The Catron County Militia [New Mexico] threatens to force an armed confrontation if New Mexico state officials insist on inspecting the water surrounding a gold mill in that county.
July 1994. James Roy Mullins, founder of the Virginia militia group, the Blue Ridge Hunt Club (which did no hunting), and four other members are arrested and indicted on a total of 36 counts of possession and sale of unregistered silencers and other illegal weapons. Three of them plead guilty.

October 1994. A member of a Florida militia called American Citizens Alliance is arrested for a plan to kill federal judges, Congressmen, and BATF agents.
November 1994. Grant McEwan, a militia founder in Florida, is arrested on charges of filing bogus liens against the IRS and threatening to take over one of its offices.
January 1995. Stuart Webb, leader of the Colorado militia group Guardians of American Liberties, who had previously been arrested for making threatening anti-semitic phone calls, is arrested on charges that he tried to influence a Jefferson County Sheriff's officer in a case involving documents seized in another investigation.
Early 1995. A child custody dispute in Ripley County, Indiana, leads to a four-hour armed standoff between militia members and local authorities.
December 1994. Joe Holland, head of the North American Freedom Militia, sends a letter to the attorney general of Montana and other officials, which asks, "How many of your agents will be sent home in body bags before you hear the pleas of the people? Proceed at your own risk."
January 1995. Michigan Militia leader Ray Southwell claims that "There is one last hope to avoid armed confrontation, and that's if our state governments rise up and tell the federal government to back off. If the state does not rise up, the American people will."
January 1995. Upset at discovering Russian tanks at Camp Grayling, a National Guard base in Northern Michigan, some Michigan Militia members form a plan to blow it up. The plan is aborted after one member alerts federal agents. Some militia members subsequently deny it ever happened, others admit it but say it was just the work of a few or of Mark Koernke, while one says that the plan had been the idea of the informer himself. Matthew Krol, a spokesman for the Michigan Militia, admits that there had been some discussion of doing it, but claims that no actions were taken or plans made.
Spring 1995. Richard Maness, the founder of the Tulane County Militia in California, forms his group after a judge orders him to pay child support. He attempts to place the judge under citizen's arrest for extortion and is arrested for obstruction of justice and disturbing the peace.
March 1995. Samuel Sherwood, head of the United States Militia Association, Idaho's main militia, tells people at a militia meeting in Boise that they should "Go up and look legislators in the face because some day you may be forced to blow it off." He later confirms that he made the comment, but in subsequent interviews denies it.
March 1995. Two Minnesota men, members of a militia group called the Patriots Council, are convicted of possessing quantities of the deadly poison ricin with plans to use it against authorities.
March 1995. Cincinnati-area militia member Joseph Mann shoots himself in the head while demonstrating the safety mechanism of a 9mm semi-automatic pistol at a training seminar for militia recruits he is conducting at his house.
April 1995. When a Ravalli County, Montana, sheriff, tries to arrest a woman for a vehicle violation, the woman flees to her father's house. Her father, a member of a militia group, and several other militiamen engage the sheriff in an armed standoff. The father is later arrested on charges of intimidating a law officer.
April 1995. Kansas militiaman Roger Thornbrough calls fellow militiamen for help on the telephone, claiming that "They are coming after me. They are in the trees. They are stealing my pigs. They are shooting." John Walters, a member of the Kansas Citizens Militia, and a couple of other militiamen, head to Thornbrough's farm, where they discover Thornbrough shooting wildly into the empty bushes and trees around his house, shouting "See them? There they are, up in the trees!" as he fires his weapon. Walters and the others take off before the authorities arrive, but are stopped by Sheriff Ken Lippert of Osage County, who arrests them on concealed weapons charges.
May 1995. James Alford and Howard Knight, followers of Michigan Militia leader Mark Koernke, plead guilty to multiple weapons violations and to illegal entry. They, along with an accomplice, all bodyguards of Koernke, broke into a rural farmhouse to set up a military barracks. When police discovered them, they fled twenty miles in their van until they drove into a lake. They were captured along with a cache of weapons.
May 1995. When newspapers fail to believe the claims of Michigan Militia leaders Norman Olson and Ray Southwell that CIA/FBI agents perpretated the Oklahoma City bombing as turncoat agents for the government of Japan, Olson and Southwell send them faxes that read: "COWARDS: We have cast the pearls of truth before swine. Damn you all!"
May 1995. Indiana militia leader Linda Thompson is arrested on disorderly conduct and resisting arrest charges. She had gone to the Indianapolis city-county building to file battery and stalking charges against a freelance writer. Marion County Reserve Deputy Jeff Dunn reported that Thompson became irate when he sought details of her accusations and that she told him that people were "shooting her in the head with radio frequency weapons." She also complained that various people, including the CIA, were trying to kill her (Thompson later denied making these statements). According to Dunn, when he asked her to show him her permit, she put her hand inside her jacket and he grabbed her arm to prevent her from drawing her weapon. She resisted and he ordered her to stop resisting. He led her down the hall, but she again tried to pull herself free and jump through a window. He grabbed her and pulled her down, when she kicked him in the leg and shoved him. He grabbed her and held her against the wall, where she scraped herself on a sign. As a result of this incident, Linda Thompson files a $500 million dollar suit against practically everybody in Indianapolis.
May 1995. Joe Holland, mentioned above, is charged with criminal syndicalism. Associate Calvin Greenup, Holland's militia subordinate in Montana, threatened Judge Jeff Langton of that state and had not been paying taxes for some time. Holland becomes the subject of an investigation of charges related to bank fraud, bankruptcy fraud, securities fraud and tax evasion.
June 1995. Linda Thompson sues an Indianapolis TV station and one of its reporters for "stalking" her.
June 1995. A Frazeysburg, OH, police sergeant stops a car with illegal license plates that read "Militia 3-13 Chaplain." The driver, Michael Hill, a militia "chaplain", drives off, causing Sergeant Matt May to chase him down and stop him again. This time Hill gets out of the car holding a pistol. May shoots and kills the militiaman. Although other militiamen claim that Hill had not drawn his weapon, later tests indicate that bullet fragments in Hill's body were from a bullet that fragmented as it hit Hill's weapon, showing that it had been drawn. A grand jury clears May of blame.
September 1995. USMA leader Samuel Sherwood says that after Satan is defeated in an imminent "political war," Jesus Christ will rule the United States according to the U.S. constitution and homosexuals who do not become heterosexuals within seven years will be put to death.
November 1995. Militia leader Willie Ray Lampley and several others are arrested and charged with conspiring to manufacture and possess a bomb. They wanted to bomb abortion clinics, welfare offices, gay bars, and civil rights organizations.
December 1995. Joe Holland pleads guilty to criminal syndicalism and jury tampering in Montana.
December 1995. Stewart Waterhouse, leader of the Citizen Militia of Osage, Carroll County, Arkansas, is arrest for conspiring to bomb Little Rock unless Willie Ray Lampley and his accomplices are set free.

Know any more militia follies? Send them to me.