Eleven self-identified militiamen on their way to “training” in Maine are behind bars after what police described as a heavily armed group that “does not recognize our laws” entered into — and at times live-steamed and narrated — an eight-hour highway standoff with cops in Wakefield on Saturday.
No one was injured on either side in the standoff on Interstate 95, which ended peacefully with the arrests of the members of the Rhode Island group Rise of the Moors.
State Police Col. Christopher Mason told reporters that the whole sequence of events started when one of his troopers saw some vehicles in the breakdown lane of Interstate 95 in Wakefield around 1:30 a.m. Saturday, and pulled over to see what was going on. The trooper saw that a group of people dressed to the nines in “military-style” tactical gear and armed to the teeth with long guns and handguns was refueling their two vehicles with gas canisters, he said.
The trooper asked the men for their driver’s licenses and licenses to carry firearms, which the men either didn’t have or didn’t provide, Mason said.
Police arrested two of the men without incident early in the morning, Mason said. The following seven arrests came by 10:30 a.m., and then cops sweeping the area found and cuffed two more in the group’s vehicles. Police shortly after 11 a.m. said that all suspects had been taken into custody, ending the incident.
Mason said in a press conference around noon that the police used a combination of negotiation and “tactical maneuvers” to round up the militiamen. Mason said time was the most important factor, but the police also slowly tightened their perimeter throughout negotiations.
He said cops — who described this as a “dangerous incident” — contained the men to the woods off of I-95. He didn’t elaborate on what the group wanted, saying he didn’t want to “propagate” their ideology, though he said that they wanted to leave the area without “accountability” and that they wanted attention.
Stoneham, MA. - July 3: Members of a SWAT team stage in a parking lot of the 99 restaurant in Stoneham during an armed stand off with police in the Wakefield area July 3, 2021. (Photo By Mary Schwalm/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald)
Staties said that the “heavily armed men” were “claiming to be from a group that does not recognize our laws.” Mason said the men said they were on their way from Rhode Island to Maine for a “quote-unquote ‘training'” on the Fourth of July weekend. There was little further information available about what that meant, and Maine State Police wouldn’t say more than acknowledging that they were aware of the Wakefield situation.
Mason said police seized “a number of firearms,” including long guns and handguns, but wouldn’t elaborate further.
Two of the 11 men arrested later requested medical attention for pre-existing conditions.
Mason said the staties were aware that the group was periodically posting on social media, live-streaming and narrating from the middle of the highway at times under the name “Rise of the Moors.” The latest video — which has since been removed — shows a man decked out in military gear insisting that “we’re not anti-government, we’re not anti-police, we’re not sovereign citizens, we’re not Black-identity extremists.” Locating himself in “the colony of Massachusetts,” he insisted that “the militia is exempt from certain restrictions.”
The Anti-Defamation League lists the “growing” Moorish movement as a Black offshoot of the sovereign-citizen cause. The group didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Police did say the men didn’t make any threats to them or others, but added, “these men should be considered armed and dangerous.”
Cops asked residents near the scene in Wakefield and Reading to lock their doors and remain in their homes for several hours.
Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan said the men are still being identified as of Saturday, but will likely appear in Woburn District Court on Tuesday morning on “a variety of firearms and other charges.” State Police said the feds also are involved in the investigation.
Mason noted that his troopers receive training in dealing with “sovereign-citizen” cases, where people believe they aren’t subject to laws.
Although State Police didn’t go into detail about their negotiation tactics beyond listening to the group’s ideas and taking their time, former Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis told the Herald he imagined the members surrendered because police reasoned with them that they’d be able to argue their case in court, even if they disagree with the police officers’ assessment of the situation. He said it’s normal for the police negotiators to work to “build a relationship” with these men.
While Ryan declined to go into detail about the nature of the charges facing the men, Davis speculated that they could end up facing charges relating to failing to show firearms licenses, disorderly conduct if they used “fighting words,” or disturbing the peace if the officers had to enter citizens’ businesses, yards or homes to secure the area.
At the end of the noontime press conference, Mason wished everyone a “happy, safe and hopefully uneventful Fourth of July.”/agencies
