MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
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Anti-government 'sovereign movement' on the rise in U.S. By Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY
By EmmaZahn on Fri, 03/30/2012 - 6:26am |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 East 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 John Joe's arrest is not worth the risk of a violent confrontation.
URL:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-03-30/anti-government-militia-groups-freeman/53873496/1
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