Prosecutor: Militia Had to be Taken Down
Updated at 4:27 p.m. ET
Federal authorities had been monitoring members of a Michigan-based Christian militia for some time but were forced to "take them down" over the weekend after learning of an imminent threat against police, the U.S. attorney leading the prosecution said Tuesday.
Barbara McQuade's comments came three days after eight members of a small group of "Christian warriors" were arrested in several Midwestern states and a day after the FBI nabbed a ninth suspect, Joshua Matthew Stone, following a standoff at a trailer in rural Michigan.
"The time had come that we needed to arrest them and take them down," McQuade told The Associated Press in an interview at her office.
McQuade said the "most troubling" finding of the investigation was that Hutaree members plotted to make a false 911 call, kill responding officers and then use a bomb to kill many more at the funeral - all in hopes of touching off an uprising against the government.
Across the street in Detroit federal court, Stone was arraigned Tuesday and was ordered held without bond until a hearing Wednesday.
Authorities say Stone's father and seven others charged Monday were part of the Michigan-based Hutaree.
FBI agents moved quickly against Hutaree because its members were planning an attack sometime in April, prosecutors said. Members had been undergoing paramilitary training, including learning how to shoot guns and make bombs, since 2008, according to an indictment. Authorities seized guns in the raids but would not say whether they found explosives.
Prosecutors said the suspected Hutaree ringleader, 44-year-old David Brian Stone of Clayton, identified law enforcement officers as potential targets. He and other members discussed setting off bombs at a police funeral, using a fake 911 call to lure an officer to his death, killing an officer after a traffic stop or attacking the family of an officer, according to the indictment.
The indictment said that after the attacks, the group planned to retreat to "rally points" protected by trip-wired explosives for a violent standoff with law enforcement personnel.
"It is believed by the Hutaree that this engagement would then serve as a catalyst for a more widespread uprising against the government," it said.
It was not immediately clear exactly what tipped off authorities to the alleged plot.
FBI officials see little chance that the revelation of the alleged plot will spur other anti-government extremists to launch other violent attacks.
More on the Militia Arrest
Stepmom Helped Militia Member's Surrender
Militia Insider Says Hutaree Was "Terrorist Organization"
Militia Members Arrested
Report: Mich. Pol Asked Militia For Help
FBI: Mich. Militia Plotted to Kill Police
Christian Militia Members Charged with Sedition
Christian Militia Were "Preparing for the Anti-Christ"
As it shut down Hutaree, the FBI issued a bulletin to police departments saying it has picked up Internet chatter among other militia groups - including some expressing sympathy for the suspects - but few signs of criminal copycats.
Eight Hutaree members, including Stone, appeared in federal court Monday. They were charged with seditious conspiracy - plotting to levy war against the U.S. - possessing a firearm during a crime of violence, teaching the use of explosives and attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction - homemade bombs.
Seven of the defendants asked in court to be represented by public defenders. It was not immediately clear Tuesday whether they had been appointed.
A standoff at a trailer in rural Lenawee County ended late Monday with the arrest of the ninth suspect - one of Stone's sons - who was to be arraigned Tuesday, said spokeswoman Gina Balaya of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Detroit.
Joshua Stone surrendered without a fight after the FBI played messages over loudspeakers from family and friends urging the 21-year-old from Clayton to give himself up. He had been hiding inside a home in Hillsdale County's Wheatland Township with five other adults and a child.
The arrests dealt "a severe blow to a dangerous organization that today stands accused of conspiring to levy war against the United States," Attorney General Eric Holder said.
In the indictment, prosecutors said David Brian Stone - known as "Captain Hutaree" - organized the group in paramilitary fashion and appointed his son Joshua as an operational unit leader. Ranks ranged from "radoks" to "gunners," according to the group's Web site.
Stone's ex-wife, Donna Stone, told The Associated Press that her ex-husband also pulled her son, David Brian Stone Jr., into the movement.
"It started out as a Christian thing," she said. "You go to church. You pray. You take care of your family. I think David started to take it a little too far."
She said she helped talk Joshua Stone, who is not her biological son, into surrendering.
After the surrender, other adults at the home were taken into custody, but authorities have yet to decide if they will face charges, according to Andrew Arena, head of the FBI's field office in Detroit. The child was 1 or 2 years old, he said.
Other details, including whether those in the trailer were affiliated with Hutaree, weren't immediately released. Joshua Stone and his family were familiar with the area and may have done some training there, though not necessarily at the site where he was apprehended, Arena said.
Hutaree says on its Web site its name means "Christian warrior." The group quotes several Bible passages and declares: "We believe that one day, as prophecy says, there will be an Anti-Christ. ... Jesus wanted us to be ready to defend ourselves using the sword and stay alive using equipment."
The Web site does not list specific grievances against law enforcement and the government.
The site features a picture of 17 men in camouflage, all holding large guns, and includes videos of armed men running through the woods. Each wears a shoulder patch that bears a cross and two red spears.
Heidi Beirich, research director of the Southern Poverty Law Center, said her group learned about Hutaree last year while compiling its annual list of "patriot groups."
"Their Christian apocalyptic vision is quite different from most other militias," Beirich said. "Most don't put their religion first - they're more concerned with out-of-control federal government."
The wife of one of the defendants described Hutaree as a small group of patriotic, Christian buddies engaged in survival training.
"It consisted of a dad and two of his sons and I think just a couple other close friends of theirs," said Kelly Sickles, whose husband, Kristopher, was among those charged. "It was supposed to be a Christian group. Christ-like, right, so why would you think that's something wrong with that, right?"
Sickles said agents seized the guns her 27-year-old husband collected as a hobby and searched for bomb-making materials at her home near Sandusky, Ohio, but added: "He doesn't even know how to make a bomb."
One defendant expressed anti-tax views during his Monday court hearing. Thomas W. Piatek, a truck driver from Whiting, Ind., told a federal judge he could not afford an attorney because he was "getting raped on property taxes."
The mother of another defendant, 33-year-old Jacob Ward, told police in Huron, Ohio, last summer that family members took away his two guns - an AK-47 rifle and a semiautomatic pistol - because she thought he needed mental health treatment.
© 2010 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Federal authorities had been monitoring members of a Michigan-based Christian militia for some time but were forced to "take them down" over the weekend after learning of an imminent threat against police, the U.S. attorney leading the prosecution said Tuesday.
Barbara McQuade's comments came three days after eight members of a small group of "Christian warriors" were arrested in several Midwestern states and a day after the FBI nabbed a ninth suspect, Joshua Matthew Stone, following a standoff at a trailer in rural Michigan.
"The time had come that we needed to arrest them and take them down," McQuade told The Associated Press in an interview at her office.
McQuade said the "most troubling" finding of the investigation was that Hutaree members plotted to make a false 911 call, kill responding officers and then use a bomb to kill many more at the funeral - all in hopes of touching off an uprising against the government.
Across the street in Detroit federal court, Stone was arraigned Tuesday and was ordered held without bond until a hearing Wednesday.
Authorities say Stone's father and seven others charged Monday were part of the Michigan-based Hutaree.
FBI agents moved quickly against Hutaree because its members were planning an attack sometime in April, prosecutors said. Members had been undergoing paramilitary training, including learning how to shoot guns and make bombs, since 2008, according to an indictment. Authorities seized guns in the raids but would not say whether they found explosives.
Prosecutors said the suspected Hutaree ringleader, 44-year-old David Brian Stone of Clayton, identified law enforcement officers as potential targets. He and other members discussed setting off bombs at a police funeral, using a fake 911 call to lure an officer to his death, killing an officer after a traffic stop or attacking the family of an officer, according to the indictment.
The indictment said that after the attacks, the group planned to retreat to "rally points" protected by trip-wired explosives for a violent standoff with law enforcement personnel.
"It is believed by the Hutaree that this engagement would then serve as a catalyst for a more widespread uprising against the government," it said.
It was not immediately clear exactly what tipped off authorities to the alleged plot.
FBI officials see little chance that the revelation of the alleged plot will spur other anti-government extremists to launch other violent attacks.
More on the Militia Arrest
Stepmom Helped Militia Member's Surrender
Militia Insider Says Hutaree Was "Terrorist Organization"
Militia Members Arrested
Report: Mich. Pol Asked Militia For Help
FBI: Mich. Militia Plotted to Kill Police
Christian Militia Members Charged with Sedition
Christian Militia Were "Preparing for the Anti-Christ"
As it shut down Hutaree, the FBI issued a bulletin to police departments saying it has picked up Internet chatter among other militia groups - including some expressing sympathy for the suspects - but few signs of criminal copycats.
Eight Hutaree members, including Stone, appeared in federal court Monday. They were charged with seditious conspiracy - plotting to levy war against the U.S. - possessing a firearm during a crime of violence, teaching the use of explosives and attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction - homemade bombs.
Seven of the defendants asked in court to be represented by public defenders. It was not immediately clear Tuesday whether they had been appointed.
A standoff at a trailer in rural Lenawee County ended late Monday with the arrest of the ninth suspect - one of Stone's sons - who was to be arraigned Tuesday, said spokeswoman Gina Balaya of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Detroit.
Joshua Stone surrendered without a fight after the FBI played messages over loudspeakers from family and friends urging the 21-year-old from Clayton to give himself up. He had been hiding inside a home in Hillsdale County's Wheatland Township with five other adults and a child.
The arrests dealt "a severe blow to a dangerous organization that today stands accused of conspiring to levy war against the United States," Attorney General Eric Holder said.
In the indictment, prosecutors said David Brian Stone - known as "Captain Hutaree" - organized the group in paramilitary fashion and appointed his son Joshua as an operational unit leader. Ranks ranged from "radoks" to "gunners," according to the group's Web site.
Stone's ex-wife, Donna Stone, told The Associated Press that her ex-husband also pulled her son, David Brian Stone Jr., into the movement.
"It started out as a Christian thing," she said. "You go to church. You pray. You take care of your family. I think David started to take it a little too far."
She said she helped talk Joshua Stone, who is not her biological son, into surrendering.
After the surrender, other adults at the home were taken into custody, but authorities have yet to decide if they will face charges, according to Andrew Arena, head of the FBI's field office in Detroit. The child was 1 or 2 years old, he said.
Other details, including whether those in the trailer were affiliated with Hutaree, weren't immediately released. Joshua Stone and his family were familiar with the area and may have done some training there, though not necessarily at the site where he was apprehended, Arena said.
Hutaree says on its Web site its name means "Christian warrior." The group quotes several Bible passages and declares: "We believe that one day, as prophecy says, there will be an Anti-Christ. ... Jesus wanted us to be ready to defend ourselves using the sword and stay alive using equipment."
The Web site does not list specific grievances against law enforcement and the government.
The site features a picture of 17 men in camouflage, all holding large guns, and includes videos of armed men running through the woods. Each wears a shoulder patch that bears a cross and two red spears.
Heidi Beirich, research director of the Southern Poverty Law Center, said her group learned about Hutaree last year while compiling its annual list of "patriot groups."
"Their Christian apocalyptic vision is quite different from most other militias," Beirich said. "Most don't put their religion first - they're more concerned with out-of-control federal government."
The wife of one of the defendants described Hutaree as a small group of patriotic, Christian buddies engaged in survival training.
"It consisted of a dad and two of his sons and I think just a couple other close friends of theirs," said Kelly Sickles, whose husband, Kristopher, was among those charged. "It was supposed to be a Christian group. Christ-like, right, so why would you think that's something wrong with that, right?"
Sickles said agents seized the guns her 27-year-old husband collected as a hobby and searched for bomb-making materials at her home near Sandusky, Ohio, but added: "He doesn't even know how to make a bomb."
One defendant expressed anti-tax views during his Monday court hearing. Thomas W. Piatek, a truck driver from Whiting, Ind., told a federal judge he could not afford an attorney because he was "getting raped on property taxes."
The mother of another defendant, 33-year-old Jacob Ward, told police in Huron, Ohio, last summer that family members took away his two guns - an AK-47 rifle and a semiautomatic pistol - because she thought he needed mental health treatment.
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I WILL tell you this and this goes for all the rest of the Tea Baggers and IDIOTS out there. When YOU decided you are going to overthrow the ELECTED Government of this Nation by force? You'd better pack a LUNCH because you are going to be there awhile. I'm fed up with these childish cowards and their antics. We HAVE elections in this nation for a reason and because you don't win or get your way does NOT give you the right to start forming armed gangs, call them what you will. The United States Marines taught ME how to fight and how to use a Weapon. Haven't used one in anger since I came home but THIS and THESE People are reason for me and so many more like me to take them up again. WE are better than this!!
LOL!
So when you and Obama lose the Congress this year, the Presidency in 2012, and the Republicans downsize the Federal Governmant by 50%, Cut Taxes for everyone paying taxes and eliminate of the new Obama entitlements you will support it 100%?
Sure you will........
I'm glad they got nabbed for being irresponsible and trying to bring in more responsible and law abiding militia members. The name "Hutaree" doesn't even mean anything.
This is a publicity stunt and will be used to go and grab your legal guns.
...end of story.
For more examples look below.
lol!