[Music] welcome back to facts or frauds and the dangers of the sovereign citizen movement part two the southern poverty law center began tracking anti-government extremist groups in the mid 90s after a series of events sparked a rise in militia groups throughout the country those events were the 1992 siege at ruby ridge idaho and the 1993 assault on the branch davidians in waco texas the movement hit a high point in 1995 when a bomb planted by timothy mcveigh exploded in front of the alfred p murrah federal building in oklahoma city after the bombing leaders in the anti-government movement made a conscious effort to distance themselves from white supremacy some rejected that type of violence while others fear the racism would make their message less palatable in reaction to the 9 11 terror attacks and the us response to them nativist hate under a thin veil of national security rhetoric has become central to the patriot movement's ideology after the election of the first african-american president in 2008 a new wave of anti-government extremism was born with groups like the oath keepers the three percent movement and the lightfoot militia during president barack obama's second term in 2012 the number of anti-government extremist groups rose to an all-time high of 1360 fueled in part by changing demographics a struggling economy and the existence of an african-american president the movement was again in the national spotlight in 2014 when the oath keepers three percenters and others supported nevada cattle rancher cliven bundy during his family standoff with the bureau land management over grazing rights members of the bundy family and their supporters took part in the armed occupation of the malheur national wildlife refuge in 2016. there a confrontation with local law enforcement resulted in the death of one of the occupiers that same year three members of the militia group the crusaders were arrested in garden city kansas after the fbi obtained details of a bombing plot aimed at somali and muslim communities the attack was planned to devastate a housing complex with hundreds of residents had the fbi not thwarted it the death toll may have rivaled that of the oklahoma city bombing violent plots like the one in garden city may become more frequent as anti-government extremists continue to use the internet to facilitate we're going to um visit brandon's gravesite i come up at least once a week i tried to and and but every time i go past it i every time i go past it i'll just kind of hit the horn twice it's just a little thing i do let him know i'm thinking about him and uh but i do come visit with him and spend some time out there and it's it's peaceful it's quiet and it's a beautiful cemetery it's a it's a hard story to tell it's a it's an important message as i said and the only way that i can do this is is the support i get from the the officers attend the training they keep in touch with me they contact me they say that this training saved my life and that's what it's about how many of you had an encounter with a sovereign a few okay how many have not heard of sovereigns before never heard anything about them since 2011 of august 2011 i retired from west memphis police department as their chief and i've gone full time into educating law enforcement around the country on the dangers of sovereign extremists hate law enforcement we are their enemy and you have to understand that a sovereign basically is someone that is against our government someone that does not believe in paying taxes uh they don't think law enforcement has any authority over them they don't believe in our court system and they're basically um they would be close to anarchists they don't want any leaders they don't want any anyone over them but god so um they're just they're totally anti-government and they some of them not all are are just a serious threat to law enforcement weapons as may the 20th 2010 i was a police chief in west memphis we had an interstate in addiction unit working interstate 40 for drugs and criminal activity that day about 11 30 officer bill evans that was on the interstate unit stopped a white dodge van driven by jerry kane and a passenger his son 16 year old son joe kane within a short time later brandon my son arrives on the scene as a sergeant he looks at the paperwork he has no idea what he's looking at the video shows that on the dash cam video he gets the paperwork he's looking at it that is a distraction used by sovereigns to distract law enforcement from their traffic stop and effectively what they're doing is sovereigns are taking over the traffic stop away from the police officer so brandon is standing there now looking at it bill has jerry kane off to the side the kid 16 year old kid in the car gives a signal to his dad he pushes bill evans he loses his balance the door opens on the car on the van and brandon turns his head to see what happened to his partner and when the door opened and brandon turns his head the exact same sequence of frame on the video the kid gets out with an ak-47 and shoots and kills both officers for brandon took 14 rounds bill took 11 rounds through his vest i was on the scene shortly my wife had just had open heart surgery she's out of the hospital just for a few days we were going coming to missouri to where we have a home and we got on the interstate and a call comes out over my radio officers down i was within a mile of where it happened we pulled up tell my wife to stay in the car and i get out and i see an officer lying in the ditch uh down below where the police cars are uh it was officer evans so i look back up the hill and i see one of my sergeants standing there beside the two police cars i go up and the sergeant stops me says chief please don't go around there i pushed him aside i went around the corner of the car and i see brandon lying there on his back i'm looking down at him the back of his head had been shot off he was covered in blood and he was lying in all these shell casings i remember seeing all these shell casings there he was and i couldn't i said what you know i couldn't figure out what was going on he had his left hand over on his heart and his right hand was extended out like this and his 40 caliber glock was clutched in his right hand and i was standing over him trying to sort my thoughts together about what i would what was happening it was like just like a it's so surreal it like a nightmare that day that instant that i was standing over brandon i lost the passion i had to be in law enforcement [Music] i've been in every state but hawaii and alaska and i've given giving it hundreds of times but you need to be as prepared as you can be we can't bring brendan and bill back they're gone forever but we can do something for you and particularly for your families to keep you alive so they don't suffer like we're suffering every second of every single day it never goes away your life changes forever i show this this right here on the last one of the last slides that i showed a funeral i said this is to show you how that when you go to go to work you might not come home i hope that they see this really and has a visual impact on them that um you know we need to be careful here's two experienced officers killed by one 16 year old kid and i when they see this and i think it rushes to them when they see it that you know this is real this is real stuff [Music] you