RIP Korryn Gaines, Sovereign Citizen

It’s probably not surprising that I have become skeptical when I hear that a person of color had a “traffic related” warrant or arrest. As such, I was immediately curious about the origins of the warrant for traffic-related offenses last March that Korryn Gaines was served before being shot by police in a standoff in her home. What I found surprised me, though perhaps it shouldn’t have.

In March, according to police reports, an officer pulled Gaines over because she had a piece of cardboard with writing on it instead of a license plate. “Any government official who compromises this pursuit of happiness and right to travel, will be held criminally responsible and fined, as this is a natural right and freedom,” the cardboard plate said.

Gaines told the officer he had no authority to question her.

It looks like Gaines was a sovereign citizen. I know the type. I grew up in a politically conservative community where the actions of sovereign citizens, while not necessarily emulated, were held up as brave and honorable. I went to an anti-government summer camp in my teen years where we discussed the pros and cons of becoming a sovereign citizen. It sounded heroic, almost, declaring independence from the U.S. government. The basic idea is this—you belong to yourself. The government and its agents have no legitimate authority over you. You have no need to pay taxes, have a driver’s license, or register your car with the government. You are a sovereign citizen.

Sovereign citizens act as though the law has no binding on them, which is an absolute headache for those tasked with enforcing the law. There are the shoot-outs and standoffs. There is also domestic terrorism, bombings and the like. This shouldn’t be surprising, in a movement built upon declaring the authority of the government illegitimate. While an ordinary person caught driving without a license plate might be apologetic or simply upset that they were caught, a sovereign citizen responds with righteous anger and refuses to back down. They are committed to a cause they believe in, a cause that makes violating U.S. law something to be celebrated and promoted, a communal act of rebellion that binds them together. That this would prove dangerous to law enforcement should be expected.

The lack of a government-issued license plate is sovereign citizens’ most common identity marker, and that can and does result in traffic stops, and sometimes violent confrontations. Here’s an example from several years ago:

As a sovereign citizen, Kane didn’t carry a driver’s license. His car was registered to a bogus charity. Traffic stops led to arrests, and with each one, Kane’s anger towards authority deepened.

“I don’t want to have to kill anybody. But if they keep messing with me, that’s what it’s going to have to come out, that’s what it’s going to come down to is I’m gonna have to kill. And if I have to kill one, then I’m not going to be able to stop,” Kane said at one of his seminars.

Absorbing it all was Kane’s 16 year-old son, Joe, home-schooled and raised on sovereign ideology.

On May 20, 2010, the Kanes minivan was pulled over on I-40 by two West Memphis, Ark. police officers.

A dashboard camera captured what happened next: Kane got out of the van. He appeared argumentative. Instead of a license, he had handed over a document declaring his sovereignty. The officers seemed confused by it. Then, there was a scuffle.

Young Joe Kane jumped from the van and began firing an AK-47. Fifty eight seconds later, as the Kanes prepared to flee, the teenager fired four more times.

A truck driver called 911.

“I heard a call go out on my radio, and it said ‘Officer down!’ The second time she says two officers down at mile marker 275,” West Memphis Police Chief Bob Paudert told correspondent Byron Pitts.

. . .

. . .Brandon Paudert died instantly from a bullet to the head; Bill Evans was declared dead at a hospital. They had taken 25 bullets between them.

The police cornered Jerry and Joe Kane 90 minutes later. The Kanes wounded two more lawmen before they were killed in a WalMart parking lot.

West Memphis Police Chief Bob Paudert, quoted in the above excerpt, now gives his officers training on recognizing the signs of a sovereign citizen, and officers are instructed to immediately call for backup when they realize they’ve pulled a sovereign citizen over. Other police training materials make the same suggestion about traffic encounters with sovereign citizens, while clarifying that not every sovereign citizen is violent or a threat. But it’s not just about traffic stops.

As the Daily Beast reported in 2014:

Sovereign citizens are not explicitly violent, but over the past few years the number of lone wolf attacks on law enforcement by followers of the movement, have prompted the FBI to consider sovereign citizens a major domestic terrorism threat. This summer, the University of Maryland’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism released the results of a study finding sovereign citizens are perceived to be the single greatest threat to law enforcement, above Islamist extremists and patriot or militia groups.

This is our domestic terror problem, and it has been our domestic terror problem for quite some time now. Sovereign citizens sometimes rig bombs to kill government officials, or ambush police officers. Not all are dangerous, to be sure, and the movement has a membership of several hundred thousand.

Last month, it came out that the Baton Rouge shooter was a sovereign citizen. I hadn’t realized until then that there were black sovereign citizens. After all, the sovereign citizen movement often butts up against various strains of the Christian identity or white power movements. On reflection, though, it’s not surprising that some African Americans would be attracted to a movement that views the authority of the U.S. government as illegitimate. It’s not as though black Americans have always gotten a fair shake by government, to say the least. Consider the current anger against police brutality and racial bias in policing and our criminal justice system. The Baton Rouge shooter was motivated by recent shootings of African Americans by police, and when even the Obamas are racially profiled, it’s not surprising that Gaines would be angry.

Police were right to stop Gaines when they did back in March. She did not have a license plate. Her car was not registered as is required by law. Sovereign citizens do not believe U.S. law applies to them, which can lead to serious confrontations with law enforcement officials. I’m not entirely what the solution is. I am not comfortable with the actions the police took both during that arrest and before and during the standoff. I find the frequency with which many police officers jump to force (rather than finding nonviolent ways to deescalate situations) concerning an inappropriate. And was serving a warrant for Gaines’ arrest in the way they did really necessary? I’m curious whether any work has been done on the best way to deescalate confrontations with sovereign citizens (it looks like at least some departments have specific training on interacting with sovereign citizens). It’s not okay to drive a car without a license plate. It’s also not okay that Gaines is dead.

Did race play a role in Gaines death? Undoubtedly, though what role specifically I am unsure. Her death sounds eerily similar to that of Jeffrey Allen White, a white man killed by police in North Carolina in 2013:

Wright, 55, drove around with a phony license plate. When stopped, he refused to produce a driver’s license. Once he threatened to sue a deputy who pulled him over.

After he was fined for traffic offenses in September, Wright paid with counterfeit money orders. When deputies served warrants for felony counterfeiting March 8, Wright barricaded himself in his garage and declared that he would not be “a servant of the king.”

He broke out windows with a handgun, then pointed the weapon at officers, police said. Three deputies fired, killing Wright.

It could be that Wright posed a more clear and present danger than Gaines did. Perhaps the presence of Gaines’ child should have made police more wary of shooting. It could be argued that African Americans have a more legitimate gripe with government than do white Americans like Wright, which would underline a difference between the cases. Perhaps police in both situations—that of Wright and that of Gaines—could have done something else to deescalate. It’s also possible that police wouldn’t have shot Gaines if she had been a white woman in the same situation. Additionally, Wright’s demise aside, police do not always shoot people who point guns at them. They have non-lethal ways to subdue a threat and end a standoff. Whatever the factors at play, Gaines’ two children will now grow up without a mother.

Where do we go from here? I’d like to see more awareness of the public about sovereign citizens, but I admit to being slightly worried. Sovereign citizens have caused problems in the U.S. for decades. If the country only now, after the appearance of black sovereign citizens, decides that they’re a problem, this will be yet one more entry in a very long book of what white people can get away with and black people can’t. Perhaps what we need is more talk about what actions police should take when they encounter a sovereign citizen of whatever race. How can police best defuse situations and enforce the law without the tragic loss of life we saw this week?