11 men were arrested in a standoff with police in Massachusetts. The Boston Globe. The group of men called themselves "Rise of the Moors", a group described as a black sovereign citizen movement. The group was from Rhode Island and was heading to Maine for "training". They were stopped by the highway refueling their cars when police saw them, leading to a standoff. The group has esoteric beliefs and consider themselves to be citizens of Morocco, though the leader of the group, Jamhal Talib Abdullah Bey, claimed to not be anti-government, anti-police or pro-black separatism. The group were engaged with a standoff with the police for several hours but in the end all were brought into custody.
My Comment:
The original tweets had a field day with this story. The idea that a large group of militia members were in a standoff with police on the 4th of July weekend was too tempting for the far left to keep their mouths shut about. But it looks like it came back to bite them as these people were not some kind of white supremacist group but a militia of black sovereign citizens.
It's hard for me to really condemn these people though. All they were doing was refueling their vehicles when police approached them. They should not have pulled their firearms but I also don't think that they posed much of a threat. They pretty clearly violated Massachusetts law on the open carry of firearms (you need a permit and I am sure these guys didn't have one), but I don't respect those laws in the first place.
A lot has been made of the fact that these guys were heading to Maine for "training". I'd also remind people that there is nothing illegal about that. People can form militias in this country and train. It's only when they plot an attack or try to overthrow a government that these people become a threat.
Thankfully the standoff ended peacefully. I think police were right to negotiate with these people instead of simply trying to arrest them. In the end nobody got hurt on either side, other than a couple of people dealing with pre-existing conditions. Given the situation that is a win for everyone.
The beliefs of these people though, they are really far out there. The Moors are a North African people and not typically thought of as black. Indeed, they are generally considered Arabs. There are a few black people there, descendants of slaves, but it makes very little sense for black people to call themselves Moors. I guess they can call themselves whatever they want but their beliefs here don't make much sense.
It seems like they might be some kind of black supremacist group. They strike me as racist considering they claim to be the indigenous people of North America, which would be fairly surprising to our Native American population, who would probably object strongly to that idea. They don't seem to be as racist as the Black Hebrew Israelites but that's a low bar to clear. They may also be Black Muslims but that seems to be less clear.
It's very clear though that these guys are an offshoot of the Sovereign Citizen movement, due to their odd beliefs on what is legal and what isn't and how they seem to think they are above the law. I generally think that these folks are pretty far out there and I would have more respect for them if they simply said "we aren't following your laws because we don't like them" instead of the legal mumbo jumbo that they use that doesn't convince anyone.
Still, I don't think the groups odd beliefs made them that much of a threat. This is America, people should be allowed to believe what they want. I do think that they should be punished for their actions as pulling guns was not the correct response to an encounter with the police, but I also don't think that this means there is a major threat from these kinds of groups.
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