Baton Rouge police shooter said he was ‘sovereign citizen’
The former Marine who killed three Baton Rouge, Louisiana, police officers identified with a growing movement that originated among white supremacists and whose adherents believe they’re immune to most state and federal laws, including paying taxes and getting driver’s licenses.
Gavin Long, a 29-year-old black man from Kansas City, Missouri, filed documents last year declaring himself a sovereign citizen, as a member of the United Washitaw de Dugdahmoundyah. Members of the mostly black group, which was founded in Louisiana, claim the government has no control over them and that they own much of the Louisiana Purchase land. Members have sold fake licenses, passports and license plates.
Nothing in that group’s ideology calls for violence, according to Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center. Potok added that he would hesitate to tie Long’s claimed connection to the Washitaw Nation with Sunday’s shooting because it appeared that Long was “shopping around” for an ideology, including once claiming he was a member of the Nation of Islam. Washitaw Nation spokesman, Fredrix Joe Washington, said he’d never heard of Long.
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