A police car in the desert (GettyImages)
Three people were arrested after being found with military-grade explosives at a “sovereign citizen compound” in the Mojave Desert. Deputies with the Morongo Basin Sheriff’s Station pulled over a car for “vehicle code violations” on the morning of June 18, according to a news release. Inside, they found David Russell, 50, and Jeffery Russell, 46, who claimed to be sovereign citizens exempt from U.S. law. Police found both to have firearms despite both also being prohibited from owning firearms for unknown reasons. The cops searched the vehicle and found “live ammunition, black gunpowder, and an improvised military-grade explosive device.” The two men lived in a “remote sovereign citizen compound” in Johnson Valley, California, near Joshua Tree National Park. There, police executed a search warrant, found more weapons and explosives, and arrested a woman, Venus Mooney, 54.Police say a bomb squad came and safely disposed of the explosives found in the car and compound. David Russell, Jeffrey Russell, and Mooney have since been charged with possession of an explosive device and possession of a controlled substance while armed. They’re being held without bail. The sovereign citizen movement has been around for decades but underwent a large resurgence during the pandemic. The ideology, which changes from adherent to adherent, is based on the pseudo-legal idea that a person is under no control from the country they’re in because they are sovereign in and of themselves. The community is known for their vexatious use of the legal system and are sometimes dubbed “paper terrorists” for their habit of filing an extraordinary amount of frivolous lawsuits to gum up the courts. But more hard-line followers are considered anti-government extremists. Some have used violence to justify their beliefs in a wide variety of crimes, including killing police officers. Between 2015 and 2019, sovereign citizens were involved in 15 percent of domestic terrorism incidents, according to a 2021 U.S. national security report by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.Want the best of VICE News straight to your inbox? Sign up here.
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