"He told me he
is not going to submit to arrest by the feds," Jacobs said. "He said if
they're going to murder him, they're going to have to do it in the house,
that this is where he has drawn his line in the sand, and he's not going
to retreat from it. I think he is expecting to be murdered by the FBI."
William Cooper was shot dead in his
Arizona home, November 2001.
Militiaman William Cooper taking on authorities
By Jerry Kammer
The Arizona Republic
July 3, 1998
An eastern Arizona militiaman is vowing to defy an arrest warrant issued
in Phoenix on Wednesday after he failed to appear in federal court on charges
that he evaded income taxes and defrauded a bank.
William Cooper, 54, a media-savvy foe of the federal government who claims
to belong to the "Second Continental Army of the Republic," posted a defiant
message in big red letters Thursday on his Internet site:
"WARNING!! Any attempt by the federal government or anyone else to execute
the unconstitutional and unlawful arrest warrants . . . will be met
with armed resistance."
Federal authorities in Phoenix are responding with calculated calm to Cooper,
who warned a 1994 convention in Mesa of a coming battle against one-world
government.
"Blood will be spilled in the streets of America -- it's inevitable,"
Cooper declared then, even as he stressed that he didn't endorse violence.
He has broadcast the same message around the world in his daily short-wave
radio program. He also publishes a newspaper [available from his homepage:
http://www.williamcooper.com/index.html].
The U.S. attorney for Arizona, Jose de Jesus Rivera, said federal agents
would move carefully to arrest Cooper, who faces a four-count indictment
on charges that he failed to pay taxes from 1992 to 1994 and submitted
false information to a bank to obtain a loan.
"We are going to proceed with prudence and caution and handle the matter
in due course," Rivera said, declining to comment further.
Apache County Sheriff Art Lee said he has advised federal authorities to
move cautiously against Cooper, who lives in a hilltop house in Eagar.
After talking with Cooper, Lee said, he cautioned federal authorities that
"it could deteriorate into an incident" if they moved in to arrest Cooper
and his wife, Annie Mord-horst, who was indicted on the same charges.
"I felt like he meant what he said when he told me he would defend his
property with everything at his disposal," Lee said.
The sheriff said Cooper owns weapons, but he did not know how many or what
kind.
Lee said Cooper moved to Eagar two or three years ago from St. Johns, where
he had once spoken of opening a library where residents could research
the U.S. Constitution. Militia members believe that the federal government
has flagrantly usurped the Constitution by asserting a range of powers,
including the power to
tax.
"He sent me a lot of literature when he lived in St. Johns," Lee said.
"It was the regular right-wing stuff -- militia-type literature on the
black, unmarked helicopters and the takeover of the United States by United
Nations forces."
Asked whether Cooper had a broad following in the county, Lee said, "Not
that I'm aware."
One sympathizer is Glenn Jacobs, publisher of a small weekly newspaper,
who said he spoke to Cooper early this week.
"He told me he is not going to submit to arrest by the feds," Jacobs said.
"He said if they're going to murder him, they're going to have to do it
in the house, that this is where he has drawn his line in the sand, and
he's not going to retreat from it. I think he is expecting to be murdered
by the FBI."
Lee disputed Cooper's Web site report that "several ranking local law-enforcement
personnel" had informed the FBI that they would "absolutely not allow another
Ruby Ridge or Waco to occur in Apache County, Arizona."
Lee said, however, that both Cooper and Jacobs had spoken of Ruby Ridge
and Waco, scenes of bloody confrontations that in the militia movement
have become symbolic of federal government brutality and arbitrary power.
In Phoenix, Thomas Nixon of the U.S. Marshal's Office said authorities
intend to act cautiously as they enforce the arrest warrant "because no
federal agency wants any copies of Ruby Ridge or Waco."
But Nixon added, "Obviously, at some point, we'll effect the arrest."
Nixon said a federal marshal last month was unable to serve a summons on
Cooper. He said the marshal visited Cooper's home but was unable to establish
that the man who met him there was Cooper.
Reached by phone Thursday, Cooper refused to answer questions, responding
to a reporter's inquiry with a stream of obscenities before hanging up.
In his Web site, however, he calls summonses "unconstitutional" and "unlawful"
because the federal government has no jurisdiction in Arizona "except over
land that was ceded to the United States by the State Legislature."
Copyright 1998, The Arizona Republic - reposted on cypherpunk archives
To:
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Subject: Militiaman [Cooper] taking on authorities From: "Joseph
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Date:
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