AP IMAGES/BILLINGS GAZETTE/LARRY MAYER (AERIAL AND BRAUNER); RYAN LENZ (SIGN)
police department the community could do little to stop
that. “Researching them,” he
said, “you find that they’re big
in the [sovereign] movement.”
Kelly has some historical reasons to be concerned.
It was just two years ago that
Craig Cobb, a foul-mouthed
neo-Nazi, attempted to take
control of another near ghost
town, Leith, N.D., to build a
white supremacist enclave.
And just two hours’ drive
from St. Marie, the Montana
Freemen, whose beliefs were
close to those of today ’s
sovereigns, declared their
own independent “Justus
Township” in 1996. That
group engaged in an 81-day
standoff before finally surrendering to the FBI.
And sovereigns in general
don’t have a good reputation.
In 2010, a sovereign fatherson team murdered two police
officers in West Memphis,
Ark., and recent surveys have
shown that sovereigns are a
top concern of p