Gunman Who Killed Three Police Officers in Baton Rouge Member of Black Antigovernment 'Sovereign Citizen' Group
The man who killed three Baton Rouge police officers over the weekend was a member of a black antigovernment聽鈥渟overeign citizen鈥� group whose members believe they are indigenous to the United States and beyond the reach of the federal government.
Gavin Eugene Long, 29, of Kansas City, Mo., who聽went by the name Cosmo Setepenra, filed documents last year declaring himself an antigovernment聽鈥渟overeign citizen鈥� and a member of the United Washitaw de Dugdahmoundyah Mu鈥檜r Nation, reported.
Long, a former Marine who was wearing a mask, body armor and covered in all black clothing at the time of the attack, died on Sunday in a shootout with police. He killed three police officers and left another in critical condition after ambushing the officers in what police now say was a coordinated attack.聽Two more officers suffered non-life threatening injuries.
While the investigation is ongoing 鈥撯�� police have scheduled聽a news conference this afternoon 鈥撯�� Long鈥檚 digital footprint has yielded some clues to his motives, which seem focused on an all-consuming anger he maintained about legal authorities violating the natural law of man 鈥撯�� a common sovereign citizen theme.聽
In a video posted on a YouTube channel called 鈥淚 Am Cosmo鈥� last year, Long ranted against police conduct. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e trying to say that the war is being waged against the police when in fact the war is against the people, everybody,鈥� Long said.聽 鈥淚t鈥檚 against the people.鈥�
The attack came nearly two weeks after two white police officers in Baton Rouge, La., responded to reports that a man was selling CDs at a gas station. When the officers arrived, they tackled 37-year-old Alton Sterling to the ground and shot him at point blank range. Multiple bystanders captured video of the shooting on their cell phones.
Members of 鈥楳oorish鈥� sovereign groups and other black Americans have for years been taking up the ideas of the antigovernment 鈥�sovereign citizen鈥� movement 鈥撯�� a movement whose adherents believe they are outside the reach of most law. Ironically, the wildly conspiratorial belief system was originally thoroughly anti-black.聽But its racist roots have been virtually forgotten by increasing numbers of black Americans who have melded it with selective interpretations of the teachings of pioneer black nationalist Noble Drew Ali, who founded the exclusively black Moorish Science Temple of America (MSTA) almost 100 years ago.
叠耻迟听The Washitaw Nation, of which Long was once a member,聽is something different.聽It employs pseudo-legal language and theories of 鈥�common law鈥� 鈥撯�� an ideology birthed by hard-line American white supremacists in the 1970s and 1980s. But the Washitaw are not white supremacists.
In the weird language the groups leader,聽a woman named Verdiacee Turner 鈥撯�撀爓ho called herself Empress Verdiacee 鈥淭iari鈥� Washitaw-Turner Goston El-Bey 鈥撯�� decendants of the 鈥淎ncient Ones,鈥� the 鈥渂lack ones," occupied the North American聽continent tens of thousands of years before white Europeans arrived. Therefore, they fall outside federal authority.聽
Cover Image: AP/Max Becherer
