Vegas police stop 'Sovereign Citizen' plot
National News
Vegas police stop 'Sovereign Citizen' plot
By KEN RITTER The Associated Press
Updated: 2013-08-23T00:33:29Z
August 22
By KEN RITTER
Associated Press
LAS VEGAS — A sting operation stopped a plot to abduct, torture and kill police officers to bring attention to the antiauthority sovereign citizen movement, Las Vegas police said Thursday.
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Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department | AP Photo This image provided by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department shows Devon Campbell Newman.who was arrested in Las Vegas. A four-month undercover operation in Las Vegas led to the arrests of David Alllen Brutsche and Newman. The arrests stopped a plot to abduct, torture and kill police officers in an effort to bring attention the “sovereign citizen” movement, authorities said Thursday Aug. 22, 2013. Newman was being held at the jail pending a court appearance on conspiracy to commit murder and kidnapping charges.
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Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department | AP Photo This image provided by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department shows David Allen Brutsche, 42, who was arrested on domestic terrorism charges in Las Vegas. A four-month undercover operation in Las Vegas led to the arrests of Brutsche and Devon Campbell Newman. The arrests stopped a plot to abduct, torture and kill police officers in an effort to bring attention the "sovereign citizen" movement, authorities said Thursday, Aug. 22, 2013.
David Allen Brutsche and Devon Campbell Newman were arrested at an apartment a few miles off the Vegas Strip before they could carry out a plan to snatch officers, "put them on trial" and execute them in a vacant house, Las Vegas police Lt. James Seebock said.
Federal authorities regard sovereign citizen extremists as domestic terrorists. Authorities have linked sovereign citizens groups with violent confrontations in recent years, including deadly shootings in Louisiana and Arkansas.
Brutsche, 42, and Newman, 67, wanted to draw attention to the group's absolute rejection governmental authority, making the case a domestic terror plot, Seebock said.
"They were furthering their 'sovereign citizen' ideology by committing criminal acts toward law enforcement," he said.
Records showed the two were held in Clark County jail pending court appearances on charges including conspiracy to commit murder and attempted kidnapping, Seebock said. It was not immediately clear whether they had lawyers.
The investigation began when an unidentified undercover officer befriended Brutsche and Newman in April, police said.
They participated in meetings and training sessions about sovereign citizen philosophy and later shopped for guns and discussed plans to track and videotape police officers to determine which to abduct.
They found a vacant house and rigged it with bolts drilled into wall supports, creating a makeshift jail where they planned to bind captive officers to cross beams for interrogation.
Police haven't released video evidence, but the report states that Brutsche and Newman recorded videos about their actions and ideology to post following the abductions.
Hundreds of hours of conversation were recorded over the course of 30 meetings with the undercover officer, according to the police arrest report.
"We need to arrest the police and take them to our jail and put them in a cell and put them on trial in a people's court," Brutsche said on July 9, according to the report. "If we run into the position that they resist, then we need to kill them."
During a tour of gun stores the next day, Brutsche said that what they were planning was going to be big, "and that they would really get a large following once they started because of the publicity," the police report said.
Police said that when Brutsche was arrested, he denied that police had authority to hold him.
Police identified Brutsche as a six-time convicted felon and child sex offender from California. Authorities did not detail a further criminal background for Newman.
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