Three alleged “sovereign citizens” accused of possessing firearms, ammunition and improvised explosive devices were arrested over the weekend in California desert communities, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said Sunday.
On Saturday, deputies were patrolling near the intersection of Twentynine Palms Highway and Old Woman Springs Road in Yucca Valley, near Joshua Tree National Park, when a deputy conducted a traffic stop on a white Ford Taurus for suspected vehicle code violations, the Sheriff’s Department said in a news release.
The driver, who was identified as David Russell, 46, and his passenger, Jeffrey Russell, 50, both of Johnson Valley, claimed to the deputies that they were sovereign citizens, authorities said. Sovereign citizens believe they are not under the jurisdiction of the federal government and consider themselves exempt from U.S. law., according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The center tracks extremist groups.
After a records check, it was learned that neither of the two men was allowed to own or possess a firearm, authorities said. The deputies then found live ammunition, black gun power and an “improvised military-grade explosive device” in their car, the Sheriff’s Department said.
The explosive device was later “disposed” of in a safe area by the Sheriff’s Department’s bomb and arson division.
The deputies then learned that additional explosives were at a property in Johnson Valley, a community north of Yucca Valley near Highway 247, and a search warrant was obtained to search it, sheriff’s officials said.
A search was conducted at the suspects’ “remote sovereign citizen compound” and 54-year-old Venus Mooney of Johnson Valley was found at the scene and detained, the Sheriff’s Department said. During the search, additional “military-grade explosives,” ammunition and firearms were found, authorities said.
These explosives were “properly disposed of” by the bomb and arson team, sheriff’s officials said.
All three were arrested on suspicion of possession of an explosive device and possession of a controlled substance while armed, authorities said.
All were being held without bail, the Sheriff’s Department said.
It wasn’t immediately clear if any of the suspects were represented by a lawyer.
The Sheriff’s Department was unsure of what, if any, plans the suspects may have had for the explosives, said Mara Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for the agency.
Alleged sovereign citizens intermittently come to the attention of the public and officials. One, for instance, was arrested as a suspect in the 2018 Holy fire that raged in Southern California's Orange and Riverside counties. More recently, some sovereign citizens were involved in submitting fake election records to the National Archives in 2020, an Arizona official said.
Brian Levin, the director of California State University, San Bernardino’s Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, said the deputies’ handling of the incident was “textbook” because there were no injuries. Levin has studied a variety of extremist groups nationally for more than 30 years and has trained law enforcement on how to handle these kinds of interactions, he said.
“The fact that they were armed not only with firearms and explosive or incendiary devices is a dangerous situation,” Levin said. “This could have escalated in a very bad way.”
Sovereign citizens will often not have driver’s licenses or have homemade license plates on their vehicles, Levin said. He said they are often armed and have acted out “aggressively” in the past during interactions with a government entity.
“We are seeing various types of extremism manifest itself across the state from north to south,” Levin said. “(Sovereign citizens are) different from people who say the election has been stolen because they don’t recognize the legitimacy of the president to begin with.”
Anyone with information regarding the investigation was urged to contact the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department at (760) 366-4175.
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