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Las Vegas Cop-Killing Plot: What's A Sovereign Citizen?

Two Las Vegans were arrested last week, accused of planning to kidnap a Metropolitan Police officer to demonstrate their hatred of law enforcement.

The suspects -- Dave Brutsche, 42, and Devon Campbell Newman, 67 -- are believed to belong to the "sovereign citizen" movement, whose adherents generally reject government and police authority as an infringement of personal liberty.

In the name of personal sovereignty, such extremists often refuse to pay taxes or ignore laws to register their vehicles or obtain a driver's license.

Are Brutsche and Campbell Newman political activists, domestic terrorists, crackpots, garden-variety criminal suspects?

 

 

Mike Blasky, Las Vegas Review-Journal crime reporter

Heidi Beirich, director of Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project

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