ADL: Arkansas Shooting Suspect Was Anti-Government Extremist

I know there are a couple of threads on this on DU. Thought this would add to the pic of the murderers.

New York, NY, May 21, 2010 … A suspect in the shooting deaths of two West Memphis, Arkansas police officers was a member of an extreme anti-government movement, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

Jerry Kane, 44, was part of the sovereign citizen movement – an extreme right-wing movement that believes that virtually all existing government in the United States is illegitimate and which seeks to "restore" an idealized, minimalist government that never actually existed.

Kane was allegedly involved in a May 20 shooting during a traffic stop that left two police officers dead and two seriously wounded. The other suspect in the shooting has been identified as Kane's teenage son, Joseph Kane. Both suspects were later killed in a second shootout with police.

ADL issued the following statement:

The deaths of two police officers in West Memphis, Arkansas represent the latest acts of violence perpetrated by sovereign citizens – a movement which believes the government holds no authority over them. Historically, adherents of the sovereign citizen movement have engaged in a wide array of criminal activities, ranging from issuing threatening documents to carrying out acts of violence.

Loosely organized, the sovereign citizen movement is dominated by "gurus" who travel the country holding seminars to teach their pseudo-legal and pseudo-historical theories. Jerry Kane was one such sovereign citizen "guru;" at the time of the shootouts he was apparently returning from a seminar he conducted in Las Vegas.


http://www.adl.org/PresRele/Extremism_72/5764_72.htm

WEST MEMPHIS, Ark.—A sheriff says a man who died in an Arkansas shootout with police after allegedly killing two officers was an Ohio resident whom he once warned might be violent to law enforcement.

Clark County, Ohio, Sheriff Gene Kelly says Arkansas State Police told him Friday that 45-year-old Jerry Kane Jr. of Springfield, Ohio, is one of two people killed in the shootout in the parking lot of a Walmart store. Arkansas police have not released the pair's names to the media.

Authorities say they killed two officers with assault rifles Thursday after being pulled over in a white minivan with Ohio plates.

Kelly says Kane sent him a complaint letter in 2004 that prompted the sheriff to warn officers he might be dangerous.

http://www.mercurynews.com/nation-world/ci_15132561?nclick_check=1

Jerry Kane had run-ins with law enforcement in Ohio before. In 2004, court documents show Kane was sentenced to community service for traffic violations.

Clark County Sheriff Gene A. Kelly said he warned his deputies six years ago that Jerry Kane was violent.

"I had my first confrontation with him when he tried to come to a foreclosure sale and write me a check on a piece of paper indicating that he was a free man and he only believed in silver and gold and that he didn't believe in banks," Kelly said.

Kelly said Kane was furious.

"He believed that would enslave him and he was demanding $100,000 in silver and gold," Kelly said. "This man has been having confrontations with authorities for years. And finally, the ultimate result is, law enforcement officers paid the ultimate price for that."

http://www.10tv.com/live/content/local/stories/2010/05/21/story-springfield-ohio-arkansas-shootings.html?sid=102

Jerry Ralph Kane Jr., the man who was killed with his son Thursday after apparently gunning down two West Memphis, Ark., police officers, traveled the country before the encounter giving classes in "redemption foreclosure mortgage fraud" -- an apparent variation on a scheme common among antigovernment "Patriots."

According to a blurb on a website called Pro Blog: Blog for Professionals, that was the title that Kane gave to an all-day class he gave on Aug. 29, 2009, in Fontana, Calif. In several YouTube videos of the Fontana class, Kane can be heard discussing such Patriot theories as the idea that only gold and silver are real money.

In addition, another website, My Private Audio, carried a tribute to Kane and his son and also included links to information about "redemption."

Redemption theory varies across the country but arose in the Patriot movement, which generally sees the federal government as an evil entity involved in various conspiracy theories aimed at ordinary Americans. In its best known version, redemption theory claims that every U.S. citizen has a "straw man," or secret legal twin, that the government uses to capture the economic value of citizens unknowingly sold into slavery to a banking cabal. Redemptionists often claim that by filing certain documents individuals can reclaim their sovereignty and the money that was deposited into a special account at their birth. Kane appeared to be teaching a variant of the theory that supposedly allowed people who have lost their homes to foreclosure to get them back at a fraction of their value.

In addition, the My Private Audio site, apparently written by a friend of Kane and his son, talks about how Kane was pulled over in New Mexico last month for not having a driver's license. Many Patriots who call themselves "sovereign citizens" do not believe they are required to carry driver's licenses, pay taxes, or obey most laws. The site also carried other signs of Patriot beliefs, including discussions of implantable microchips and the Council of Foreign Relations, an object of much Patriot conspiracy theorizing.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-potok/arkansas-cop-killer-linke_b_585547.html