WASHINGTON — The FBI has issued a bulletin to local police saying there’s sympathetic chatter on the Internet regarding the arrests of the Christian militia members, but no indication of copycats, the Associated Press reported.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Detroit on Monday unsealed an indictment charging nine members of a Michigan-based Christian militia called Hutaree who were allegedly plotting to kill law enforcement officers to try and spark a government revolt.
Six of the members were from Michigan, two from Ohio and one from Indiana.
The indictment comes nearly 15 years after the Oklahoma City bombing of the federal building. Two of the defendants in that case — Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols — had ties to Michigan.
The 1995 bombing stirred keen interest in law enforcement, which took a hard look at the Michigan militias and some of the strong anti-government sentiment in the rural America.
The Southern Poverty Law Center says it saw a 244 percent jump in new anti-government Patriot Groups in 2009. It said the number of groups went from 149 (including 42 militias) to 512 (127 of them militias) in 2009.
“We are in the midst of one of the most significant right-wing populist rebellions in United States history,” Chip Berlet, a veteran analyst of the American radical right, wrote earlier this year. according to an article in the Southern Poverty Law Center web page. “We see around us a series of overlapping social and political movements populated by people [who are] angry, resentful, and full of anxiety. They are raging against the machinery of the federal bureaucracy and liberal government programs and policies including health care, reform of immigration and labor laws, abortion, and gay marriage.
