In Florida, armed militias are 'waiting for a cause'

TAMPA — They occupy a wildlife refuge headquarters in the Pacific Northwest. In the Southwest, armed vigilantes march in the name of border control.

Here in Florida, militia-style groups — and, more commonly, sovereign citizens — have less specific agendas.

"They're militias in wait, militias waiting for a cause," said Ryan Lenz, editor of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Hatewatch blog. "They lack the driving and motivating factors that militias have elsewhere. They hold the same extremist views; they're just not as active."

But they're on the rise, and have been since 2008, due to three main factors: the housing crash, the subsequent recession and the election of Barack Obama as president.

And over one issue, they share a common interest: guns.

Fondness for the Second Amendment does not make Florida militiamen unique, but it has made the state a focus for antigovernment extremism, experts say.

"There is a small contingent of Florida militias that have advocated for such extreme positions as secession," Lenz said.

Most Floridians who identify with a militia movement aren't affiliated with a particular group, said Mark Pitcavage, a senior research fellow at the Anti-Defamation League.

Others identify as "Three Percenters," people who see themselves as the modern-day equivalents of Revolutionary War-era rebels who faced off against the tyrannical British government, Pitcavage said. They might join a Facebook group or send sympathizing tweets, but they aren't running around in the woods on the weekends, donning fatigues and carrying an AK-47.

But there are those who are.

Those groups are classified as paramilitary, and there are three main groups active in the state now, Pitcavage said.

The Florida Militia has members across the state, meets monthly and regularly trains for natural or manmade disasters, according to its website.

Members did not respond to requests for comment. But its website says the group bans anyone who is a felon, who cannot legally own or handle a firearm, who "wishes to cause civil disorder" or "is a racist."

Another group, the Northwest Florida Militia, is based primarily in Escambia, Santa Rosa and Okaloosa counties in the Panhandle. Centered near Kissimmee is the Southeast Constitutional Militia, Pitcavage said.

Experts and academics who study militia groups and other antigovernment movements said it is important not to generalize about its membership. They are not all white supremacists.

"That is one of the myths that is worth debunking again and again and again," said Robert Churchill, associate professor of history at the University of Hartford.

Churchill said these groups are predominantly white and Christian, with a strong female presence.

And in this new wave of citizen militia groups, more networking is done through social media, which draws a more diverse crowd.

Citizen militias appeared in the 1990s, when doomsday conspiracy theorists thought the new millennium would end civilization and the government was plotting to implement martial law. Those years paved the way for the most infamous events associated with the militia and antigovernment movement: the deadly Branch Davidian siege in Waco, Texas, the dayslong and ultimately fatal standoff at Ruby Ridge in Idaho in 1992 and the Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people and injured hundreds more in 1995.

Those violent confrontations helped deflate the citizen militia movement. By 2003, it was nearly defunct.

Antigovernment sentiments whipped back up in the late 2000s, especially after Obama's election.

There also was an uptick in people identifying as sovereign citizens, who believe that abiding by laws is more of an option than a requirement and that the U.S. government has no true power.

In Pasco County, the Sheriff's Office has had several run-ins with sovereign citizens in the past five years, said Sgt. Sean Kennedy.

"They're just old-school rednecks that don't want anyone messing around," Kennedy said.

Sovereign citizens have been known to issue fake arrest warrants and criminal citations on law enforcement officers, or file bogus liens. They're people who refuse to pay taxes, who don't believe in housing deeds, who create their own license plates so they don't have to pay the government for them.

While federal authorities are monitoring the occupation of a wildlife refuge's headquarters by armed ranchers in Oregon, local officials say the climate in Tampa Bay is fairly calm.

"The things that would bring the eye of the FBI simply aren't happening in Central Florida," said supervisory special agent Terry Rahl, who leads the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force that meets every day to investigate threats.

"It's okay for anyone to think or feel a certain way," he said. "It only is when they violate a federal law that it comes to our attention."

Times researcher John Martin contributed to this report. Contact Katie Mettler at kmettler@tampabay.com or (813) 226-3446. Follow @kemettler.