Just when you thought it was safe to go to Indiana again—an Indiana truck-driver named Thomas Piatek, who was a member of an amateurish anti-government insurgency, the Hutaree Militia, was able to reclaim his armory on July 6th in Hammond, Indiana, after a judge in March dropped charges against him of plotting to overthrow the United States government (as reported at the time in this blog). The militia was broken up by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (F.B.I.) in 2008. The charges that were dismissed in the March ruling were that the seven members, including Piatek, were plotting to murder a police officer and then catalyze a larger overthrow of the U.S. government by attacking mourners at his funeral (reminiscent of Timothy McVeigh, who hoped that the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995 would spark a supposedly necessary race war).
That stands for Colonial Christian Republic, not Creedence Clearwater Revival.
The word Hutaree means “Christian warrior” in the group’s private jargon. Their motto is, “Preparing for the end times battles to keep the testimony of Jesus Christ alive,” and among their aims was the creation, from six rural counties in Michigan, of an independent but anarchistic territory to be called the Colonial Christian Republic, ruled only by God’s law.
Piatek’s arsenal. Whew. I’m glad that’s all back on the streets.
Although the three German shepherds confiscated from Piatek will not be returned, the personal weapons he reclaimed this week included 41 guns and 100,000 rounds of ammunition, as well as crossbows and swords. Piatek said he does not rule out one day joining a militia again, and his lawyer, Arthur Weiss, stated, “This is a victory for the Constitution.”
Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blew an I.R.S. agent’s head off:
an actual photo of an actual Hutaree Militia wedding.
[You can read more about the Hutaree Militia and other separatist movements, from the well known to the bizarre and obscure, in my new book, a sort of encyclopedic atlas just published by Litwin Books under the title Let’s Split! A Complete Guide to Separatist Movements and Aspirant Nations, from Abkhazia to Zanzibar. The book, which contains 46 maps and 554 flags (or, more accurately, 554 flag images), is available for order now on Amazon. Meanwhile, please “like” the book (even if you haven’t read it yet) on Facebook and see this special announcement for more information on the book.]
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