What We Know About Rise Of The Moors, Group Engaged With Massachusetts State Police In Interstate 95 Shutdown

An hours-long stand­off between a group of heav­i­ly armed indi­vid­u­als and Massachusetts State Police on an inter­state end­ed with 11 tak­en into custody.
The sit­u­a­tion was resolved “through nego­ti­a­tion and tac­ti­cal maneu­vers,” Massachusetts State Police Colonel Christopher Mason told reporters on Saturday said, adding that the group mem­bers “sur­ren­dered with­out incident.”
The stand­off began nine hours pri­or when police said the group claimed to “not rec­og­nize our laws.

Video shot along the inter­state shows men in mil­i­tary-style gear hold­ing the Moroccan flag. Police com­mu­ni­cat­ed with the group through a hostage nego­ti­a­tion team.

Here’s what we know about the situation.

Police stop

A Massachusetts State Police troop­er was trav­el­ing north­bound on Interstate 95 in Wakefield when he came upon two vehi­cles stopped in the break­down lane around 1:30 a.m. on Saturday.

The men were attempt­ing to refu­el their vehicles.

The occu­pants of the vehi­cle were dressed in mil­i­tary-style tac­ti­cal gear. Some had long rifles, some pis­tols and “some had a com­bi­na­tion of both,” Massachusetts State Police Colonel Christopher Mason told reporters on Saturday.

The troop­er request­ed back­up and addi­tion­al state police as well as local police responded.
The head of state police applaud­ed the actions of the respond­ing troop­er who he said was “very patient, very under­stand­ing with them,” which kept the sit­u­a­tion from escalating.
Hostage nego­tia­tors were brought in to speak with the men and at about 10:15 a.m., police announced 11 indi­vid­u­als were tak­en into cus­tody. A pair of indi­vid­u­als were arrest­ed ear­li­er in the day and nine more were arrest­ed late morning.

Who are they?

The indi­vid­u­als are mem­bers of Rise of the Moors, a group who iden­ti­fy as Moorish Americans.

“The Moorish sov­er­eign cit­i­zen move­ment is a col­lec­tion of inde­pen­dent orga­ni­za­tions and lone indi­vid­u­als that emerged in the ear­ly 1990s as an off­shoot of the antigov­ern­ment sov­er­eign cit­i­zens move­ment, which believes that indi­vid­ual cit­i­zens hold sov­er­eign­ty over, and are inde­pen­dent of, the author­i­ty of fed­er­al and state gov­ern­ments,” the Southern Poverty Law Center says of the move­ment. “Moorish sov­er­eigns espouse an inter­pre­ta­tion of sov­er­eign doc­trine that African Americans con­sti­tute an élite class with­in American soci­ety with spe­cial rights and priv­i­leges that con­vey on them a sov­er­eign immu­ni­ty plac­ing them beyond fed­er­al and state authority.”

Jamhal Talib Abdullah Bey is iden­ti­fied on the group’s web­siteas the Moorish American Consular Post Head for the Rise of the Moors. His biog­ra­phy on the group’s web­site lists him as hav­ing served in the United States Marine Corps previously.

In a state­ment on the Rise of the Moors web­site, he wrote of his mil­i­tary service.

“I tru­ly believe that most of the skills that have been instilled in me through mil­i­tary train­ing can be used to uplift our nation and all Moorish Americans. Honor, Courage and Commitment are the Marine Corp Values. Those same val­ues that every Marine is held to, fit per­fect­ly with the High Principles of Love, Truth, Peace, Freedom and Justice that our Prophet, El Hajj Sheriff Abdul Ali instruct­ed us to live by. I joined the mil­i­tary think­ing I would be help­ing our peo­ple, who at that time I was trained to think we were ‘Black’. I now know of the ‘King Alfred Plan’ and its objec­tive to use our men as the tip of the spear for European World Domination and Imperialism. I will con­tin­ue as the Prophet did, to work day by day, in pub­lic and in pri­vate to con­tin­ue his great Missionary work to uplift fall­en human­i­ty and rein­force the foun­da­tion of the Moorish Movement — The minds of the People.”

State and local police declined to con­firm the name of the group to reporters. Mason said he was unaware of the group pri­or to this interaction.

Wakefield Police Department said the men claim “to be from a group that does not rec­og­nize our laws.”

The depart­ment added, in a state­ment. “No threats were made, but these men should be con­sid­ered armed and dan­ger­ous. We are ask­ing res­i­dents in these areas to lock their doors and remain inside their homes. A heavy police pres­ence will be in this area as well.”

The group dis­put­ed that they are “anti-gov­ern­ment” both in record­ed state­ments and con­ver­sa­tions with police.

“We’re not anti-gov­ern­ment, we’re not anti-police, we’re not sov­er­eign cit­i­zens, we’re not Black-iden­ti­ty extrem­ists,” Bey said dur­ing a livestreamed video post­ed to YouTube Saturday morning.
He believes the group is trav­el­ing legal­ly by abid­ing by fed­er­al laws, though not acknowl­edg­ing Massachusetts laws, which he does not believe apply to the group as they did not intend to stop in Massachusetts.

“Police seen us on the side of the road with our guns secured,” he said in the video. “We were afraid so we got out with our arms.”

While show­ing inside of one of the vehi­cles, he shows mul­ti­ple fuel can­is­ters which the group intend­ed to use to refu­el rather than stop­ping at a gas sta­tion off the interstate.

“We’re not U.S. cit­i­zens,” anoth­er mem­ber of the group is heard say­ing dur­ing one of their livestreamed videos. “We’re Americans, American nationals.”

Traveling through Massachusetts

The group was trav­el­ing from Rhode Island to Maine to train on “pri­vate land,” the group told police. In one of the videos record­ed dur­ing the stand­off with police, Bey said the vehi­cles con­tain camp­ing equipment.

The Rise of the Moors web­site list­ed the orga­ni­za­tion as being based from a mul­ti-fam­i­ly home in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

Gun ownership in Massachusetts

A gun own­er is allowed to trans­port a weapons under spe­cif­ic con­di­tions. For a loaded or unloaded hand­gun, it may be on a per­son or in a vehi­cle if under “direct control.”

Large-capac­i­ty rifles and shot­guns must be trans­port­ed unloaded and in a locked case, locked trunk or oth­er secure con­tain­er, accord­ing to state regulations.

State law con­sid­ers a large-capac­i­ty firearm to be any of the fol­low­ing: semi-auto­mat­ic hand­gun or rifle that is capa­ble of accept­ing more than ten rounds, a semi-auto­mat­ic shot­gun capa­ble of accept­ing more than five shot­gun shells or an assault weapon.

A rifle with a fixed tubu­lar mag­a­zine designed to accept, and capa­ble of oper­at­ing only with, .22 cal­iber ammu­ni­tion is not clas­si­fied as a large-capac­i­ty firearm.

A per­son can car­ry a loaded or unloaded rifle or shot­gun upon or across a pub­lic way if they are engaged in hunt­ing and hold a valid hunt­ing license.

Non-res­i­dents do not need a firearms license to trans­port their firearms in or through the com­mon­wealth, pro­vid­ed the firearms are unloaded and enclosed in a case while traveling.

Previous interactions with police

The Southern Poverty Law Center says Moorish Sovereign Citizens have come into con­flict with fed­er­al and state author­i­ties over their refusal to obey laws and gov­ern­ment reg­u­la­tions. “Recently, Moorish sov­er­eign cit­i­zens have engaged in vio­lent con­fronta­tions with law enforce­ment. They have also been known to retal­i­ate against gov­ern­ment author­i­ties through finan­cial means — a process called ‘paper terrorism.’”

The Rise of the Moors filed mul­ti­ple law­suits against Providence Police in 2019 claim­ing their right to bear arms and right to assem­ble were violated.

They accused police of inter­rupt­ing a lec­ture the orga­ni­za­tion was host­ing, which was being livestreamed. According to the law­suit, Bay was teach­ing the class while armed with a Glock 22 and a semi-auto­mat­ic weapon, the Providence Journal report­ed in 2019During the record­ed lec­ture, he read from the Koran and spoke of the group’s right to bear arms. “We’re teach­ing our peo­ple not to be crim­i­nals,” Bey said.
Thos sto­ry orig­i­nat­ed @ Masslive​.com