Courtesy of the FBI
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports on the hottest new trend in suburban real estate: With thousands of properties in suburban Atlanta currently sitting unoccupied, members of a movement with ties to domestic terrorism are moving in. Here’s Tammy Joyner:
The Riverdale incident is among at least two dozen area incidents of home takeovers by the sovereign citizens, including a $1 million home in south DeKalb County seized by the sect last year. Authorities say the sect has taken over 20 metro Atlanta properties, including a shopping center. The group believes banks can’t own land or property and that any home owned by a bank—including the thousands of foreclosed properties throughout Georgia—are theirs for the taking. Emmett said he also knows of cases where sect members have taken over homes being refurbished.
Sovereign Citizen ideology, as Justine Sharrock explained back in January, was central to Tucson shooter Jared Lee Loughner‘s worldview, and has long been a staple of the far-right militia movement. Fear of an encroaching New World Order are a common cause for sovereign citizens, but the ideas have also been embraced as a way out of entangling debt—or, as the case may have it, a little bit of both. In recent years the ideology, which has its roots in the white supremacist community, has increasingly been embraced by black prison gangs and black supremacist groups like the Nuwaubians.
In less depressing foreclosure news, my colleague Andy Kroll reports that foreclosure king David J. Stern is finally out of a job, after banks stopped doing business with his law firm. You can check out Andy’s full report on Stern and the rise of the foreclosure mills here.
