Arizona sovereign citizen destroys innocent motorist's car, blames police for it

[jmowreader]

Meet Mitch Taebel, aspiring actor, government-hater, and frequent flyer on Con Air...

&t=107s

Police in Maricopa County, Ariz., observed this person speeding so they attempted to pull him over. As a sovereign citizen, Taebel believes traffic laws don't apply to him so he nailed the gas to get away. Sixty miles later, this happened...

&t=1s

He claims he has the right to kill any police officer who threatens his liberty, and intends to sue the government for the deprivation of his civil rights that happened when he got arrested for reckless endangerment and other crimes of mayhem. He also says the person whose car he destroyed needs to sue the government because if they wouldn't have been chasing him for speeding he wouldn't have run into her.

[NutmegYankee]

1. Please tell me the other driver is OK.

[jmowreader]

3. "Non-life-threatening" injuries

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/tempe-breaking/2018/01/24/man-arrested-chase-self-declared-actor-constitutionalist-has-anti-government-views/1064262001/

The long-form video of this shows her being taken away strapped to a backboard.

[NutmegYankee]

12. It's always unfair how the scumbag that causes an accident seems to be fine,

while the innocent motorist they hit because of drunkenness or reckless driving always gets hurt or worse.

[csziggy]

6. Had "non-life-threatening injuries"

Troopers with the Arizona Department of Public Safety took Mitchell Timothy Taebel into custody following the crash that sent one woman to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries near the Arizona State University Tempe campus, officials said.
https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/tempe-breaking/2018/01/24/man-arrested-chase-self-declared-actor-constitutionalist-has-anti-government-views/1064262001/

[jberryhill]

27. Non-life threatening injuries can mess you up

There's a whole wide world of "injuries" before you get to the mortal ones.

And plenty that will last the rest of your life.

[onethatcares]

34. including

the financial hardship you end up with through no fault of your own.

[csziggy]

45. True nt

[grossproffit]

2. Sovereign citizens background for those interested:

Many self-proclaimed sovereigns believe that county sheriffs are the only legitimate law-enforcement authority — a belief that seems to stem from long-running claims made by other anti-government groups that see federal law enforcement as a violation of the Bill of Rights. Others claim that supposed historical international treaties grant them authority to govern themselves. Newer organized groups have the stated purpose of preparing to replace the current — and supposedly illegitimate — Congress and other agencies.

Other beliefs are even more unusual: Some sovereigns claim their names printed on government documents do not represent them but a "straw man," an imaginary person created in their stead.

According to experts, there are generally three types of people drawn to sovereign ideology: those who are experiencing financial hardship, people who are angry at or hate the government, and old-fashioned con artists.

While many self-proclaimed sovereigns go no further than espousing their beliefs, experts say, some file streams of paperwork with officials, such as county recorders, "declaring" their sovereign status.

<snipped>

Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a non-profit organization that tracks hate groups, said one of the reasons the sovereign movement is growing is that it essentially promises people something for nothing.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/life/az-narratives/2014/04/12/sovereign-citizens-challenge-authority-law/7633147/

[Fred Sanders]

7. More white domestic terrorists. Not important though. Because at least not Muslim!

[missingthebigdog]

30. Interestingly, the only sovereign citizen I have personally encountered is black.

He consulted with my office in search of someone to help him convince the judge of his sovereign status.

He tried to explain that his birth certificate was not a valid document because his parents signed it under duress, and he therefore had no duty to the government. The birth certificate represents some type of contract that gives the government jurisdiction over you...

I have tried to understand where these ideas come from, and have, so far, been unsuccessful.

[Fred Sanders]

44. Then you need to get out more!

[dixiegrrrrl]

13. only "county sheriffs" are legit....

what about city or state? Is the county the only division they recognize?

There are interesting videos, some on YouTube, of guys like this spouting off in court to the judge. Hasn't worked well so far.

[jmowreader]

26. They believe the sheriff is the only legitimate law enforcement authority

Deputies are not legitimate. Only sheriffs are.

[NutmegYankee]

50. That must make Connecticut a law free zone for them.

No county governments and no sheriffs.

[jmowreader]

56. I've seen a video where that was argued

It didn't work.

[dixiegrrrrl]

72. Woah......I did not know that. Now I have a zillion questions.

How come? And how does that work?

The opposite is true in my county. It was a county before there was a state.

[NutmegYankee]

73. Connecticut uses a form of local government called the New England Town

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England_town

It's similar to the powers of a city, with the entire state subdivided into these towns that run their own schools and such. Courts are state controlled. Counties are mostly weak in New England, a holdover of Puritan government organization and beliefs, and two states just completely did away with them (CT and RI). The counties exist only for basic divisions, like court services and have no government whatsoever. As for a sheriff, each town runs their police, with many using resident state troopers and a constabulary. Court documents are delivered by state marshals and courts are completely staffed by the state.

The fact that every town stands alone on schools are a big factor in high taxes. For instance, my town, Montville, has 6700 taxpayers and runs a high school, an alternative high school, a middle school, and three elementary schools. It also maintains a fleet of Ford L9000 plow trucks to keep the roads safe all winter.

[treestar]

63. IMO it could be hand-down from western states

areas that once were territories, or even ungoverned at one time, so they have a romantic Wild West view they have not gotten over. The sheriff might have been the original law enforcement under territorial conditions, perhaps?

[MarvinGardens]

59. Also, if your name is in all caps in legal paperwork...

...then they're addressing you as a corporation w/o individual rights, and you should reject it, or something.

Don't take out an FHA loan, because the government will own your house.

If you're in court and the U.S. flag has fringes on it, it's an admiralty flag and the court won't recognize your rights.

Be careful not to claim any protection under the 14th amendment, because that makes you a 14th amendment citizen, which is not as good as a sovereign citizen, or something.

Oh and most importantly, you don't have to pay federal income taxes. They're unconstitutional, or something.

---------
And it goes on and on like that. I read about these guys extensively back in the late 90s.

[treestar]

62. I've read those too the flag fringe

apparently does mean admiralty jurisdiction, and whoever buys flags for courts thinks it merely makes the flag more impressive, so they are handing them one there.

Another one is that they won't use the Post Office handy two-letter state abbreviations, but the older ones in use before that, since they claim that the two-letter ones secretly refer to the fact that it is no longer a state, but just a federal territory, trying to overcome the 10th Amendment. That is, Penn. is a abbreviation for Pennsylvania, but PA refers to the "federal area."

The 16th Amendment is argued to be improperly passed and therefore void.

It is amusing (except where it turns violent).

[grossproffit]

4. Why was he afforded a press conference? How many get free press conferences upon arrest?

[bdjhawk]

17. Exactly!

Why give these people additional opportunities to spread their hate?! I have never heard of a prisoner allowed to hold a press conference! Ridiculous!!

[tblue37]

24. Ratings. nt

[malaise]

5. Was that the chase Hannity switched to last night rather than

discuss the Con's attempt to fire Mueller?

[Scurrilous]

9. Yep.

He was Hannity's "SQUIRREL!!"



Arizona Sovereign Citizen: A Model, Idiot?

<snip>

"A self-described “sovereign citizen,” would-be TV star, and “constitutionalist” who likes filing frivolous lawsuits was arrested Wednesday in Tempe, Arizona, after a 60-mile chase by police that ended when he crashed his SUV head-on into another car. The driver of the other car, a 47-year-old woman, was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries.

After the crash, in which his SUV rolled over several times, the SovCit dipwad, Mitchell Taebel, 31, got out of the wreck and asked witnesses, “Do you know who I am?” Sadly, they apparently hadn’t followed his YouTube channel or his personal website full of grievances against the government, both of which have since been taken down.

Taebel claimed after his arrest that police had “no probable cause” to pull him over in the first place, and said he’d called 911 to report the police’s “illegal” traffic stop."

Read more at https://wonkette.com/628861/arizona-sovereign-citizen-a-model-idiot#XASAiqRi1jK8l

[malaise]

11. Oh My

a good-looking terrorist - guess he thinks he's a movie star. Do they make movies in prison?

[TheBlackAdder]

38. Mitch Taebel's prison movie is called "Behind Bars" and everyone there will be coming to his opening

[malaise]

49. Good

Hope he watches the repeats for decades

[TheBlackAdder]

52. There's no movie.

It was a dirty joke.

[malaise]

53. I know

nice and subtle

[treestar]

64. Amusingly written

by wonkette. This was a distraction from Trump/Mueller which itself is a distraction from Hillary's many crimes (per Hannity).

[JDC]

8. This guy is going to jail. His cell mate can hear it.

As for me, he can go F himself. Thank goodness that woman he hit is ok.

[NCDem777]

10. Sovereign citizens declare they aren't citizens of this country

Send him to Gitmo.

[GReedDiamond]

14. Sovereign citizen? I think not...

...sociopath asshole piece of shit, yes.

[Initech]

19. No this guy is a full blown psychopath.

Calling him a sociopath just minimizes the impact of his behavior. If he thinks he has a right to murder, he is a psychopath.

[GReedDiamond]

21. You are absolutely correct...

...thanks for the clarification.

[treestar]

65. Yes, regardless of the so-called excuse

Just as loony as "helter skelter."

[Ms. Toad]

15. Please don't encourage this particular version of lawlessness

by identifying him as a "sovereign citizen," as if it was a real thing. There is no such thing.

Aside from incidents like this, these idiots file court cases (and appeal when they lose), cobbling together bits and pieces of law from completely unrelated subjects as if you can apply criminal law to the interpretation of contract (for example). Because it is all law from somewhere, the time it requires for the courts to track down and counter the gibberish is tremendous - and you can't just say it's nonsense without tracking down and explaining why the recited law is completely inapplicable.

Not that I've ever had to draft an opinion responding to an appeal from one of these losers or anything . . .

[jmowreader]

20. I know it isn't a real thing as well as you do

The Justice Department refers to these scumbags as sovereign citizens, so that's the term I'll use to describe them.

Besides, it REALLY pisses off a sovereign citizen when you call him that, and that's a bonus.

[Ms. Toad]

23. The ones I've run into proudly claim that label

and the Justice Department typically puts it in quotation marks, suggesting it is not real.

[jberryhill]

29. Yeah... it really pisses off the Free Inhabitants, too

That was a new one on me a while back, and I thought I had a pretty good grip on the menagerie of paranoid legal frameworks.

I love that video of the Free Inhabitant managing to get herself arrested, when she was not even the subject of the stop.

On edit:

Oh, wait, she's an Article Four Free Inhabitant. If you never saw this one, it's a gem.

[Ms. Toad]

31. Haven't seen it,

But her rant brings back memories . . .

[jberryhill]

32. 2m48s

"As far as I know, you haven't done anything wrong at this point..."

[RainCaster]

33. Send her to ICE if she is not a US citizen

After several years in detention she may wise up.

[dalton99a]

35. +1

[Downtown Hound]

43. I love that one

I love how she's quoting the Articles of Confederation, which we ditched over 200 years ago, as, "The United States Book of Codes." LOL.

[jmowreader]

46. Thats not the best part, but its close

True Believers in this bs claim “statutes, acts and codes” are not laws and do not apply to them. Only “natural law” applies to them, and the definition of a crime is that an injury occurred. So, in essence, you can drive drunk all the time and, so long as you don’t kill anyone, you have not committed a crime.

[treestar]

67. Edited because I am dumb

the Articles of Confederation before the Constitution, lol! Nothing to do with the Secession.

Even so, weren't those overcome by the Constitution? I'm sure they have a theory about that.

[Downtown Hound]

69. They most definitely were rendered null and void when we adopted the Constitution

Although I'm sure you could find some idiots out there to argue otherwise.

[treestar]

66. That is a gem!

She seemed so certain, too, even that his superior will tell him what's what!

[JI7]

16. This is why we need to build a wall

Can you imagine if one of those horrible brown people had done this ?

[Initech]

18. What is wrong with these people?

[jmowreader]

28. There are several branches of sovereign citizenship

The branch you wind up in depends on what you did to fuck up your life.

From what I can tell, there are three main reasons to become a sovereign citizen: you lost your driving privilege (and became a "right to travel" SC); you got into serious financial problems (and became a "redemption" SC); or you lost your kids to Child Protective Services. The child-losing SCs go to places like the Bears Law and Forensic Science Team...

http://thebearslawteam.wixsite.com/thebearslawteam/about

The skinny guy who looks like he does too much meth is Ronnie Davis, who as far as I know is still in prison for a very long string of offenses that stem back to a woman going to Ronnie's commune in Florida to "study under him" and being taken hostage because...well, that's what you do when you're a meth-head unlicensed lawyer.

If you are losing your house you might want to go to this guy:

&t=21s

Anthony Williams is currently in prison in Florida for perfecting the law after another judge ordered him to stop representing himself as a "private attorney general." (What this crackhead did will piss you the fuck off: He convinced a lot of people in Hawaii, which seems to be the destination for all good sovereign citizens, that he could cut their mortgage payments in half. All you had to do was pay Anthony Williams half of what your mortgage bill was, and he would get the money to the right people. Unfortunately for the people who fell for this shit, where it went was in his pocket. Everyone who contracted with Anthony Williams to save their house lost it to foreclosure. Oh...I've actually read the cases he rattles off, and they say exactly the opposite of what Anthony Williams thinks they do.)

And let's not get started on Moors.

[treestar]

68. There is no such thing as a law license!

And he can cite to prove it!

[jmowreader]

70. He isnt the only one claiming that

And then there is the “original 13th Amendment” thing. A very long time ago, they proposed adding an amendment stripping US citizenship from anyone accepting a title from any royal ruler. It wasn’t ever ratified, but it accidentally got added to one company’s published Constitution. Well...sovereign citizens claim that lawyers calling themselves Esquire means they have been enrolled in the British Accredited Registry and that caused them to lose their citizenship... Since judges and prosecutors are lawyers, the Titles of Nobility Amendment means the court is illegitimate prima facie.

You realize if these people spent as much time learning guitar as they do studying this crap, they’d all have gold records now.

[treestar]

71. Oh my! And yes to your last sentence!

It is somehow interesting to follow the twisted "logic."

[Dawson Leery]

22. And this is why Conman's travel bands are illogical.

[WillowTree]

25. Every so often when I'm bored and have a bit of time to kill.......

.......I watch a few "sovereign citizen" videos on YouTube for a laugh. It makes me feel.......normal.

[Mendocino]

36. The Bundy Bunch

rides again.

[dsc]

37. He does have one point

The cops had his plate, a description of his car, so why on earth did they participate in a high speed chase to the point of causing a car crash. I hope the other driver wasn't hurt badly but the cops do bear a non trivial amount of the responsibility for this.

[localroger]

40. They probably suspected the car was stolen

This is often the case when someone nails the gas instead of pulling over, and then having the plate doesn't get you the perp.

[dsc]

41. So what

They put everyone on that road at great risk. It was reprehensible. High speed chases should be limited to cases of serious crimes.

[Old Vet]

47. Come on with that bullshit, he was being pulled over by a police officer, Pull over.

If you've done nothing wrong 99.99% of the time youre told to go on your way. This man is OBVIOUSLY deranged, Let him go on his way because we may have the right plate number to catch him another day, Really? This asshole doesn't believe in traffic laws, Whats to say he had the correct plates on the car in which he almost killed another person fleeing police. And why in the world are they giving this nut a interview at jail on TV to mostly spout his craziness???

[dsc]

48. The lady whose car was hit

just what did she do to deserve what happened to her. This crash was an entirely foreseeable consequence of choosing to chase this guy. yes he should have pulled over but the cops should have backed off. This was a minor crime, they used deadly force, and not even controllable deadly force, against a man who in their knowledge to be charitable stole a car (lets assume he did and the knew it though the only thing we know they know is that he was speeding and didn't pull over). No car theft isn't worth putting ever single driver on the road in jeopardy of life and limb.

[Old Vet]

60. dsc , The police did back off. Notice how long it took for them to catch up......

I was a first responder for a long time(firefighter) and hung around cops a little. When a person just decides to take off when lit up red flags jump out at law enforcement big time. Usually more times then not a person who would do this has got really bad issues or is doing some bad shit IMO. Iam not one for sticking up for cops often but this criminal needed to be brought to justice, And to imply the cops were the reason for the lady being injured is not fair or even make any sense to me. Please accept my apology though for using the word bullshit at you in my original post, That was not fair.

[dsc]

61. They still were chasing him

and frankly they shouldn't have been. It is a miracle this lady was only fairly minorly injured. She did nothing, not a damn thing, and at best she has been minorly injured and majorly inconvenienced in order to catch a speeder. I have no idea what she does for a living and the ability she has to miss work. I have no idea what insurance she has. But she could easily wind up bankrupt because of this. She would hardly be the first. And yes, the cops here bear some fault.

[Hugin]

39. With the acquittal of the Bundys by a Judge in Nevada it's only going to get worse.

I suspect the Federal Prosecutors threw the case on a technicality. Probably at the direction of Sessions.

[grantcart]

51. No they were career prosecutors who did a bad job

Doesn't happen often but it happens.

[eppur_se_muova]

42. YES, this is the same high-speed chase Hannity ended his program with the other night !

Last edited Sat Jan 27, 2018, 02:16 PM - Edit history (1)

Really ironic , no ?

https://upload.democraticunderground.com/100210148865

[shenmue]

54. What a mo-ron

[The_jackalope]

55. I got quite a bit of exposure to that freakazoid "philosophy"

My last wife's previous husband was a fairly sketch creature who was right into it. She and I reunited seven years ago after 30 years apart, and she was well versed in the UCC, flag fringes, names in all caps on documents, what you had to say in court to get off, phony "ambassadorships" and the rest of the "I don't belong to nobody but me" litany.

Luckily it was not central (or even peripheral for that matter) to either her life or ours, and we made it out of LA using real drivers' licences. I successfully deprogrammed her by pointing out that however attractive the philosophy might be, its followers were raving fucking lunatics. And all I had to do to prove my point was to remind her of the dude I'd rescued her from.

She went to her grave believing in chemtrails and the evils of vaccination, though. Win some, lose some. You can make a lot of allowances in the name of True Love.

[LiberalFighter]

57. May he mess up his life without causing harm to others.

[Hoyt]

58. For the most part, ignorant white wingers, gun-strokers, intimidators, and losers.