Murder of Dallas Police Officer Marks Latest in String of Violent Sovereign Citizen Encounters with Law Enforcement

The murder of a police officer in Dallas last month by a suspected adherent of the sovereign citizen movement became the latest in an alarming rise of violent incidents this year involving individuals who subscribe to the extreme right-wing, anti-government ideology and law enforcement officials.

In fact, 2024 has been a record year for violent encounters between police and sovereign citizens. In the space of just six months between March and August 2024, sovereign citizens opened fire on police officers in five separate incidents, while in a sixth incident, police had to shoot an armed sovereign citizen after he tried to break his way into an airport and threatened them.

The latest confrontation occurred on the evening of August 29, 2024, as Dallas police officer Darron Burks was sitting in his police cruiser, waiting for his next call. He was approached by a man later identified as Corey Cobb-Bey, 30, who had parked his own vehicle nearby. After a brief discussion, Cobb-Bey suddenly pulled out a pistol and shot Burks at point-blank range in his patrol car, killing him.

Cobb-Bey then armed himself with a shotgun from his vehicle and waited for police to respond to the shooting. When additional officers arrived at the scene, Cobb-Bey fired on them as well, wounding two more officers, one critically, before finally fleeing in his vehicle with police in pursuit. After a chase of 20 miles, Cobb-Bey finally stopped.  As law enforcement officers exited their vehicles, Cobb-Bey emerged from his own vehicle carrying his shotgun, which he pointed at the police. Multiple officers fired at Cobb-Bey, killing him. Dallas police subsequently characterized the killing of Burks as an “ambush” and an “execution.”

An investigation of the killer by the ADL Center on Extremism (COE) revealed that Cobb-Bey had made filings and numerous online posts indicating his adherence to the anti-government extremist sovereign citizen movement, as well as to the religious sect Moorish Science Temple, which has considerable overlap with sovereign citizens.

The exact motive for Cobb-Bey’s murder of Officer Burks is unclear, but the extreme anti-government beliefs of the sovereign citizen movement can greatly heighten any antagonism adherents may have for law enforcement.

Since 2020, the sovereign citizen movement has enjoyed a significant surge of popularity, capitalizing on opposition to government responses to the COVID-19 outbreak and on success in recruiting from among the more fanatic MAGA supporters and from the conspiracy movement QAnon, as well as its ability to use social media to spread its anti-government message. The chances that law enforcement officers might unexpectedly encounter a potentially violent sovereign citizen in the course of their duties has correspondingly grown as well.

Notably, five of the six incidents this year took place in Florida or Texas, two populous states with a large and longstanding sovereign citizen presence.

In addition to the Dallas shooting, the five other incidents so far in 2024 included the following:

• Melbourne, Florida, June 28, 2024: A sovereign citizen, John Jay Niebuhr, attempted to drive his vehicle through a secure gate on the perimeter of the Melbourne Orlando International Airport. Police reported that when responding officers made contact with Niebuhr, the sovereign — who was armed — threatened the officers with a weapon, prompting them to fire at him, mortally wounding him. Prior to this incident, the Palm Bay Police Department had distributed a “situational awareness bulletin” about Niebuhr to its officers that described his previous encounters with police and his claim to be a sovereign citizen.
• Hamilton County, Florida, May 15, 2024: During an armed standoff, self-described sovereign citizen Joseph A. Ogle opened fire on deputies from three sheriff’s departments attempting to serve an arrest warrant on him at his home on charges related to alleged violent threats. According to law enforcement, Ogle refused to exit his home and eventually started firing at deputies and their vehicles. Ogle did eventually leave his home, carrying a handgun, at which point he was fatally shot by a SWAT team member from Alachua County.
• Lakeland, Florida, April 27, 2024: Kyran Caples, also known as Kmac El Bey, opened fire on deputies who encountered him parked in his car at night in a closed city park. According to police, Caples refused to engage or cooperate with the initial deputy who encountered him. More deputies arrived after the first one called for backup; together, they tried to remove Caples from the vehicle. Caples allegedly pulled out a gun and fired at the deputies, wounding two of them, one critically.  The deputies killed Caples in return fire. Police say Caples was a sovereign citizen and had several guns in his vehicle at the time of the encounter. 
• Harris County, Texas, April 14, 2024: During a routine traffic stop, Harris County sheriff’s deputies encountered Patrick Hurst, a self-declared sovereign citizen. Hurst refused to cooperate with the traffic stop, ignoring requests to leave the vehicle.  After an hour, Hurst—who already had a felony warrant for evading police—simply drove off, with the deputies in pursuit. Shortly thereafter, a deputy performed a PIT maneuver to stop Hurst’s car, upon which Hurst exited with a firearm and fired at deputies on the scene. Deputies returned fire, killing him. One of the bullets fired in the firefight wounded a bystander getting groceries.
• Memphis, Tennessee, March 8, 2024: Self-described sovereign citizen Geronimo Kee allegedly opened fire on a Memphis police officer during a traffic stop. The officer, who was wounded in the encounter but survived, had pulled Kee over for speeding. According to law enforcement, Kee was uncooperative and refused to sign the citation — as is typical for sovereign citizens. After spending considerable time trying to persuade Kee, the officer broke the driver’s window to open the door, at which point Kee fired at the officer, hitting him several times. Kee fled the scene in his vehicle, later abandoning it, but was soon tracked down and arrested, charged with attempted first-degree murder, employing a firearm during a dangerous felony, intentionally evading arrest in a vehicle and speeding. During his first court appearance, Kee made the common sovereign citizen claim that the court had no jurisdiction over him because it was an admiralty or maritime court.

According to COE statistics, there have been at least 31 incidents in the U.S. over the past 15 years (2010-2024) in which sovereign citizens have shot at law enforcement officers or law enforcement officers have had to shoot at sovereigns who posed some sort of threat.

The six incidents that occurred in 2024 doubled the previous yearly high of three — and 2024 still has four months to go before it is over.

These statistics illustrate both the considerable threat of violence that sovereign citizens pose to law enforcement as well as the growth of the movement itself in recent years.