Dezi Chicken Freeman, 56, is the topic of a significant manhunt in Victoria, Australia, after allegedly killing two law enforcement officials and injuring a 3rd throughout a raid on his property. Born Desmond Christopher Filby, Freeman is a self-proclaimed “sovereign citizen” who rejects authorities authority and has an extended historical past of clashes with police and courts.
Freeman’s radicalization accelerated throughout Australia’s draconian Covid lockdowns. He refused to put on masks, rejected vaccinations, and railed towards government restrictions, calling police “terrorist thugs” and evaluating them to Nazis. Whereas Australian authorities noticed this defiance as harmful, many American conservatives would view such resistance as an inexpensive rejection of violations of primary freedoms and rights.
His historical past with the regulation is sort of colourful. Freeman as soon as tried to arrest a Justice of the Peace in courtroom and joined an effort to cost the state premier with treason, a case that was rapidly dismissed.
Courtroom information present repeated driving expenses, frequent insults towards judges, and makes an attempt to assert authorized immunity as a “sovereign citizen.” Freeman is believed to be an skilled bushman, conversant in native wilderness and caves, complicating the search. Police warn he’s “closely armed” and will have stolen the officers’ weapons.
Australian authorities stress that the sovereign citizen motion poses a danger of violence, having gained traction in the course of the nation’s Covid lockdowns. However the motion will not be distinctive to Australia. It additionally exists in the USA.
The U.S. sovereign citizen motion is a loosely organized anti-government ideology that first emerged within the Seventies and has since developed over a number of a long time. Its adherents consider the federal authorities is illegitimate and infrequently declare they’ll declare themselves “sovereign,” inserting themselves outdoors the attain of most federal, state, and native legal guidelines.
They sometimes argue that the “actual” Structure ended with the unique 13 amendments, that later amendments such because the 14th or sixteenth are invalid, or that the federal authorities operates as an organization slightly than a legit authority.
The motion’s roots may be traced to earlier tax protest teams, conspiracy theories about banking and financial techniques, and misinterpretations of admiralty regulation and the Uniform Industrial Code.
In apply, sovereign residents steadily interact in what specialists name “paper terrorism,” submitting frivolous lawsuits, liens, and pseudo-legal paperwork to harass authorities officers, regulation enforcement, and personal residents. Different frequent techniques embrace refusing to acquire driver’s licenses or automobile registrations, creating their very own identification papers, refusing to pay taxes, and claiming diplomatic immunity.
Some sovereign residents have rejected U.S. authorized tender and tried to create their very own types of cash or cost techniques, reflecting their broader rejection of federal authority and their perception that the present financial system is illegitimate. They’ve tried to bypass the usage of Federal Reserve notes by way of varied means, together with selling the usage of gold and silver cash, arguing that solely treasured metals represent “actual” cash beneath the Structure.
Others have advocated direct barter techniques as a option to alternate items and providers with out counting on official forex. A smaller quantity have gone additional by making an attempt to situation their very own personal cash, certificates, or digital currencies, although these efforts have all the time failed to realize widespread acceptance.
A number of notable instances have highlighted this development. The Liberty Greenback case, led by Bernard von NotHaus, concerned the creation of silver cash and warehouse receipts that have been marketed as a substitute for Federal Reserve notes. Different incidents have centered on “redemption” schemes, the place adherents claimed they may entry secret authorities accounts by way of advanced pseudo-legal monetary devices.
Sovereign residents typically face authorized penalties for his or her actions. Creating or circulating different forex can violate federal counterfeiting legal guidelines, whereas refusing to acknowledge official cash steadily results in tax evasion expenses. Underneath the Structure, the federal authorities has unique authority over authorized tender.
Their rejection of official forex is rooted within the perception that the Federal Reserve system is unconstitutional, that Federal Reserve notes should not “actual” cash, and that the USA ought to have remained on the gold commonplace. Others see paper cash itself as illegitimate authorities management. Though these concepts stay central to the motion, efforts to behave on them have constantly resulted in legal expenses and failed experiments in different forex.
The FBI has recognized sovereign residents as a home terrorism menace as a result of some adherents have attacked police throughout visitors stops or courtroom proceedings. Nevertheless, most depend on bureaucratic techniques, equivalent to clogging up courts with nuisance filings and counterfeit paperwork, slightly than violence. Courts at each degree have repeatedly dismissed their arguments as frivolous, noting that the motion’s theories don’t have any foundation in constitutional or statutory regulation.
Current instances illustrate the sample. In Could 2025, 33-year-old Devonte Arthur was arrested in Richland County, South Carolina, for driving with a counterfeit license plate typical of sovereign citizen claims. That very same month in Richmond, police arrested one other self-proclaimed sovereign citizen who led officers on a slow-speed pursuit, refused to acknowledge their authority, and created a standoff on the Bay Bridge Toll Plaza that ended solely after chemical brokers have been deployed.
In response to the Southern Poverty Legislation Heart, 2024 noticed six violent incidents involving sovereign residents concentrating on native and state regulation enforcement, leaving one officer useless, three hospitalized with gunshot wounds, and 4 extra injured. Not one of the attackers survived.
Those that did, wound up in jail. Curtis Gregory Smith Jr. of Middletown, Pennsylvania, convicted and sentenced to 56 years for possessing firearms, physique armor, and 1000’s of rounds of “NATO grade” ammunition, and Wayne R. Lund of Oak Park Heights, Minnesota, who was caught with pipe bombs throughout a visitors cease, claiming they have been for his “rocket pastime.”