Authorities hesitated to arrest a militia figure for fear of violent standoff

Evidence

Cooper became convinced that he had been targeted by “the Illuminati Socialist President of the United States of America, William Jefferson Clinton,” as well as “by the bogus and unconstitutional Internal Revenue Service.” His confl ict with the latter resulted in an arrest warrant in July 1998. As of fall 2000, the warrant still had not been executed, which resulted in Cooper’s being named a “major fugitive” by the U.S. Marshals Service. The government’s reluctance to arrest Cooper was apparently a refl ection of his confl ict-laden rhetoric: “We are formed as the Constitutional and Lawful unorganized Militia of the State of Arizona and the united [sic] States of America… . By invading the Sovereign jurisdiction of the State of Arizona to attack the Citizens of the State of Arizona the United States has declared war upon the Citizens of the Several States of the Union… . We have drawn our line in the sand.” The warrant was never served, because Cooper was shot and killed by sheriff’s deputies in November 2001 as a result of an incident unrelated to his tax problems. — Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy, 473

Categorization

• SEED: Potential essay angle: how law-enforcement reluctance driven by fear of escalating rhetoric shapes an alleged dissenter’s ‘fugitive’ status and eventual killing.