Militia member 'filled with rage,' plotted ambush

The Grand Rapids Press ^ | Friday, October 17, 2003 | Ed White

[FourPeas]

Militia member 'filled with rage,' plotted ambush

Friday, October 17, 2003

By Ed White
The Grand Rapids Press

It was a rural arsenal fit for war.

After the peaceful arrest of a Cadillac-area man, authorities who searched his 40-acre compound discovered a stunning collection of firepower, including an anti-aircraft gun capable of firing 550 rounds per minute up to four miles away.

A van and a Jeep Cherokee, described by the suspect as his "war wagons," had machine guns inside, with one "locked, loaded and ready to go," Assistant U.S. Attorney Lloyd Meyer said.

Agents found an underground bunker, thousands of rounds of ammunition, hundreds of pounds of gunpowder and manuals on guerrilla warfare, "booby traps" and explosives.

There were chilling pictures of President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with the cross-hairs of a high-

see MILITIA, A4

powered rifle scope drawn over them, Meyer said.

Norman Somerville, 43, was arrested last week on federal gun and drug charges as he shopped at Home Depot in Cadillac. Authorities then spent the weekend combing his property in Wexford County's Antioch Township, about 20 miles northwest of Cadillac.

Details of the search were disclosed in a court document filed Thursday in federal court in Grand Rapids, four days before a judge will decide whether Somerville should remain in jail while his case is pending.

Somerville was "filled with rage and intended to ambush people, mowing them down in a hail of machine-gun bullets," Meyer said, quoting informants. He belongs to a "self-styled radical militia unit" whose members are upset over the death of Scott Woodring, the prosecutor said.

Woodring was the Newaygo County man fatally shot by state police during the summer, days after a trooper died while trying to serve him with an arrest warrant.

State police were told in September that Somerville wanted to cause a car accident, then "ambush and kill" any responding officers with a machine gun mounted in his Jeep, Meyer wrote in the court document.

An unidentified source, described as one of Somerville's "trusted associates," feared he had become "mentally unbalanced and would kill an innocent person or be killed," Meyer said.

Somerville may face additional charges linked to the search of his property, although Meyer declined to elaborate.

Two years ago, Somerville moved to Wexford County from elsewhere in northern Michigan. He served in the Army from 1978 to 1984 and was trained as an intelligence analyst assigned to the elite Special Forces.

During a brief court appearance last week in Grand Rapids, Somerville said: "The people will have their day. ... There's a quiet civil war going on in the country."

In Antioch Township, five miles outside Mesick, neighbors said he is not the type to share a cup of sugar.

"We told our kids to stay off his property. There was gunfire a lot," said Lynda Sherburne, a former township clerk who lives nearby. "Who knows where the stray bullets are going.

"He got angry very easily. No contact with him was the best contact."

Sherburne said her nephew's house shook as state and federal authorities detonated explosives found on Somerville's property.

"I don't think anyone realized he was stockpiling back there," she said.

[tpaine]

Let's see if I have this right so far, 'vet':

You think think its a grievious crime to say POTUS Bush is an idiot and deserved to be in the crosshairs of a target photo.

You think no one should say VPOTUS Cheney abused the American people.


You think anyone that claims SECDEF Rumsfeld is an idiot and deserved to be in the crosshairs of a target photo should be jailed.


You think there is something incongruent about Bibles, marijuana, and cohabitation outside marriage.


Is that a fair summary ?

Would you classify your political leanings as Authoritarian, Statist, or ?

[Poohbah]

Marxist-Rastafarian????? please explain

Communal ownership of the doobies.

[tpaine]

So far, you've argued that anyone who argues that

(a) Bush is an idiot,

(b) Cheney is an evil arch-conspirator,

(c) Rumsfeld's an idiot, and

(d) it's all about Halliburton.

is a "Marxist-Rastafarian".


That makes you look like a clown, poo.

[Poohbah]

How many times have you standed on a street corner trying to get people to regester to vote? I can't tell you the number of times we did this......so i guess this would make me what now????

For all I know, you could be a yellow-dog Democrat. You spew the standard leftist tripe hawked by the 9 Democrat candidates, and you blame everyone else for your woes...well, you SOUND like a Democrat.

[FreedomCalls]

OK, we've got that settled. Does a state have the right to own a nuclear weapon -- as a part of its National Guard arsenal or otherwise?

[Poohbah]

OK, we've got that settled. Does a state have the right to own a nuclear weapon -- as a part of its National Guard arsenal or otherwise?

No. Nuclear weapons release authority belongs to the President of the United States or his constitutionally designated successors if the President is dead or unavailable.

In the good old days of yore, some National Guard units operated Nike-Ajax. However, the officers in command of those units were Regular Army, the weapons were owned by the AEC and entrusted to the regular US military custodial units, and the Guard units were on permanent federal callup for the duration of the mission.

[FreedomCalls]

OK, how about the other direction. Does a superstate like the European Union or NATO have a right to own nuclear weapons?

[hattend]

K, I want one.

I used to work on those little miniguns in my first job in the Air Force. They were in pods on AT-38Bs.

[Poohbah]

OK, how about the other direction. Does a superstate like the European Union or NATO have a right to own nuclear weapons?

If the member states are dumb enough to agree to the idea, yes.

I consider it singularly foolish, however.

[FreedomCalls]

How small a country is too small to possess nuclear weapons? Is it legal for Tuvalu to own them? How about Andorra?

[Poohbah]

Do your questions actually have a point, or are you some grungy wannabe filmmaker searching for existentialism through a haze of bong smoke or something?

[tpaine]

Thanks for your input lisa. -- And watch your back out there on the farm for 'poovet' types.
-- They are everywhere.

[tpaine]

He may be trying to establish whether you have guts enough to admit you're wrong about 'regulating' our right to bear arms.

[Poohbah]

Thank you for your input.

[tpaine]

Thank you poo..
Feel free to call on me the next time you get confused.

[Cultural Jihad]

yes that was him..... there were 133 bullet holes in the van he was in ... all from the outside... they never even gave him a chance... they just walked up and opened fire...should make every American angry!!!!

All for merely sleeping in a car, too! Sheesh. The nerve of some law enforcement officers! You'd think by the way they acted that Mr. Woodbrain was a wanted fugitive who murdered a peace officer who went to peacefully serve him with a self-governing constitutional warrant signed by a lawful judge to publicly plead his conscience or something. This American is angry!!!!!!