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The Posse Comitatus is an intermittently active, loosely organized group of "Christian Identity" activists dedicated to survivalism, vigilantism, and anti-government agitation. Following the pseudo-religious tenets of the "Identity" movement, Posse members typically proclaim Jews to be the "synagogue of Satan," blacks and other people of color to be subhuman "mud races," and Northern European whites to be the "Chosen People" of Biblical prophecy. The name of the group translates from Latin to mean "power of the county," and the Posse believes that all governmental power is rooted at the county, not Federal, level.

Because Posse members believe that the Federal government is controlled by "enemies" - often meaning Jews - they resist paying taxes, as well as other duties of law abiding citizenship. Some members of the group have even refused to apply for driver's licenses, because this would imply submission to an "illegitimate, subversive" authority. Elements of the Posse's ideology, most notably its fierce hostility to Federal authority are echoed among today's militias.

The Posse has attracted Klan members and other anti-Semites. Among the avid promoters of the Posse during its period of development in the 1970s were Arch Roberts' Committee to Restore the Constitution, based in Fort Collins, Colorado; Western Front of Los Angeles, run by collaborators of the late anti-Jewish agitator Gerald L.K. Smith; and ex-neo-Nazi and Klansman David Duke of Louisiana, more recently head of the NAAWP (National Association for the Advancement of White People).

In 1983, when active Posse member Gordon Kahl murdered two Federal marshals in North Dakota and became a fugitive, the group attracted nationwide attention. The marshals had come to arrest Kahl for a parole violation in connection with an earlier conviction for non-payment of taxes. Kahl later died in a shootout with Arkansas law enforcement officials in which a local sheriff was also killed; Kahl became a martyr to the Posse, the Aryan Nations and other extremists.

In October 1987, retired army colonel William Potter Gale - one of the founders of the Posse movement and the California-based Committee of the States - along with four associates from the Committee, was convicted of threatening the lives of Internal Revenue Service agents and a Nevada state judge. The five had been charged with conspiracy, mailing threatening letters, and attempting to interfere with the administration of internal revenue laws. All five were sentenced in January 1988 to Federal prison for a term of one year and one day. Gale died in April of that year, at age 71.

James Wickstrom, an Identity minister and a Posse leader, was convicted in 1991 in Pittsburgh of plotting to distribute $100,000 in counterfeit bills to white supremacists at the 1988 Aryan Nations World Congress. While in prison, Wickstrom transferred his leadership role to "Identity" preacher Mark Thomas of Pennsylvania, who was recently linked to the Freeman brothers, two neo-Nazi Skinheads charged with murdering their parents and younger brother; the brothers were reported to have attended gatherings at Thomas's compound. By the end of 1994, Wickstrom had been released from prison. He and Thomas are reported to now be rivals.

In March 1995, the Justice Department charged three members of Family Farm Preservation, an offshoot of the Posse Comitatus, with attempting to distribute $65 million in counterfeit money orders. The case is pending. (Anti-Defamation League, 29-30)

The Posse Comitatus merged, as it were, with the Aryan Nations.

Posse Comitatus. Added 9/19/01. August Kreis, maintainer of the Posse Comitatus Web site, issued a new statement to replace his initial statement hoping the World Trade Centers would burn to the ground. In his September 17 statement, Kreis stated: "If our borders would have been better controlled, or better yet closed, we would have extremely limited or stopped the influx of non-white, non-Christian immigrants into this nation." Kreis stated that if the U.S. wants to end terrorism, it must expel all Jews and non-whites from "OUR Promised Land, this New JerUSAlem," as well as ending support to Israel, closing the U.S. borders, and minding its own business. Kreis also warned that, "there has been much talk lately of exchanging Freedom for security by this treasonous federal beast system." Kreis declares that he "will NOT blindly be led down the road to their jew World Order totalitarian government."

Looking Forward

In January 2001, with Aryan Nations still operational but its future still in question, Butler named as the group's Acting Staff Leader and Youth Activities Coordinator 21-year-old Shawn Winkler, who already held permits for three marches for the upcoming year, in Sandpoint, Rathdrum and Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. A new telephone hotline was also announced, along with a new webmaster, Pastor August Kreis III, who has also run a Web site for another Identity group, the Posse Comitatus. Based in Pennsylvania, Kreis serves as Ambassador to the seven states in Aryan Nations' northeast region. Butler also defiantly declared that the organization was reverting to its original name, Church of Jesus Christ Christian/Aryan Nations a decision whose legality, or seriousness, is uncertain.

In a letter reporting these changes to followers, Butler wrote: "The loss of Home, Church, personal possessions and automobiles didn't hurt so much as the loss of those who claimed to be friends and comrades in the struggle to awake our people to the terrible fate they and their posterity face....The Legal profession, courts, big business and media are united in the proposition that the White homogeneous population of North Idaho be mongrelized."

In September 2001, the group’s ongoing leadership issue appeared to be resolved when it announced that Butler had chosen Ohio’s Ray Redfeairn as his successor. The selection suggests that the group will remain militant and possibly volatile: Redfeairn has a substantial record of criminal activity, beginning long before his 1997 conviction on weapons charges. In 1979, he shot a police officer several times during a traffic stop, then pleaded guilty by reason of insanity (psychologists described him as a paranoid schizophrenic during the trial) and spent four years in a mental hospital. In 1985, he pleaded guilty to attempted aggravated murder for the shooting and to charges of aggravated robbery for an incident that occurred prior to the shooting. He was released from prison in 1991. The former Klansman has also been convicted for aggravated menacing, disorderly conduct, and at least three times for alcohol-related driving violations. He has also been arrested for allegedly threatening to kill his mother, although she later retracted the charges.

Along with the promotion of Redfeairn, Butler shuffled the titles of two other top lieutenants, naming August Kreis “Director of Information” and Shawn Winkler “Director of Aryan Nation Youth Corps” [sic]. And while Butler will remain the “rock and spiritual leader of Aryan Nations,” according to the group, it also announced plans to establish an “office and church grounds” in Ulysses, Pennsylvania, where Kreis rents several acres of land.