Officials Sought Hutaree’s Aid

The FBI may have just charged the Michigan militia group Hutaree with plotting to kill law-enforcement officers and their families; before that, however, law-enforcement officers were actually seeking out Hutaree’s assistance in local investigations. Just days before the arrests of nine Hutaree members, AnnArbor.com reported that “Bridgewater Supervisor Jolea Mull has twice sought help from militia members this year”—including members of Hutaree—“to search for missing township residents.” “It certainly seems poorly advised to be kind, to ask people who believe in completely false conspiracy theories and see the government largely as an enemy to help in law enforcement matters,” the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Mark Potok said at the time, warning that militiamen were involved in a “huge number of domestic terror plots.”