Standoff Suspects Were Taken Down With Sonic Blast

WAKEFIELD, MA — Police used a sonic blast to incapacitate most of the Rise of the Moors suspects in the Interstate 95 standoff earlier this month, according to Wakefield's chief of police.

Chief Steven Skory appeared Monday night before the Town Council to provide an update on the July 3 incident that shut down I-95 for hours and resulted in a localized lockdown.

Skory said three Wakefield police officers assisted a state trooper who first came upon the 11 armed men on the side of the highway in the early morning hours. When the trooper asked for the men's licenses to drive or carry weapons, they "took up the sovereign attitude that they did not have to adhere by our laws," according to the chief.

The trooper and Wakefield police spent about 1 hour and 40 minutes speaking to the men until informing them they would likely be arrested. At that point, three of the men started loading weapons and eight others went into the woods, prompting the call to the regional SWAT team.

Skory said the wooded area the men went into is vast, backing up to the Subaru of Wakefield, Parker Road, Elm Street and running the length of the commuter rail down North Avenue. The response team set up a perimeter, but police still had only a few dozen officers. The call was soon made for more backup — about 150 more officers from the North Eastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council responded.

Two of the suspects at some point made their way to North Avenue and were arrested near the Wakefield Municipal Gas & Light building. One of the men had a handgun, both had full fatigues and body armor.

When the remaining suspects went back to their vehicles on the side of the highway, police decided to move on them.

The Wakefield Department of Public Works put plows on dump trucks and blocked the highway in case the suspects tried to flee. Police then deployed a Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD), a high-pitch alarm that temporarily incapacitates people, and took the remaining nine suspects into custody.

There were no injuries.

The suspects professed to be part of the Rise of the Moors, a group that adheres to sovereign citizen ideology and is linked to a larger movement the Southern Poverty Law Center calls extremist.

Ten of the men appeared in a series of bizarre court hearings last week in which many of them denied legal counsel, broke into outbursts and generally rebuked the authority of the court.

Six of the suspects were ordered held without bail Friday. Four more are due in court again Tuesday. One suspect, a 17-year-old, is going through juvenile court proceedings.

Mike Carraggi can be reached at mike.carraggi@patch.com. Follow him on Twitter @PatchCarraggi. Subscribe to Wakefield Patch for free local news and alerts and like us on Facebook.