Trending Topics

‘60 Minutes’ focuses on sovereign citizens’ threat to cops

West Memphis Chief Bob Paudert interviewed about fatal shooting of son by sovereign citizens last year

As I have written previously, so-called Sovereign Citizens are an increasingly-concerning segment of the population for law enforcement. Well, they were the subject of segment on CBS’ ‘60 Minutes’ last night.

The segment featured an interview of West Memphis Chief of Police Bob Paudert, whose son, Brandon, was killed last year along with Officer Bill Evans during a traffic stop by sovereign citizen Jerry Kane and his son, Joe. Paudert spoke about the incident, as well as the growing threat posed by sovereign citizens to law enforcement.

Sovereign citizens are anti-government U.S. extremists who don’t pay taxes and ignore requirements like social security cards and drivers licenses. Many believe it is their duty to violently resist ‘instruments of the government’, and there have been a number of recent incidents where officers have been killed or wounded by them.

Watch the segment below.

Doug Wyllie writes police training content on a wide range of topics and trends affecting the law enforcement community. Doug was a co-founder of the Policing Matters podcast and a longtime co-host of the program.

RECOMMENDED FOR YOU