2024: A Record Year for Sovereign Citizen Violence Against Law Enforcement

According to the ADL there have been 31 instances of deadly force violence involving sovereign citizens between 2010 and 2024. However 2024 was one of the most violent years on record for sovereign citizen attacks on law enforcement. Between March and August 2024 alone, sovereign citizens opened fire on police officers in five separate incidents across the United States. One officer was killed. Five more were wounded. None of the attackers survived. That is 16% of the total number of violent incidents happening in a 6 month period.

These incidents underscore what Astute Synthesis has been teaching since 2011: the sovereign citizen threat is not theoretical. It is immediate, it is growing, and it specifically targets the men and women who enforce the law. Beyond the death of the officers, the tragedy of these events is how much we knew prior to the acts of violence.

Polk County, Florida — April 27, 2024

Kyran Caples, 26, who identified himself as a Moorish Sovereign Citizen under the name "Kmac El Bey," was found parked in a closed city park after midnight by Polk County Sheriff's deputies responding to burglary concerns. He refused to cooperate, barely rolling his window down, and identified himself as a Moorish sovereign citizen. When additional deputies arrived and attempted to remove Caples from his vehicle, he opened fire.

Lieutenant Chad Anderson was struck in the left arm, the bullet traveling into his chest cavity and lodging between his heart and spinal column — fractions of an inch from paralysis or death. Deputy Craig Smith was shot twice in the right arm. Both deputies were hospitalized in the ICU. Caples was shot and killed at the scene. Deputies found three firearms in his vehicle.

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd noted the most important detail: had Caples simply identified himself, the most he would have faced was a citation for being in a closed park. "He was not a target; he was not a problem until he made himself a problem."

Lieutenant Anderson returned to light duty in late 2025 — nearly 18 months after the shooting.

Dallas, Texas — August 29, 2024

Dallas Police Officer Darron Burks was sitting in his patrol car in a community center parking lot between calls when Corey Cobb-Bey, 30, approached him on foot. Cobb-Bey briefly spoke to Officer Burks through the driver-side window while recording the encounter on his cellphone, then pulled out a handgun and shot Officer Burks at point-blank range, killing him.

Cobb-Bey then retrieved a shotgun from his own vehicle and waited for responding officers. When they arrived, he opened fire again, wounding two more officers — one critically. After a 20-mile pursuit, Cobb-Bey stopped and approached officers with his shotgun raised. Six officers fired, killing him.

Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia described the killing of Officer Burks as an "ambush" and an "execution." Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson called it "an attack on our city, our families, and our way of life."

Investigation by the ADL's Center on Extremism found that Cobb-Bey had made numerous filings and social media posts indicating he was a member of the Moorish Science Temple with documented sovereign citizen beliefs. Just weeks before the killing, he had posted a video on Instagram displaying a 9mm handgun and a semiautomatic shotgun.

The ADL’s findings are important and a tragic theme within the law enforcement community: long before this event there were signs that this murderer was an extremist and law enforcement missed it. The result is the tragic loss of life in the death of Officer Burks.

What This Means for Training

Both incidents share characteristics:

- Both attackers were Moorish sovereign citizens

- Both had armed themselves in anticipation of a confrontation

- Neither incident began as a high-risk call

Traffic stops and routine encounters are where sovereign citizens are most dangerous — because officers often don't know what they're walking into. The goal of Astute Synthesis training is to make sure they do.

If your agency hasn't trained on sovereign citizens recently, 2024 is the reason to schedule it now.