Militia plotters foiled for planning attacks

Three members of the group, called the North American Militia of Southwestern Michigan, were arrested Wednesday. They were to be arraigned yesterday on firearms charges in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids, assistant federal prosecutor Lloyd Meyer said.

"It's a fringe group, a radical group," Meyer said.

One of the group's former members, Brendon Blasz of Kalamazoo, was sentenced to three years and one month in prison last August for making pipe bombs.

At the time, a leader of the Michigan Militia Corps Wolverines, the state's largest militia group, said Blasz and about a dozen other people from the Battle Creek and Kalamazoo areas had been kicked out a couple of years earlier for advocating violence.

"We thought they were a bunch of bad apples," Wolverines commander Lynn VanHuizen of Muskegon said then.

Arrested Wednesday were Ken Carter, and Bradford Metcalf, both of Battle Creek; and Randy Graham of nearby Springfield. They offered no resistance, Meyer said.

The probe involved the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the FBI, the IRS, federal marshals and other agencies, Meyer said. Details were outlined in an affidavit written by ATF agent Mark Semear.

According to the affidavit, an informant kept investigators aware of the militia's activities beginning in early 1996. Later, an undercover agent infiltrated the group.

Carter established the group and later was elected commander, Semear said in the affidavit. He said some members also were associated with other militia groups.

The informant attended a series of meetings at a Battle Creek coffee shop where plots were hatched, the document said. At one gathering on Nov. 2, 1996, Carter allegedly discussed bombing the intersection of Interstate 94 and U.S. 131 near Kalamazoo.

A couple of weeks later, Carter said he had been waiting for a conflict with the federal government since 1989 and expected thousands of people to join him once it got under way, the affidavit said.

The document did not say how many people belonged to the group. It said Carter told the undercover ATF agent that only one-third of the members attended meetings, and that the others were organized into three-person "cells."

At subsequent meetings, members spoke of assassinating employees of federal agencies and judges, the affidavit said. They established targets for possible attacks, including federal buildings, power facilities, fuel depots and gas stations, it said.

They also discussed taking over a television station to broadcast their message, the document said.

"Members of the militia carry pagers," it said. "In the event of 'war,' codes will be sent to the pagers. The codes stand for certain targets. Militia members would hit the targets and then meet at a rally point for further instructions."

03-20-98