Even in the extreme world of the militia movement, the Hutaree — eight men and one woman in Michigan accused of plotting to kill police to foment a revolution — stood out, says the Los Angeles Times. They trained with other survivalist groups and attended at least one militia conference in Kentucky. Their neighbors in the militia movement were suspicious of the Hutaree’s Christian ideology and obsession with a coming apocalypse. “It’s just sad,” said Lee Miracle of the Southeast Michigan Volunteer Militia, which included some men who joined the Hutaree. “They kind of drifted away and ended up more with a kind of cult-like group.”
To experts who follow militias, the the Hutaree — and the cool reaction it generally received from other militia groups — is a reminder that the movement is far from monolithic. The best-known militias are mainly concerned with perceived violations of constitutional protections against government power, but there has long been a minority that, like the Hutaree, took a more religious view, said Robert H. Churchill, a University of Hartford professor and author of “To Shake Their Guns in the Tyrant’s Face,” a history of the 1990s militia movement. A federal judge has ordered the nine Hutaree members to remain jailed until trial, calling evidence against them “very disturbing.”