Weapons, Racist Talk Worried Residents Of Alabama Town

COLLINSVILLE, Ala. — Joanne Gunnin refused to pay for the military uniforms he had left at her home unsolicited. Instead, she called the sheriff three times to ask about the armed man squatting in a camper on her property.

But police found no record of the man because Raymond Kirk Dillard used many names. And it was as former U.S. Marine Jeff Osborne that he first talked his way onto the property of 72-year-old Gunnin.

He stayed briefly while hunting for a better spot for his $400 camper, which he painted to blend with the trees and parked under camouflage netting. That was more than a year ago.A little more than a week ago, federal agents and local police raided the camper and four other homes. Agents confiscated more than 100 homemade grenades and arrested five members of the Free Militia, a group charged with, among other things, conspiring to manufacture weapons.

The government says the group was armed and prepared to shoot federal agents on sight. Their court-appointed attorneys say these men were nothing more than survivalists and country boys who liked to blow stuff up.

A government agent has testified that the group planned to target Hispanics in the small town of Remlap about 20 miles northeast of Birmingham. But Dillard "wouldn't have the gas money to get to Remlap,'' said his attorney, James Boudreaux.

The Southern Poverty Law Center tracks 22 hate groups in Alabama and one militia. But no one there had heard of the Free Militia until Dillard was arrested in Collinsville.

Dillard often encountered Hispanics in Collinsville. Hispanic families come for work at Cagle's Poultry Processing, the largest employer in town. And they have swelled the school rolls. Collinsville High, which runs kindergarten through 12th grade, climbed from 476 students in 1995 to 643 last year.

According to state records, Hispanic students made up more than half of the third-graders last year.

At first, Dillard worked around Gunnin's property, doing odd jobs, painting her house. He lived without electricity or water, often hitch-hiking from one end of town to the other, other times walking along the train tracks in woolen Confederate grays. He painted pictures on saw blades and built model trains. He talked about how he never got along with his father.

But a few months ago, when Dillard attempted to appoint Gunnin as the nurse for his militia, she ceased feeling sorry for him. Gunnin grew annoyed when he dropped off medical manuals: She had been the director of nursing at Huntsville Hospital in the 1970s and didn't need his textbooks.

"I tried to get him to tell me the name of his organization. He said, 'We're just a group that will be here after the government falls apart,''' she said.

Gunnin grew wary. Dillard often carried an old Army-issue 9 mm pistol. He could be persuasive, and she had heard him talk vaguely of weapons and organizing.

Then, a couple of months ago, he began speaking against Mexican immigrants. Gunnin banned him from her home. She wanted him off her property but didn't know what to do.

"This group was completely under the radar screen. We knew of none of the people arrested,'' said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery.

Potok oversees the center's program that tracks anti-government militias and hate groups. He said the center is tracking only one potential anti-government militia in Alabama, an offshoot of the Constitution Party.

He said militias began to die out after 2000, dropping from 858 nationwide in 1996 to 147 now. "They're typically hard-line anti-government and eaten up with conspiracy theories.''

He said 22 hate groups in the state have focused almost exclusively on immigration issues in recent years; some of those chapters are in northeast Alabama, where the Ku Klux Klan still holds annual rallies in DeKalb County. "It's a relatively active area of the state.''

But stockpiling food and weapons doesn't equal plans for a violent racist assault, Don Colee said.

Colee is the court-appointed attorney for Bonnell Hughes, who has been indicted as a captain in the Free Militia. As far as attacking Hispanics, Colee said, "I don't believe there's going to be any evidence of that whatsoever.''

Instead, some of the men may have had intentions of surviving some anarchic future, he said, "where folks might be coming up your driveway trying to take your food away from you and the government won't be able to protect you.

Collinsville is a small town of fewer than 2,000 people, an old rail depot halfway between Birmingham and Chattanooga, Tenn., today known for its chief attraction, Trade Day.

Every Saturday tens of thousands of shoppers descend on a 65-acre flea market. It's a short walk from Dillard's camper.

There, Dillard, introducing himself as Jeff Osborne, traded and sold military surplus supplies.

Last year federal agents charged 11 men with selling unregistered guns at Trade Day and at another flea market in Dutton. In 2001, federal agents charged four men with selling guns to minors at Trade Day.

It was there that Dillard, swapping opinions and gear with like-minded men, met some of the people who would later be called the Free Militia.

For police, the case began among white supremacists a half-hour's drive down U.S. 11 in Reece City, just outside Gadsden.

A member of the Aryan Nation had decided to use a homemade explosive to execute two people. An informant leaked the plan. Law enforcement agents thwarted the effort and detonated the bomb. "Some of the stuff we did on that led to working on this,'' said Ray Cumby of the state fire marshal's office.

Last week, beneath a state trooper helicopter, Cumby picked through the remnants of Dillard's camper: mounds of Army backpacks, canteens, empty explosive canisters, military meal packets, gas cans, a stack of fatigues.

Standing nearby, Jimmy Jones of the DeKalb County Sheriff's Department said officers worked on the case nearly three months. "We got the core group,'' Jones said. "Is it over? It's still under investigation.''

The trooper helicopter overhead searched for marijuana plants and concealed trails.

Near Jones sat a blue dish with water and a pull toy for Dillard's bulldog, Hickbert. A fist-sized tarantula remained trapped in a small mason jar. A head-and-shoulders target lay riddled with apparent accuracy.

A table sat by the railroad tracks, the top scrawled with seeming hints to buried treasure, 368 paces from the henhouse to the flag, 1,270 paces from the railroad crossing to the cemetery.

Not much is known about Dillard's past, not by the U.S. attorney's office in Birmingham nor his own attorney.

Raymond Kirk Dillard, 46, did serve as a lance corporal in the U.S. Marine Reserve from 1982 to 1984, Boudreaux said. Dillard also did a stint in federal prison over a gun charge in the late 1990s, he said.

Dillard, aka Jeff Osborne, aka Randall Hayes, aka John Dillard, became a fugitive when he quit reporting to his probation officer.

Jill Ellis, spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office, said Dillard was convicted in 1996 of possessing a short-barreled shotgun. In 1987, he was arrested for burglary in Jefferson County.

In Collinsville, he didn't raise many suspicions at first. A neighbor, Wayne Dunn, said the Confederate uniform seemed odd, but he still had Dillard over for Thanksgiving dinner.

Next to Dillard's camper, beyond a wall of small trees, sit two mobile homes. There, Brandy, who asked that her last name be withheld, lives with two children.

She knew that Dillard lived without electricity and water, so she invited him over to eat occasionally. "He was always nice and would never say anything racist.'' Brandy's husband is Mexican.

In Collinsville, small bungalows and stately old farmhouses sit near a barbecue joint and a large pawnshop. At the traffic light, the two blocks of downtown rest to the right.

But the feed mill is closed. The Cricket Theater is shut. Empty windows line old storefronts. At $21,200 a year, the town's median income is roughly half the national average.

But some new businesses thrive. They have names like Los Reyes Carneria y Panderia, La Princesa Boutique and San Martin Tienda.

At a travel agency catering to Hispanics, Edgar Padilla worked the phones. Most Guatemalan and Mexican residents are reluctant to talk about the alleged plot. "Everybody heard that,'' Padilla said. "It's a small town.'' He said the main reaction was surprise, because Collinsville is peaceful.

Hispanic athletes have propelled the Collinsville High soccer team through the state playoffs.

"If it wasn't for the Hispanics, we wouldn't have a soccer team,'' said Roger Dutton while wielding clippers at Cook's Barbershop. "They helped the town a lot, as far as the economy goes.''

Joanne Gunnin had given a group of Guatemalans permission to play soccer on an unused field she owned across from Dillard's camper. They began to tend the field.

According to neighbors, James McElroy, alleged to be a private in the militia, yanked a Hispanic man from a mower there. The player ran away.

Wayne Dunn, who lives behind the field, said his nephew called police. McElroy gave the lawn mower back to the soccer players before police arrived, according to Dunn and another neighbor.

"He needed to make up his mind whose side he wanted be on, the Mexicans or Americans,'' Dunn said. "The main thing (Dillard) always told me was there was going to a war between the Mexicans and whites.''

After the incident, Dillard said McElroy deserved a medal for what he did. That's when Gunnin told Dillard not to come to her house anymore.

James Earl Craig, who lives in the woods behind Dillard's camper, said he would nod along as Dillard spoke of fighting in Vietnam. Craig didn't think that Dillard was old enough to have been there — Dillard wasn't — but Craig didn't want to argue.

Dillard also liked to speak about wars and guns. He usually carried a 9 mm semiautomatic pistol, an old Army-issue Browning tucked in a shoulder holster, Craig said. Finally, Craig told him not to come around anymore. "I love guns myself, but nothing like that. I just didn't want him around me.''

Craig wondered about the arsenal, though. "He had to have some money. He had to have somebody with money backing him. He didn't have nothing.''

The informant reported to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that the Free Militia was making and stockpiling grenades.

The indictment lists numerous other charges, including possession of a machine gun, a homemade silencer, a short-barreled shotgun, 68 homemade explosive projectiles and about 100 marijuana plants.

The informant also mentioned a man calling himself the colonel, a man identified in court papers as Bill Hudson. Gunnin said she met the colonel, who also asked her if he could stay on her land on weekends. She told him no.

The investigation is continuing, said ATF special agent Larry Cooper when asked about the whereabouts of the colonel. "We are still looking at other individuals that are associated with the Free Militia. ... Some have titles and some don't, but they do have an association.''

None of the others arrested were fugitives. Most had clean records. None resisted arrest.

Bonnell "Buster'' Hughes, 57, is an independent printer who has been married for three decades. He met Dillard at Trade Day. According to the indictment, he had the machine gun and most of the grenades at his house near Crossville.

According to the indictment, filed last Thursday in federal court in Birmingham, Hughes was a captain in the Free Militia.

His court-appointed attorney, Colee, said Hughes had "never been in trouble a day in his life — never even a speeding ticket.''

Randy Cole, 22, who lived with his father and brother in Gadsden, recently served in the military. Gunnin said Cole recently returned from Iraq. The government informant said Cole showed the others how to weld holes in grenade shells. No weapons were found at Cole's home.

James "Jay'' McElroy, 20, did a short stint in the military, according to his attorney. McElroy is charged with using marijuana and, along with Dillard, is charged with intent to sell the drug. He lived in a tent a few hundred yards from Dillard's camper and is listed as the militia's private in court documents.

Cunningham has lived there his entire life, spending the last 20 years working as a handyman for landowners. Cunningham is charged with hiding 24 homemade grenades in the woods behind his home. He's also charged with having a shotgun with a barrel less than 18 inches long.

"My client had no problems with Hispanics, and no problems with the government, either,'' said his attorney, Greg Reid. Gunnin and others are circulating a petition in support of Cunningham.

A sixth man, Michael Wayne Bob, was arrested at his parents' house in Trussville. But he has been freed on bond and is not listed as a member of the militia in the indictment.

The informant reported that Dillard tried to sell him some of the homemade hand grenades. He also reported that he and Dillard went to a military surplus store in Bynum to buy 12 grenade hulls and later packed them with powder and hid them under rocks in the woods.

But at a bail hearing last week, ATF agent Adam Nesmith introduced the idea that the Free Militia was planning to gun down Mexicans in Remlap.

"You know what I attribute that to? The fact that 150 law enforcement officers drug the press up there, and they didn't really find anything,'' said Boudreaux, Dillard's court-appointed attorney. "All the sudden there are these allegations that there are these anti-Hispanic sentiments. Surprise.''

No one has shown that the grenades would explode, Boudreaux said, and the rocket launcher for the other explosives was a boat flare gun. He said the marijuana plants were 3 inches tall.

Smith, 53, lives down the road behind Gunnin's house. He said Dillard offered to make him a sergeant, same as his cousin Adam Cunningham. Smith followed Gunnin's example. He kept the unsolicited uniforms that Dillard dropped at his place but refused to reimburse him.

Smith said he was worried about his cousin. Both Smith and Gunnin say Cunningham bonded with Dillard over model trains, not anti-government activities. Cunningham kept an elaborate train set, complete with a cement factory and foundry, in his home. He lived less than a mile north of Dillard's camper.

"There's a thin line in friendship. People will play a game with you and deceive you. It's like a bad preacher,'' Smith said. "A bad preacher, he is charismatic and could lead a people to destruction. I would liken something like this to that.''

As for the younger militia members, Smith said, "If you make them feel like somebody, yes, they are going to walk with you.''

The order denying bond, written by U.S. Magistrate Robert Armstrong, recounts more than 100 homemade grenades, 68 homemade explosives and a fully automatic machine gun.

"The destructive potential of such firepower is obviously great and frightening to the public. The danger these defendants pose to the community however, cannot be measured with certainty, as some of the evidence was vague on the defendants' intent,'' Armstrong wrote.

"There was, however, unspecific talk about attacking illegal Mexicans. There was also testimony that there were orders to shoot if federal agents appeared.''

Armstrong included a footnote after that last line: "Federal agents did come, and there was no resistance by any of the defendants.''

(Challen Stephens is a staff writer for the Huntsville (Ala.) Times and can be contacted at challen.stephens(at)htimes.com.)

Instead, she called the sheriff three times to ask about the armed man squatting in a camper on her property.

Rule #1 when starting your own militia - get the property owner's permission first...

'We're just a group that will be here after the government falls apart,'

"It's Haylter Skaylter, y'all"

“James Earl Craig, who lives in the woods behind Dillard’s camper, said he would nod along as Dillard spoke of fighting in Vietnam. Craig didn’t think that Dillard was old enough to have been there — Dillard wasn’t — but Craig didn’t want to argue.”

I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve come across somebody pretending to be a Vietnam Vet. I’d have a nice pile of cash.

"This group was completely under the radar screen. We knew of none of the people arrested,'' said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery.

Did somebody die and promote the Southern Poverty Law Center to National Watchers-In-Chief of the United States?

I guess Mark Potok thinks his group should have "known" about the Free Militia, for some reason.

Say, where are all those groups that freak out about being "watched" by the government? Don't they have a problem with the SPLC?

Oh, that's right - "those groups" and the Southern Poverty Law Center are all Leftists, so they got each others' backs...

>>Last year federal agents charged 11 men with selling unregistered guns (snip)<<

Must we now register all weapons?

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	Rebel flag outside the trailer of Raymond Kirk Dillard in Collinsville, Ala. (Photo by Robin Conn)