11 arrested in armed militia in confrontation with police near Boston

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July 3 (Reuters) – Eleven heavily armed militiamen were arrested near Boston on Saturday, ending an overnight standoff that shut down an interstate highway at the start of the Independence Day holiday.

The group, which has been identified by several media including CBS affiliate WBZ Boston, are members of “Rise of the Moors,” a group that does not recognize US laws but claims to be peaceful.

Two of the men were arrested early this morning, while the officers were negotiating with the commanders, seeking their peaceful surrender. Police said in a statement that seven others were arrested after 10 am.

The police remained at the scene and found two additional people, bringing the total number of arrests to 11. No other information on the arrests was immediately available.

No shots were reported, and no injuries were reported during the standoff, which began around 1 am when a policeman saw two cars parked in a collapsing driveway with groups of men armed with rifles and pistols standing, police said.

The group, whose leader announced to police that the men were traveling from Rhode Island to Maine for some “training,” scattered the nearby woods off Interstate 95 after police requested their identification and gun licenses.

Police closed the highway near Wakefield, about 14 miles north of Boston, and told local residents to “shelter in place.” The highway has since reopened.

State Police Colonel Christopher Mason said at a 7 a.m. news conference that police were committed to negotiating with the group. As the hours stretched, some members spoke to police near their cars, while others remained in the woods, according to local media reports.

“The self-proclaimed leader desperately wants to know that his ideology is not anti-government,” Mason said, but added that the police did not know what their ideology was.

“But the quick, understated and dirty note[is]that their actions have had a huge impact on the motoring public, especially given that this is a weekend.”

(Additional reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Franklin Poole

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