A New Jersey resident says the person who locked her out of her home appears to adhere to Moorish sovereign ideology — they believe they are not subject to U.S. law. A militia group linked to the ideology was recently involved in a standoff with police.
Several instances of people claiming ownership of homes with fake documents appear to be linked to Moorish sovereign-citizen groups, which share certain beliefs with "Rise of the Moors," a militia group recently involved in a 9-hour standoff with police on a Massachusetts highway.
“Rise of the Moors” is one of several Moorish sovereign-citizen groups, whose adherents say they are not subject to any U.S. law because they are part of their own sovereign nation.
Now, New Jersey homeowner Shanetta Little says someone who appeared to identify as a Moorish sovereign-citizen is also responsible for locking her out of her home. Little recently bought her first home in Newark and was getting ready to move in when she realized her key didn’t work.
Little found letters in her mailbox from an organization calling itself the "Moorish Divine and National Movement of the World.”
“They were sending me letters basically saying that my home was their ancestral land,” Little told Inside Edition.
Little says cops interviewed and confirmed it was her house. While she waited for a locksmith to change the locks, one of the squatters came back.
“I was sitting here like this and he just stepped right over me, he stuck his key in the lock and before I could even get up, he had already locked the door,” Little said.
He reportedly raised a Moorish flag in the window.
Then, the SWAT team surrounded the house after he refused to leave. The SWAT team eventually went inside the home to remove him from the property.
Similar incidents have also happened in Georgia and California.
“I worry about any sort of retaliation,” Little said.
