More footage has come to light showing another stubborn Australian driver who has decided to opt out of our nation’s laws.
This time a South Australian police sergeant was left with no choice but to smash the car window of a “sovereign citizen” who maintained he didn’t need a license to drive on state roads.
The man was arrested and charged with several offences after he was pulled over on Spencer Highway, at Wallaroo, northwest of Adelaide.
The footage, filmed on December 11, 2022, shows the 42-year-old driver of a Mitsubishi four-wheel drive in a lengthy standoff with police.
They eventually lose their patience and smash his window to get access to arrest him.
The Wallaroo man is asked to provide proof of ID, and his proof of insurance and comply with a roadside breath-test – all seemingly innocuous requests which he refused on all points.
Police are filmed warning the man that they will be forced to break the window to remove him as he argues obscure points of law, even producing a homemade identification document.
Among his outlandish claims was his belief that he didn’t need a license as he was not using his “privately owned automobile” for commercial purposes.
Police spend over ten minutes asking the man to get out of his vehicle before a sergeant gives one final warning.
“Last warning. Show us your real ID, or you’re coming with us,” he is filmed telling the driver.
“I don’t have real ID, I showed you the real ID,” the man responds.
Sgt Foster then smashed the back window on the opposite side of the driver and climbed in.
“You’re under arrest,” he tells the man, who is quick to complain about being assaulted.
In all Australian states and territories, a driver must carry a valid driving licence and show it to a police officer when asked.
In no state and territory can you drive an unregistered vehicle.
South Australia Police charged the man with driving an unregistered and uninsured vehicle while disqualified, and refusing to provide personal particulars.
“The driver was directed to submit to a roadside breath test; however, he refused. He also refused to his exit his vehicle after several requests from police,” a statement from SA Police said.
“As a result, access was gained to his vehicle, and the driver arrested.”
The man will appear in the Kadina Magistrates Court on January 30.
A social media post suggests the man would be seeking compensation for a number of things, including “armed assault”, “trespass”, and “armed kidnapping”.
‘Going sovereign’ and ditching the rules
The Wallaroo incident isn’t the only recent example of the “sovereign” attempting to bend the rules – or, better yet, making up their own.
Earth woman Chloe Fisher self-righteously filmed herself as she was recently stopped by NSW Police while driving along a road at Gundagai.
She, too, offered up a homemade licence to police and no plates, telling the officers she was in the process of “going sovereign”.
Ms Fisher told officers she was “private … not under any public licence” and operated under her own “moral lore” – not the “law” of the government.
The laminated ID she gave to police included the words: “First Breath Location: Earth”.
When the police officer asked where the car’s number plates were, she said she was in the process of “going sovereign” and removing herself from the “corporation” but added that the legitimate number plates were inside the car.
“Without the number plates and without the licence, I’m not actually under your membership,” the woman filmed herself telling the officers.
“So you can rightfully pull over anyone who has a registration plate in whatever state because they are registered into a membership … you end up in court and it gets thrown out because they say, ‘Oh, you’ve lost your licence’, but if I don’t run under a licence, then there’s nothing to lose.”
Ms Fisher was fined for not correctly displaying her registered plates and sent on her way.
Stuck in a ‘mind virus’
The sovereign citizen movement appears to sprout from a range of sources.
Be it views on government policy, surveillance, Covid-19 vaccine or lockdown mandates, or banking systems – all appear to accumulate in a refusal to be governed.
At the pointy end, that means an unwillingness to comply with police directions.
One insider, Robert Sudy, a former pseudo-law adherent, told SBS program The Feed that being a sovereign citizen is like having a “mind virus”.
“I was being led into something that wasn’t really going to work legally,” he said.
First founded in the US, the movement latched on to pseudo-legal ideology and beliefs that they are bound by statute laws only if they consent to those laws.
Ironically, Mr Sudy, who now observes the movement as a researcher, was lured to the movement after Googling how to dispute a traffic infringement in 2011.
“It used to be basically that: tax evasion, getting out of fines, not paying council rates, all those sorts of things.”
More Coverage
“Now it’s become like a social phenomena, a type of a tool in which people can exert their feelings of disenchantment with the government.
“And I brought this to the attention of authorities in 2014.”
Mr Sudy told The Feed the dangers of such movements, fearing it could – or already has – snowballed into violence.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7r7HWrGWcp51jrrZ7zZqroqeelrlwv86uq6FlkarAtb7ApaCaZ5aasba8jJymqWWUp66ov4yspq%2Bdopq2qLqMnKCtoaqau26y0aikZpuRp3yvsdasZKysn6fGcH6PmpmbapZtg3Sxw59qa5xjmIV1r5dynHKbkZauo4LB