Planned Mass Shooting In Austin Foiled By FBI, According To Court Complaint

SOUTH AUSTIN, TX — Federal law enforcement officials said Monday they likely foiled a mass shooting with the recent arrest of a man described as a right-wing extremist.

According to a criminal complaint obtained by KUT, Steven Thomas Boehle, 50, had amassed three guns and more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition from a North Austin dwelling where he had been staying. The discovery of the weapons cache was made on April 12 at 615 W. St. John’s Ave. where Boehle was staying at the time.

The home address listed for Boehle in the four-page criminal complaint is an apartment along the 2300 block of La Casa Drive in South Austin.

Beyond that, the document doesn't provide details as to the nature of the planned attack FBI officials contend was underfoot. The complaint indicates Boehler tried buying firearms several times without success although he is barred from doing so due to a 1993 misdemeanor assault conviction in Connecticut with the victim being a person with whom Boehle had been involved.

His most recent attempt to buy a firearm was in December 2016 at Central Texas Gun Works on Ben White Boulevard, according to the complaint.

The FBI received a information that an individual identified as "Duke" was planning to conduct a mass shooting on April 6 of this year, the complaint reads. An investigation found the person in question was Boehle.

An FBI informant alerted agents that Boehle exhibited "sovereign citizen extremism ideology" and had recently attempted to buy a firearm but was denied.

Attempts to buy firearms date to 2002, and one attempt was successful, according to the court complaint. On Dec. 6, 2002, Boehle purchased a firearm at Just Guns located at 1325 S. Congress Ave., according to the document. The successful purchase was enabled after Boehle is said to have answered "no" to a question about ever having been convicted of a misdemeanor crime involving domestic violence.

During the intervening check by the Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms agency, Boehle's conviction was discovered from his past, prompting a "firearms retrieval" order that forced Boehle to surrender the firearm since it had already been released by the retailer. Boehle returned the 25 millimeter caliber pistol in March 2003 as a result of the ATF order, the court document indicates.

By June 17, 2015, Boehler attempted to buy two more firearms at an Academy Sports and Outdoors store in Sunset Valley, Texas—a .22 caliber Heritage Rough Rider Revolver and a 9 millimeter Smith & Wesson pistol. He was denied purchase of the guns on June 17, 2015, and no guns were released to him.

The most recent attempt to buy a gun was made this past December at the Central Texas Gun Works, 321 W. Ben White Blvd., according to the court document. There, too, he was denied purchase due to the earlier conviction, the complaint indicates, an no firearm was released to him.

To read the full court complaint, click here.

People identifying themselves as "sovereign citizens" pose a growing threat to law enforcement, according to the FBI. Among the most notorious so-called "sovereign citizens" was Terry Nichols, co-plotter of the Oklahoma City bombing that occurred April 19, 1995, claiming the lives of 168 people. Nichols is currently serving a life sentence for his role in the attack for which co-conspirator Timothy McVeigh received the death sentence.

Closer to home, Andrew Joseph Stack III, who flew his small plane into an downtown Austin IRS building seven years ago, also identified as a "sovereign citizen." Stack flew his Piper Dakota light aircraft into Building I of the Echelon office complex, killing himself and IRS manager Vernon Hunter on Feb. 18, 2010. The attack injured 13 others, two victims sustaining serious injury.

"They could be dismissed as a nuisance, a loose network of individuals living in the United States who call themselves 'sovereign citizens' and believe that federal, state, and local governments operate illegally," the FBI wrote in a paper devoted to the subject of sovereign citizens. "Some of their actions, although quirky, are not crimes. The offenses they do commit seem minor, including regularly false license plates, driver’s licenses, and even currency."

But when this ideology reaches more urgent proportions, crimes can escalate among this segment of society, according to the FBI.

"However, a closer look at sovereign citizens’ more severe crimes, from financial scams to impersonating or threatening law enforcement officials, gives reason for concern," the FBI wrote. "If someone challenges (e.g., a standard traffic stop for false license plates) their ideology, the behavior of these sovereign-citizen extremists quickly can escalate to violence."

The death count affecting law enforcement attests to this assertion. Since 2000, lone-offender sovereign-citizen extremists have killed six law enforcement officers, according to the FBI. They cite a tragic example from Arkansas in 2010, when two police officers stopped sovereign-citizen extremists Jerry Kane and his 16-year-old son Joseph during a routine traffic stop on Interstate 40. Joseph Kane jumped out of the vehicle and opened fire with an AK-47 assault rifle, killing both officers.

The FBI considers sovereign-citizen extremists as comprising a domestic terrorist movement, which, scattered across the United States, has existed for decades.

Conservative Texas is fertile ground for those intent on being "sovereign citizens," an ideology that could be inadvertently fueled by members of the state government itself, often promoting sovereignty from the federal government as a political plank energizing their base.

Currently in the Legislature, lawmakers are considering passing the "Texas Sovereignty Act" authored by Cecil Bell Jr., a Republican from Magnolia, Texas. If passed, a special committee would be set up to decide which federal laws would be deemed enforceable in Texas. The proposed bill has its roots to opposition of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that banned states from prohibiting same-sex marriage. (See "Texas Sovereignty Act" Would Let State Decide Which Federal Laws To Enforce, Reject, April 14).

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