11 in custody after seven-hour armed standoff on I-95 ends peacefully

Scene of today's standoff in Wakefield, Mass. (MSP photo)

WAKEFIELD, Mass. - Eleven men who say they are part of a group called "Rise of the Moors" were arrested today after an hourslong standoff with Massachusetts State Police along Interstate 95.

The incident unfolded around 1:30 a.m. when a State Trooper pulled over to assist two vehicles that had their hazard lights on.

The men from the vehicles said they were gassing up en route to Maine for "training," but the trooper noticed they were wearing military type clothing and had a lot of guns.

When he asked for drivers and gun licenses they refused, saying they don't "recognize our laws." Some fled into the woods heavily armed.

The situation was resolved "through negotiation and tactical maneuvers," Massachusetts State Police Colonel Christopher Mason told reporters during a press conference on Saturday.

One of the leaders of the group, Jamhal Talib Abdullah Bey, took to YouTube early on during the standoff.

Bey is identified as the Moorish American Consular Post Head for the group, Masslive.com reported this afternoon.

The heavily armed group posted videos throughout the standoff, claiming to be peaceful and to abide by the "federal laws and judicial opinions" of the United States.

The group's website says "We are Moorish Americans dedicated to educating new Moors and influencing our Elders."

One YouTube video posted this morning shows a pair from the group holding a Moroccan flag near the highway.

The group's website draws strong connections with Morocco, asserting that the term Moor does not refer to black people but to people from Morocco, and that all "people branded as Dominicans, Haitians, Tainos, etc. do not come from blacks, they are descendants of Moors."

The Southern Poverty Law Center describes the Moorish sovereign citizen movement as a "collection of independent organizations and lone individuals that emerged in the early 1990s as an offshoot of the antigovernment sovereign citizens movement, which believes that individual citizens hold sovereignty over, and are independent of, federal and state government."

However, it is not clear if Rise of the Moors is affiliated directly with that movement.

The group heavily refers to constitutional amendments and U.S. Supreme Court cases in discussing their rights and actions, but they apparently believe they are not subject to state laws.

During the confrontation Saturday, Bey claimed they were not anti-government or anti-police, nor were they sovereign citizens or Black-identity extremists.

The standoff closed the interstate till around 10:30 a.m.