U.S. Marshals are looking for Kevin “KC” Lyndel Massey, a Texas militia man who self-appointed himself as border patrol in 2014. Massey refused to appear for a meeting with his probation officer. Massey supporter Jeremy Deeter posted a video on Facebook where he read the alleged correspondence between Massey and the probation officer. The probation officer said there was a problem with is drug test and he wanted to talk in person. Massey refused and has been on the run ever since.
KC Massey isn’t your average fugitive, he is known for his being heavily armed, he has experience with explosives and he has extreme anti-government views. Dallas News has the details on his 2016 arrest.
Massey, an electrician and self-described "commander" of the Rusty's Rangers militia, was sentenced to 41 months in federal prison in 2016 for possession of a firearm by a felon, according to court records. Prosecutors say Massey, dressed in military fatigues, conducted armed patrols with others on the South Texas border in 2014 to search for immigrants attempting to cross into the U.S. In Facebook posts, Massey described detaining immigrants at gunpoint and binding their wrists with zip ties.
He built up a social media following around this time and there is a Facebook page where supporters are seeking a pardon from none other than Donald Trump.
He was also arrested in 2014 with terrifying materials.
When ATF agents raided his Brownsville hotel room in 2014 and searched his truck, they found a cache of weapons and ammonium nitrate, an explosive chemical used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, court records show. South Texas prosecutors say Massey has expressed support for Timothy McVeigh, whose deadly attack on that city's federal building killed more than 160 people and injured over 680 others.
In January 2016, the Dallas News also reports U.S. Attorney William Hagen asked the judge for a stricter sentence.
Hagen, the prosecutor, asked for a sentence greater than five years, citing Massey's "utter disregard for federal law," his calls for violence, and his references to federal law enforcement as "cockroaches" and "maggots."
"Because defendant not only disrespects the law, but explicitly rejects the legitimacy of it, he will undoubtedly rearm and re-offend once released from prison," Hagen wrote in a filing.
U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen, of the Southern District of Texas, disagreed—and unbelievably gave Massey, who’d been found with 20 homemade bombs and a cache of weapons, a reduced sentence. Massey even posted a video in 2015 on YouTube saying the federal government had no right to take away his right to bear arms, even though he was a convicted felon.
Now that he’s on the run again, Massey has indicated he has no intention of being apprehended and he’s gotten help from others. Before his Facebook page was taken down, he essentially said he is ready to go to war the the U.S. government, saying "The tyrants will soon feel what we the people feel."
Federal agents recently spotted him, carrying a side arm, on the property of another Texas man. By the time they raided the house, Massey had slipped out, leaving his AK47-style pistol behind. The man who owns the property, James Russell Smith, was arrested in late July and charged with conspiracy to conceal a person from arrest.
A supporter on Facebook who claims to be in contact with Massey several times a week said on June 10, “KC is NOT going to allow himself to be kidnapped again. Death before dishonor!'
In April, a man named James Freeman posted a video of a confrontation with Massey. I’ve included a screenshot of that interaction to see how Massey is looking with a full beard before he disappeared.
The FBI considers Massey to be a domestic terrorist and we can only hope the U.S. Marshals find him sooner than later.