Police Cut Power to ‘Republic’ Redoubt

FORT DAVIS, Texas — Police on Thursday cut electrical power to the ramshackle trailer here in the West Texas mountains where armed separatists have been holed up for five days.

Despite a promise not to pull the plug as long as Richard L. McLaren and members of his so-called Republic of Texas were willing to resume negotiations, authorities decided the measure was necessary “just to show that the Department of Public Safety is serious about bringing this matter to a resolution,” said state police spokesman Mike Cox.

And Thursday night, negotiators sent a final proposal to the group and indicated that officers will move in to arrest them if they don’t surrender, according to attorney Terry O’Rourke, who represents McLaren.

O’Rourke said he had also sent a letter to McLaren urging him to give up. “I am advising my client in no uncertain terms to end it,” O’Rourke said.

Cox refused to discuss the agency’s timetable. “He’s got it [the offer] and is able to study it,” Cox said. “We have said all along that we want a peaceful outcome and not a wild West outcome.”

Earlier in the day, after listening to pleas from his attorney on Fort Davis’ only radio station, McLaren agreed to resume talks with authorities, who had lost contact with him on Tuesday night. He also went back to preparing reams of supposed “diplomatic” documents, which SWAT agents picked up in an armored personnel carrier and delivered to his lawyer.

“So far, no substantial developments have occurred, but we’re delighted that talking is underway,” Cox had said earlier. “The key is the ability to communicate.”

That optimism, however, was tempered by a number of bizarre twists that added to the ordeal’s surreal air.

In a statement from another Republic of Texas faction, which had split with McLaren earlier this year, the militant group expressed newfound solidarity with its breakaway “ambassador.” Wary of “a massive military-style assault” by police, the “republic” indicated that its defense forces had been placed on “Yellow Alert One,” apparently a heightened degree of readiness.

As if to prove the point, two Republic of Texas members--Leonard Martin, 60, of Sanderson, Texas, and Dale Martin, 37, of Longview, Wash.--were arrested at a security checkpoint with a stolen semiautomatic rifle in their car.

Nonetheless, a scheduled rally in nearby Balmorhea, where thousands of militiamen were supposed to gather in support of McLaren’s freedom, ended up drawing nobody.

And yet another faction of the “republic” has issued an arrest warrant for McLaren, charging him with everything from fraud to treason.