The leader of a far-right extremist militia called Veterans on Patrol has claimed responsibility for sabotaging weather radars days after an unknown assailant vandalized a weather system in Oklahoma earlier this month.
Security camera footage from July 6 shows an unknown assailant climbing over a chain link fence and damaging the power supply for a weather radar operated by KWTV-DT, Channel 9, an Oklahoma City news station. Oklahoma City police reportedly arrested a suspect two days later on misdemeanor charges and later two felony counts of damage to a critical infrastructure facility. The Oklahoma City Police Department could not confirm if the suspect was connected to Veterans on Patrol.
During an interview with the station after the incident, Veterans on Patrol leader Michael Lewis Arthur Meyer was asked if his group was targeting Oklahoma weather radars, to which he replied, “Absolutely.”
Meyer was also directly asked if members of Veterans on Patrol sabotaged the Channel 9 radar. “Veterans On Patrol is responsible for a lot more than that,” he responded.
Meyer also confirmed that he posted a warning sign near another Oklahoma weather radar, which explains that the radar needs to be eliminated by victims of the U.S. military weather experimentation. Meyer added that he believes the government is modifying the weather.
“They can embed their technology and civilian infrastructure in every home and every household utilizing the phones and their network towers to not only control the weather, modify the weather, but they can [target] individuals,” Meyer continued.
Weather radars are used to track severe storms like tornadoes, which are prevalent in Oklahoma.
Southern Policy Law Center (SPLC) has labeled Veterans on Patrol, which started as an antigovernment prepping group, as an “antigovernment militia” and they are originally based in Pima County, Ariz. Meyer is also described as a Christian nationalist who encourages vigilantism and anti-immigration extremism. According to SPLC, Veterans on Patrol is also opposed to both federal and local government, believing their actions are sanctioned by God.
Despite that, Meyer and the group reportedly have the support of government when they patrol for cartel hideouts and pedophile rings. This is like other local governments embracing or being run by antigovernment preppers and nihilists. In Kerr County, Texas, the location of devastating floods earlier this month, the local sheriff’s office has co-hosted annual “Emergency Preparedness Expos” with the Hill County Preppers, a group which warns of “civil unrest” from Latin American immigrants and “millions of radicals” on its website.
And in Ottawa County, Mich., multiple members of its Board of Commissioners since 2022 are members of the ultraconservative group Ottawa Impact (OI). The group, founded by Commissioners Joe Moss and Sylvia Rhodea, promotes far-right extremists who endorse violence against the government and once attempted to formally refuse to follow state laws for Christian nationalist purposes.
Ottawa County voters revoked OI’s majority on the board in last November’s elections, with only four out of 11 seats being held by OI-backed commissioners. In the start of 2023, OI controlled up to nine seats.