20 officers corralled, searched and fingerprinted all 60 meeting attendees, before seizing all cellphones and recording equipment in a Valentine's Day 2015 raid on the Texas separatist group.
The raid was a response to legal summons sent by Republic of Texas members to a Kerr County judge and bank employee, demanding they appear in the Republic's court at the Veterans and Foreign Wars building in Bryan the day the officers stormed in. Jarnecke's group, the subject of a half-hour YouTube documentary, maintains a small working government, including official currency, congress and courts.
"You can't just let people go around filing false documents to judges trying to make them appear in front of courts that aren't even real courts," said Kerr County sheriff Rusty Hierholzer, who led the operation.
The Republic has a lengthy list of qualms with the federal government, among them that Texas was illegally annexed in 1845. But most of their complaints have to do with the behavior of the American legislature and executive. Robert Wilson, a senator in the Republic, equated politicians in Washington D.C. to the "kings and emperors" of the past, and sees Texas independence as part of a worldwide movement for local control.
"This is the century for colonialist ambitions to be reversed," the 78-year-old pastor said. "I've watched a lot of things happen, and the people of the world are fed up. The spirit of the world right now is: make things smaller, move governments closer to home, take back self-rule."
Still, he and Wilson said their group would not resort to violence, but is working through world courts to get international recognition of an independent Texas. They said their methods are legal, but Sheriff Hierholzer contests that.
"We've had a lot of dealings with Republic of Texas members in the past here, too, flooding the court with simulated documents," he said. "I don't have any problem with them going back to the Republic of Texas but they need to do it through the proper legal channels."
The judge and banker summoned to the Republic's court had been involved in the foreclosure of a member's Kerr County house. The invalid court summon was signed by Susan Cammak, the Kerr County homeowner, and David Kroupa, a Republic of Texas judge from Harris County.
"We've had years of bad press, but we're not those people," said Jarnecke of the '97 incident.
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Feds raid Texas secessionist meeting - San Antonio Express-News