Warrants Issued, New Details Emerge in 'Rise of the Moors' Case

Wakefield Police Chief Steven Skory said a SWAT team was able to incapacitate the suspects using a high-pitched sonic weapon

NBC News 10, Boston/July 13, 2021Arrest

By Marc Fortier

Officials in Rhode Island said they have issued arrest warrants for two members of the "Rise of the Moors" group who were involved in an armed standoff with police along Interstate 95 in Massachusetts earlier this month.

Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha and other top state safety officials announced felony charges Tuesday against 40-year-old Quinn Cumberlander. They said he is wanted on three counts of providing false identifying information to purchase a firearm. Cumberlander is currently in custody in Massachusetts, where he faces charges related to the July 3 standoff.

The attorney general's office said Cumberlander provided false address information during three separate attempts to purchase firearms from a dealer in Warwick in 2021.

An arrest warrant has also been obtained for the purported leader of the group, 29-year-old Jamhal Latimer, also known as Jamhal Talib Abdullah Bey, for violating the terms of his bail stemming from an ongoing criminal case in Providence County Superior Court, the attorney general's office said. He also remains in custody in Massachusetts.

Rhode Island officials said Bey was arrested on March 4, 2020, by state police and charged with obstructing a law enforcement officer, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. He was released on bail prior to his arrest on July 3.

The standoff started just after 1 a.m. on July 3 on Interstate 95 in Wakefield when a Massachusetts State Police trooper stopped to offer assistance to two vehicles parked on the side of the highway to refuel. The men, who were dressed in military-style clothing and body armor and were armed with long guns and pistols, did not have licenses to carry firearms in Massachusetts, police said.

The group said it was traveling from Rhode Island to Maine for “training” on private land, although the exact nature of the training remains unclear, according to police.

Several members of the group ran into woods, starting an hourslong standoff and forcing the shutdown of the major Boston-area highway during the busy holiday weekend.

On Monday, new details emerged about how police were able to safely take the 11 suspects into custody during the July 3 standoff.

Wakefield Police Chief Steven Skory appeared before the Town Council on Monday night to update them on the incident. He said about 150 police officers responded to help secure the perimeter, and that police used a sonic weapon to incapacitate the suspects.

"The decision was made probably around 10:30 [a.m.], the individuals were in the woods and came back out to the highway and returned to their vehicles," he said. "The decision was made at that point while they were all together to try to take them into custody."

The Wakefield Department of Public Works put plows on four large dump trucks and drove the wrong way up I-95 to block any attempts to escape, Skory said.

Then he said the Northeastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council, a regional SWAT team, deployed a Long Range Acoustic Device -- "a very high-pitched audible alarm which basically disables somebody temporarily." They then took the suspects into custody without further incident.

"No injuries to any officers, no injuries to the suspects, so a successful outcome," Skory said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.