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Mother of man killed by Farmington PD is self-proclaimed member of antigovernment group


The suspect in an officer-involved shooting at the Farmington, Utah, Post Office on Wednesday, March 1, 2023, was pronounced dead at the hospital, police said. Authorities identified him as 25-year-old Chase Allan. (Photo: Dario Jokic, KUTV)
The suspect in an officer-involved shooting at the Farmington, Utah, Post Office on Wednesday, March 1, 2023, was pronounced dead at the hospital, police said. Authorities identified him as 25-year-old Chase Allan. (Photo: Dario Jokic, KUTV)
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2News Investigates is taking a deeper look into the antigovernment beliefs of a man, who was shot and killed during a traffic-stop confrontation with Farmington City Police at the beginning of the month.

In doing so, 2News found his mother had sued the Farmington Police Department in 2022 after she was cited for traffic violations.

Chase Allan, 25, was killed shortly after he was pulled over at 3:20 p.m. on Friday, March 1, by Farmington Police near a post office because of an illegitimate license plate and then FPD called for back-up when he would not comply with their commands. That according to a press release Chief Eric Johnsen issued on Friday March 3. It says the officers were wearing body cameras that captured video of the officer involved critical incident.

It says supervisors were able to review the footage and then goes into some scarce details of what is on it citing that it will be released to the public at the “earliest opportunity.”

The statement gives a glimpse into what was captured. According to that statement, Farmington Police pulled over Chase Allan’s vehicle because it had an “illegitimate license plate.” It goes on to say Allan only rolled down the window a few inches and refused to provide identification and told officers he was not required to cooperate with them.

He asserted his independence from the laws of the land as well as his belief that he was not required to provide information to the officer.

It says the initial officer called for assistance and tried to get Allan to cooperate but to no avail. Meanwhile, a supervisor and two officers, one with a trainee responded to assist and the driver was identified as Chase Allan.

After being ordered to get out of his car, he still refused. An officer opened the door and another officer tried to physically remove Allan, the statement said. At that time an officer yelled out the words, “gun, gun, gun!”

There was a struggle and then gunshots. The statement says an empty holster can be seen on the body camera video on Allan’s right hip and a handgun can be seen lying on the driver side floorboard of his car. Allan was pronounced dead.

Court filings show his mother, Diane espoused similar beliefs.

Diane Allan sued Farmington Police over a traffic stop in 2022. Court documents paint a history with that department. In those documents- she shows strong anti-government sentiment. One key phrase- "American State National" opened a whole world for experts I talked with.

In fact, she took minor charges of driving without a license and registration- all the way to trial.

Court documents show she injected multiple filings into the court record, saying she is not a resident, employee, or citizen of the United States government.

She repudiated and revoked her citizenship of the United States, "if any ever existed, with the legal fiction known as the United States Government --State--County--City" and referred to herself as an American State National.

Rachel Goldwasser is the Senior Research Analyst for the Southern Poverty Law Center based in Montgomery, Alabama. The SPLC tracks hate groups, extremism and anti-government groups and publishes The Intelligence Report, a biannual publication that monitors the radical right in the U.S.

Goldwasser reviewed dozens of filings Diane Allan entered into the court record in advance of her interview.

“The court documents from the mother Diane make it very clear, it's 92 pages many of it are things that I’ve heard many times from Sovereign Citizens often in other court cases,” Goldwasser said.

We asked if there is a distinction without a difference because Allan called herself in the court filings a, “American State National.”

Goldwasser said, “Some Sovereign Citizens refuse to call themselves Sovereign Citizens although that was a moniker, they made for themselves at one time and there's a particular branch of Sovereign Citizens that call themselves American State National.”

One such filing read, "On the same day my husband was also stopped and issued a Citation by defacto officers operating under color of law." Calling it abuses and tyranny and wrote, "He has erected a Multitude of new offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their Substance."

Goldwasser characterized her filings and writings by saying this, “Really what she was saying is that you know she shouldn't have had to abide by the law. She shouldn't have been stopped by police on a traffic stop because she's sort of outside the jurisdiction of the United States in her mind. And it looks really unfortunately, her son followed in the same footsteps.”

We made multiple attempts to reach Diane Allan by phone and sent several emails but to no avail.

2News Investigates also contacted Keith Findley, who is a law professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He teaches Evidence, Wrongful Convictions, Criminal Procedure, and Law and Forensic Science. He co-founded the Wisconsin Innocence Project and later served as President of the Innocence Network, with an affiliation of nearly 70 innocence organizations throughout the world according to his biography. He also served in several capacities regarding civilian oversight in policing and as co-chair of the Madison Police Body-Worn Camera Feasibility Review Committee.

EXTENDED INTERVIEW WITH LAW PROFESSOR KEITH FINDLEY FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN LAW SCHOOL

He says filings like Diane Allan’s never succeed in court, but they try anyway.

“They are nonsensical, indecipherable they use obscure and incoherent language that lawyers and judges do not recognize.”

He went on to say that “If you think about it for just a moment you can see why that argument has never prevailed and never will prevail in a court because it would be a pretty nifty move, you don’t want to be bound by the laws of the government just say they don’t apply to you.”

Additionally, Goldwasser added this, “It’s really unfortunate when this happens. It’s unfortunately very often across this country, we just don’t always hear about it because the people that are sort of faced with it are county clerks, judges, prosecutors as I mentioned and police who are kind of at the frontlines in dealing with Sovereign Citizens.”

“Some people call it paper terrorism to try to overwhelm the system and bog it down,” said Findley.

In fact, the court record contains a nugget of information buried at the bottom of her "Alleged Defendant's Motion to Reconsider Denial of Motion to Dismiss." Page 19 contains the public records request Allan submitted on June 7, 2022 to the City of Farmington for records relating to identifying her as a person, records identifying her as a dead entity or slave, records identifying her as a resident, records requiring that a 2014 BMW is required to be registered, records related to Farmington having jurisdiction over her, records relating to Officers Hansen and Johnsen and their legal standing to file a citation in the Davis County Justice Court and more. Allan's 20 different records requests seemingly indicates she was attempting to put the burden of proof on the City.

On July 6th the City responded and on 14 out of the 20 records requests, the City indicated that it doesn't maintain any responsive records.

When it came time for Diane Allan’s trial, court records reveal on Sept. 21, she asked for a continuance and when that was denied, she refused to provide a defense and walked out but not before indicating that it was not a trial.

Her son Chase was with her in the courtroom before Davis County Justice Court Judge J.C. Ynchausti.

Following testimony from two Farmington police officers, the judge found her guilty in absentia on both counts.

She was fined $100. However, the court record shows she wrote the courts a letter in December ordering them to "CEASE AND DECIST [sic] ALL further communication with me in regards to this matter." She then cited laws indicating that she was not the right person to pay the fines. The Davis County Justice Court collections letter has the words "Refused for cause" written across it in red ink. She ended her letter writing, "This is postal fraud and I'm [sic] will report you for your unlawful actions."

Findley then gave a broader picture about the dangerousness of people who have this belief system and identify as Sovereign Citizens or an American State National.

“The independent sovereign movement covers a swath of people those who just engage in minor disobedience like that all the way up to groups that are armed and very violent and dangerous.”

Goldwasser told 2News Investigates, “It’s a conspiracy theory that unfortunately hundreds of thousands of people like the Allan’s believe in this country and as a result they think that they’ve separated themselves from this corporation and no longer have to follow U.S. law.”

She said in 2014 the University of Maryland conducted a study and found that law enforcement considers Sovereign Citizens their greatest threat.

“That’s because many law enforcement unfortunately have been killed at the hands of Sovereign Citizens and so when they do come across people like this, they do have to be extremely wary and worried and I’m sure the officers in this particular case felt that way,” Goldwasser said.

“This is a really tragic situation, and its outcome is something that could be prevented if people recognize what they’re being told and fed in this conspiracy theory just isn’t true. In their minds, often once you’re radicalized you really believe that you no longer want to be a part of the country as we understand it, and you’ve sort of separated yourself. And then at that point when somebody like law enforcement comes along and tries to assert their authority within the confines of the United States as we know it, that’s when people can react badly and that’s what we saw."

Goldwasser says, "We saw of course, the mom acting in a way that’s sort of intimidating and you know really just making it difficult on the courtroom and sort of harassing the court at large and that is one thing that does happen with sovereign’s fairly often.”

Then we saw something much worse she says, “Which is that her son, I don’t know who radicalized who, but it looks like this whole family and this belief system believes so strongly in this that they actually decided to act out against the government and now her son is gone."

Last Wednesday it came to a deadly end.

“It’s a really difficult situation and of course, I feel very much for Mister Allan’s family, but law enforcement has a really hard job, which is that when they stop somebody who starts to show signs of being a Sovereign Citizen they don’t know if and when that’s going to escalate.”

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