By Chase Rogers
Reprinted – by Texas Metro News
Website: https://www.dallasnews.com/
In May 2017, an officer snapped a photo of Corey Cobb’s parked Chevrolet S10 pickup in Dallas. A hearing the following month determined he violated a morning parking ban on South Houston Street.
Cobb took out a permanent marker and put his rebuke in writing.
“I do not consent to contract,” he wrote in big letters on a document detailing the outcome, his words crisscrossing the printed text.
His scrawl cast the citation as a violation of, among other things, an “organic constitution” and an arcane peace treaty the U.S. and Morocco signed in the late 18th century. He signed under the addendum with his preferred name: Coremour Luel Bey.
The document was among more than a dozen filed by Cobb, then 23, in court the same year as he faced charges for failing to identify himself to a police officer with intent to provide false information.
His posts on social media and the court filings, in which Cobb identifies himself as a “Moorish American National” and suggests he is not bound by U.S. laws, are informing an investigation by Dallas police into a shooting that killed a police officer and injured two others.
Police say Cobb, who later changed his name to Cobb-Bey, shot and killed Officer Darron Burks in an Oak Cliff parking lot on Aug. 29. He then opened fire on two responding officers, injuring both and blinding one, before leading law enforcement on a chase that ended in Lewisville with him shot dead by police.
Dallas police Chief Eddie García acknowledged there was evidence Cobb-Bey was a “Moorish sovereign citizen” during his first public remarks after the shootings.
“We’re scouring through his social media to see if we can find anything that is similar to some sort of manifesto,” García said at an Aug. 30 news conference. The chief later added: “As that information comes forward, I can guarantee we will be transparent with it if we do find something.”
Since then, Dallas police have not released any additional information about Cobb-Bey’s apparent beliefs or theories about what led to the shootings.
Dallas police declined to answer a list of questions seeking additional information, citing the investigation. The case has not yet been presented to a grand jury, which will review officers’ actions that night, police Lt. Tramese Jones said in a statement.
The Dallas Morning News reviewed hundreds of Cobb-Bey’s social media posts, YouTube videos and court filings.
Experts say the voluminous materials show he espoused a unique combination of tenets, beliefs from fringe Moorish Science groups, and elements of “sovereign citizen” ideology.
The FBI classifies sovereign citizens as anti-government extremists. Federal investigators did not know of Cobb-Bey before the shooting, FBI Dallas office spokesperson Melinda Urbina said in a statement.
Moorish Science teachings during the religion’s founding in the early 20th century are incongruent with sovereign citizen ideology, experts say.
Many Moorish Science groups, including at least two in the Dallas area, have disavowed Cobb-Bey and other groups adhering to sovereign citizen ideology. One of the Dallas groups renouncing Cobb-Bey’s alleged actions once hosted him in its study meetings in late 2017 and early 2018, the group’s leader told The News.
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