A Brief History
On October 23, 1982, Cochise County, Arizona law enforcement Sheriff’s deputies attempted to serve three arrest warrants at the Christ Miracle Healing Center and Church, the headquarters of a cult that had its origins in Mississippi. In the ensuing violence as cult members resisted the arrests, two cult members were killed and seven law enforcement officers were injured. One of the injured officers later died of his injuries, as did an additional cult member. State police were called in to assist with the riot. Today we examine this tragedy in light of the recent nosedive in relations between American police and the communities they serve.
Digging Deeper
An evangelical Christian church with a completely African American membership, the Christ Miracle Healing Center and Church was led by female Pastor Francis Thomas, a devotee of broadcasting evangelist A. A. Allen’s Miracle Valley Bible Church. Thomas had moved the church to a subdivision in Arizona in 1980 comprised of mostly White people. The church held services day and night, and reportedly knocked parishioners on the head with poles to keep them awake during services! Some parishioners were believed to suffer from sleep deprivation as a result. The church was not officially aligned with, but was somewhat of an adherent to Pentecostal beliefs, including faith healing. The local sheriff feared a “Jonestown” type scenario in which the 1978 cult tragedy led by Jim Jones resulted in over 900 murders and suicides of cult followers. The local police obviously had a situation on their hands that could definitely get worse. Whatever the police did, both on an administrative level and actions by individual officers would seem to have grave consequences.
Tensions developed between the cult and other subdivision residents as well as the police when several cult members’ homes were broken into and the cult formed armed patrols. An incident in 1981 when police attempted to arrest a parishioner turned into a confrontation between a large number of cult members that menaced the police and prevented the arrest. Racial tensions between the other residents about 200), cult members (about 300), and police grew, with each side (Black and White) accusing the other of racist tendencies. The sheriff responded to the friction by enlisting the aid of the Public Safety officers of Arizona that had African American officers employed, and integrated police patrols were instituted so that any confrontation between police and church people would include a Black officer on the scene. Alas, this seemingly reasonable response to a community policing problem did not do the trick, as another high tension incident developed over an attempted arrest when armed cult members once again intervened on behalf of a member being arrested. The irate sheriff responded this time by a massive influx of police, determined to show the church members who was “really” in charge. A deputy noted, “we’re outgunned and outmanned” as a major confrontation seemed to loom over the community.
(Do you agree with the integrated police patrols? Why did they not work as planned?)
The highly charged racial tension situation only came about when Francis Thomas arrived with the contingent of cult members from Chicago in 1980. Some parishioners that were already living in the Miracle Valley subdivision had been getting along just fine with neighbors and the police since their arrival in 1978 and 1979. The implication seems to be either Thomas herself was an aggravating factor, or perhaps the increase in the number of African Americans in the neighborhood.
Relations soured so completely that a riot at the local high school pitted White students against African American students, and Sheriff Judd was heard to ask for a tank to deal with the problem. (A tank as in a large armored tracked fighting vehicle used in warfare.) Pastor Thomas was definitely an inflammatory figure in the situation, calling police “White boy” to their faces on a regular basis. Thomas filed a lawsuit against the County in 1982, further worsening relations. Incredibly, another aggravating factor (that the sheriff and police had nothing to do with) occurred when the County placed “Children at Play” signs on the streets at the request of the church. Unfortunately, the signs showed the cartoon figures of children as distinctly African! The children were depicted with either the letter A or N on their shirts, which the church took to mean racially charged shorthand. (You figure it out!) Parishioners that were going to be arrested or receive a traffic ticket or other citation would routinely flee to church property and find refuge from law enforcement. Even the Governor of Arizona got involved and negotiations were set up between the church and the government.
(If you were a local Miracle Valley deputy, would you be getting angry and frustrated by now? Would you back off from enforcement or get even more hard-nosed?)
Another tragedy compounded the problems between authorities and the cult when 4 children of cult members died in 1981 due to lack of normal medical care. A court ruled in favor of the church under the banner of religious freedom. Yet another 1981 incident occurred when church members surrounded a pickup truck with White occupants and menaced the occupants with pipes and other makeshift weapons. Deputies arrived to rescue the truck people, and were in turn assaulted by a cult member. That person, Sherman McCane, had belted a deputy in the face twice before escaping, but was later arrested and found to have a concealed weapon. When 2 other cult members responded to the police station demanding to see McCane, one of them was arrested for carrying a concealed weapon as well.
(Are you wondering yet how you would have handled this situation if you had been Sheriff Judd or the Governor?)
When an explosion aboard a church van on September 10, 1981 killed a church member, the situation had apparently reached a new level of violence. No, do not assume the cult was the target! The occupants of the van that did not get killed (3 people, all injured) fled the scene, and 3 other bombs were found inside the van, obviously meant for use by the cult for nefarious purposes. Another 6 sticks of dynamite and bomb making accoutrements were also found in the van, which belonged to William Thomas. The ATF had at some prior time found dynamite at the church property, but possession of dynamite was not illegal in Arizona at that time. The church claimed the dynamite was for blasting at a church owned mine, though it was later found the church did not have a mine, nor did any of their flock. Pastor Thomas immediately accused the cops of planting the bombs. (Yeah, but why did a bomb blow up in a parishioner’s lap?) Police believed the explosives were destined for the purpose of blowing out a wall at the local jail to free Sherman McCane.
Incredibly, other violent incidents followed, keeping the pot boiling in Miracle Valley. Custody battles typical of cult situations also developed. How would you attempt to defuse the situation before a tragedy occurred?
Finally, the pot boiled over on October 22, 1982, when armed parishioners prevented deputies from arresting 2 cult members that were wanted. The cops were forced to retreat in the face of superior numbers of armed people. That night Sheriff Judd met with State officials to plan the arrest of the wanted men, keeping a minimum number of police on the scene to prevent a confrontation. Only a single cruiser with 2 deputies would respond to make the arrest, with 2 other cruisers located at least a mile away ready to respond if needed. Further away, 17 cruisers with a few dozen officers waited to respond to the scene if a riot developed. It did. An estimated 150 church members attacked the police with guns, sticks, rocks, bottles, pipes and other weapons. All police reinforcements responded, and the riot ensued, with hundreds of shots fired, though only 2 of the cops fired their weapons! One officer that fired was armed with a Ruger Mini-14, and fired in self defense at William Thomas, Jr. who had charged at the officer while pointing a gun at the cop. Thomas had previously been unloading a cache of guns from his car and distributing them to his fellow church people. Along with the 2 church members killed that day, and the officer that died later of his wounds, other police suffered gunshot wounds and broken bones among their injuries. A cult member was paralyzed ironically from a shot fired by another cult member. The riot and shootout continued for only 15 minutes (which is actually a LONG TIME if you are on the scene) before the law enforcement contingent retreated.
(If you were a cop on the scene, would you be shooting people that were hitting you with rocks, bottles and pipes? Would you fire into the crowd in response to the shooting at police?)
Police reinforcements arrived from the state and another country, and the FBI was called in to investigate the incident. A total of 19 church members were charged with various crimes, but the charges were dropped when Cochise County refused to pay for lawyers for the defendants that claimed indigency, the claim being the country did not have the funds to provide a defense for the arrestees. The police and the church and very different accounts of the incident, not surprising in light of the animosity that existed. Cultists claimed to have been unarmed (pretty serious injuries to cops from unarmed assailants) and the FBI concluded that both cultists that were killed were shot by the same Ruger Mini-14 rifle. The shootings by Deputy Thatcher were ruled justified by local, county, state and Federal investigators.
The Christ Miracle Healing Center and Church and their problematic pastor moved from Arizona back to Chicago in 1983. Pastor Thomas died in 1995.
Chances are that the local police officers and their bosses all thought they were doing their job as required by law in a moral and reasonable manner. Chances are that church members also thought they were going about their lives in a moral and pious way and were being trodden on by a racist government. Since citizens are not tested and evaluated prior to being “hired” as citizens, it is the hiring and training of police that gets all the attention. Below we ask some questions about how such community friction between police and the people being policed can be addressed for the safety and betterment of both sides.
Question for students (and subscribers): Could the police have prevented the confrontations that ended in tragedy? Would community “police academy” have made for better relations?” How about ride-alongs with officers? If police are to be screened for superb physical, mental, and moral traits, should they be well paid to attract the best educated and most capable officers? Keeping officers trained throughout their careers is intensely expensive. Is this expense worth the cost? How would you have approached the volatile situation in Miracle Valley if you were the local sheriff? Crack down on crime? Show of force? Negotiations? Let us know what you think would have worked in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Daniel, William. Shootout at Miracle Valley. Wheatmark, Inc., 2012.
Daniel, William. The Search for Justice: Sequel to Shootout at Miracle Valley. Wheatmark, Inc., 2012.
The featured image in this article, a map by Huebi of the United States highlighting Arizona, is a modified version of United States (Outline Map) 1998 from Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection: United States Maps. This image is a copy or a derivative work of usa_blank.jpg, from the map collection of the Perry-Castañeda Library (PCL) of the University of Texas at Austin. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled GNU Free Documentation License. Subject to disclaimers. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Subject to disclaimers.
