Affidavit: Pyatt man portrayed law officer
Posted on Thursday, September 14, 2006
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/166564/
A man who had just complained to the Marion County Quorum Court about road conditions in his neighborhood was escorted from the meeting room Tuesday night and arrested on a charge of impersonating a police officer.
Ronald C. Bourg, 57, of Pyatt had finished a short presentation and sat down when law enforcement officers took him into custody. He faces one count of first-degree criminal impersonation.
An arrest affidavit filed in support of the charge said Bourg presented a phony law enforcement identification card during a traffic stop last month. The card was issued by the United States Constitution Rangers, a New Hampshire-based organization headed by Ed Brown.
Brown is a longtime militia leader in New England, said Mark Pitcavage, fact-finding director for the Anti-Defamation League, which tracks anti-Semitic organizations and other extremist groups.
The U. S. Constitution Rangers defines itself on its Web site as “an organization of dedicated Officers of Honor charged with the responsibility of policing the offices of public trust.
“ Rangers pledge to defend our republican form of government provided by the Constitution of the United States of America and to protect the rights of the people as enumerated in the Bill of Rights.”
According to the arrest affidavit, Bourg was a passenger in a vehicle that Trooper Matthew Sheleypulled over Aug. 15 for a traffic violation. Bourg told Sheley he was a law officer, presented the Constitution Rangers card and said the organization “investigates public officials,” according to the affidavit.
Bourg was arraigned Wednesday in Marion County Circuit Court in Yellville, and freed after posting a $ 1, 500 bond. First-degree criminal impersonation is a Class D felony punishable by up to six years in prison.
“The United States Constitution Rangers is an old, antigovernment extremist group,” Pitcavage said in a telephone interview from Anti-Defamation League offices in Columbus, Ohio.
The organization was founded in Arizona in the 1980 s and probably has a few hundred members nationwide, he said.
Pitcavage further characterized the Constitution Rangers as “sort of halfway between a militia group and a sovereign citizens group.”
Such groups believe conspirators have subverted the legitimate U. S. government and replaced it with an illegitimate one, he said.
Rangers leader Brown and his wife were arrested in May on several charges of failure to pay income taxes.
They are scheduled for trial in October in federal court in New Hampshire.