[url=http://www.azstarnet.com/border/br-simcoxarrest.html]Simcox, companion cited by park ranger[/url]
Monday, January 27, 2003
The leader of a Tombstone citizens' patrol group faces three misdemeanor charges after he walked armed into Coronado National Memorial near the Arizona-Mexico border Sunday.
Chris Simcox was with a companion when they walked onto National Park Service land south of Sierra Vista and were stopped by a ranger.
Simcox said the two were simply hiking, but Chief Ranger Thane Weigand said it appears that they were conducting a border patrol operation without permission.
A ranger detained Simcox and his friend, William Dore, for more than three hours before citing both of them, they said. [red]Simcox was charged with carrying a loaded weapon inside a national park, operating without a special use permit and interfering with a law enforcement function. Dore was cited for operating without a special use permit.[/red]
[red]Rangers confiscated equipment Simcox was carrying: his pistol, two two-way radios, a police scanner, a cellular phone and a digital camera. "It's evidence of him conducting a non-permitted activity in the national park," Weigand said.[/red]
Simcox, who owns the Tombstone Tumbleweed newspaper, leads one of at least three citizens' groups in Southern Arizona that patrol the border, sometimes armed, in search of illegal border-crossers. Simcox's group, called Civil Homeland Defense, patrolled on Saturday but not Sunday, he said.
Simcox says he and Dore were driving west along the border road when they came to a fence and gate beyond which, a sign said, vehicles were not permitted. So they decided to park and walk in. Simcox says he would not have gone in armed had he realized the fence marked the Coronado National Memorial's boundary.
[i]{a previous version of the story included this also}[/i]
They were driving along Border Road when they came to a fence with a sign that said no vehicles were permitted, Simcox said. So they parked the van and walked past the fence along the road, not knowing the fence was the park boundary, Simcox said.
"Next thing I know, there's somebody waiting in the bushes for us," Simcox said.
It was a park ranger, who said she had been watching the pair, knew who they were and what they were up to, Simcox said. He and Dore were detained for about 3 1/2 hours, and some belongings were seized, Simcox said. Those belongings included a scanner, two two-way radios, his camera, a cell phone and his pistol.
Weigand said the charges against Simcox and Dore are misdemeanors.
The chief ranger at the park south of Sierra Vista, Thane Weigand, said it appeared Simcox and William Dore were conducting a patrol of the border. "[red]They were doing a special activity inside the park that's not sanctioned by the park,[/red]" Weigand said.
View Quote
[i]"They were doing a special activity inside the park that's not sanctioned by the park"[/i] - yeah, like exercising their constitutional rights and defending their state from illegal foreign invaders.