Group backs off on border patrols
By Michael Marizco and Joseph Barrios
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
TOMBSTONE - The leader of a Tombstone citizens' patrol group said he's
taking a break from patrolling the border, putting the blame on government
pressure to halt his well-publicized effort to curb illegal immigration.
Chris Simcox, who heads the Civil Homeland Defense group, is facing amended criminal charges in U.S. District Court, where prosecutors have alleged that he took a pistol into Coronado National Memorial near the Arizona-Mexico border and lied about it.
Simcox was originally cited Jan. 26 after he walked onto National Park Service land south of Sierra Vista and was stopped by a ranger.
Park rangers detained Simcox and a friend, William Dore, for more than three hours before citing both of them, the pair have said. 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.
Attempts to reach Simcox, owner and publisher of the Tombstone Tumbleweed, for comment on the amended charges were unsuccessful Thursday.
Simcox's case was originally being handled by federal prosecutors through the national Central Violations Bureau, which tracks violations on federal land including improper parking, illegal camping, speeding and other minor offenses. Those cited can pay a fee to have the case dismissed.
But prosecutors filed a criminal complaint against Simcox on Monday. He's charged with carrying a weapon into the park and knowingly giving false information to a park ranger.
The complaint says Simcox was carrying the gun in the waistband of his pants. When asked if he was carrying a weapon, Simcox said he was not.
Simcox said this week that along with his own hiatus, the entire Civil Homeland Defense group has backed off the border in the past week, and now patrols mostly on the weekends.
Simcox last year issued a call to arms to defend the border that has brought the former school teacher national media attention.
He said federal officials warned him to discontinue his patrols following a recent court hearing. Simcox would not specify which federal agents told him to cease and desist. "Let's just say - the feds," Simcox said.
In the six months the militia has operated, Simcox claims 600 to 700 people have been turned back from illegally entering the United States or have been detained and turned over to U.S. Border Patrol agents. The agency does not track such incidents so his claims cannot be independently verified. Neither can his assertion that 170 people have volunteered for patrols.
Regardless of the numbers, Simcox calls his effort a success because it has attracted national attention to the government's inability to protect the border.
"If it takes embarrassing them to get them to do the job, so be it," Simcox said.
The media attention shames the federal government for not doing enough to curb illegal immigration, he said. And it gets the American public to pay attention to border woes.
"But sensationalistic journalism continues to portray us as vigilante people."