Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association

Mack in 2011

I fought the law and the law won Pseudolaw

Traveling us crazy

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The Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA, for short) is a US Peace Officer group that believes that sheriffs are "the highest executive authority in a county and therefore constitutionally empowered to be able to keep federal agents out of the county".^[1] It promotes this viewpoint as a method of saving the country from tuh overbearin fedrul gubmint. It is unclear how they intend to spread their ideology to states such as Alaska or Connecticut, which lack any office of the sheriff.

Their membership consists of a staggering fourteen sheriffs, one county commissioner, and one chief of police, drawn from thirteen states (mostly southern and western).^{[citation needed]} The organization draws much of its philosophy from the similar sovereign citizen and Posse Comitatus movements. Co-founder Richard Ivan Mack (1952–) (sheriff of Graham County, Arizona from 1988-1996) believes, "The greatest threat we face today is not terrorists; it is our own federal government."^[2] Mack founded the CSPOA in 2010.^[3] Joe Arpaio (sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona from 1993-2016) has been a supporter or member since at least 2013.^[4][5]

Ideology[edit]

Constitutional sheriffs believe that the county has total dominion over the law of its land, superseding even the state and federal governments. As such, they view county sheriffs as the absolute authority of law enforcement. They say this is based on the US Constitution. They highly encourage the formation of posses (groups called by sheriffs to enforce the law). The movement has roots in Posse Comitatus, a Christian white supremacist movement from the 1970s.^[6] Peculiarly, the organization has also been associated with the sovereign citizen movement,^[7] whose members falsely believe that they are not subject to any laws other than common or natural laws.

Richard Mack and Oath Keepers[edit]

Mack is also one of the founders of the Oath Keepers, a group focusing on police and military personnel which, though it may occasionally reflect slivers of militia ideology, advocates that members lay down arms and nonviolently refuse to comply with orders they view as unconstitutional^{[8][note 1]} It is Mack's view that "[t]he greatest threat we face today is not terrorists; it is our federal government… One of the best and easiest solutions is to depend on local officials, especially the sheriff, to stand against federal intervention and federal criminality."^[10]

Credentialism[edit]

Despite not being a sheriff since 1996, Mack still calls himself "Sheriff Mack" on his website,^[11] a form of credentialism. Despite not having any formal law background, Mack has claimed to have trained sheriffs in how to interpret the US Constitution.^[12] Based on Mack's erroneous interpretation of the Constitution, sheriffs in Virginia were able to pressure the legislature to carve out an exception for sheriffs in a law enabling civilian oversight of law enforcement.^[13]

Legal counsel[edit]

They have as legal advisor one Judge Navin-Chandra Naidu, who has worked with many organizations from the Sultanate of Sulu to a Chinese county, and is a member of the American Federation of Television & Radio Artists. Sounds like an interesting guy. His website, "Ecclesiastical Court of Justice and Law Offices,"^[14] has the usual stuff about the country being essentially Christian in nature, and offers advice on how churches can avoid paying tax. In 2001, he was a wanted man, accused in Fiji of forging his law degree,^[15] and his dealings with the Pembina Nation in North Dakota have managed to irk the Anti-Defamation League.

The Convention![edit]

In January of 2012, the CSPOA invited all sheriffs and deputies in the US to come to their conference in Las Vegas. Several hundred did show, including 8 from Colorado; to a person, they returned making heroic attempts to be respectful while not laughing their collective asses off.^[16] The general opinion of the "liberal" sheriff of Weld County was something along the lines of "We thought they had some interesting points, but overall we were unable to accept that this is the role of local law enforcement."^{[note 2]}

There was speculation at the convention that the convention was designed to help support Arizona in the coming months, when the courts were to rule on the Constitutionality of Arizona's anti-immigration policies.^[17] The US Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that part of the law was supersed by Federal law.^[18]

Among the speakers scheduled for the 2013 convention was birther Michael Zullo, who presented a program on "Presidential document fraud."^[19]

Siding with a fucking outlaw[edit]

Mack was the principle adviser in the standoff betweeen Cliven Bundy and the Bureau of Land Management in 2014 over grazing rights on public lands. Mack advised the Bundys to "put all the women up at the front" in case law enforcement started shooting, which looks like an attempt to dissuade the feds from doing anything aggressive on grounds of chivalry — at least until he said that women should be "the first ones shot".^[20][21]

Appearance in Ferguson, Missouri[edit]

In August 2015, a few armed white men who self-identified as members of Oath Keepers showed up at the Ferguson, Missouri anniversary protests of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown. Were they there to protest government overreach in killing unarmed civilians? No, they were there to "protect" someone who worked for Alex Jones' Infowars website.^[22][23]

Alt-med kookery[edit]

Through its store, CSPOA promotes a scammy site (Body Align) that sells worthless products for 'protection' against 5G and electromagnetic fields (EMF).^[24] CSPOA also promotes a more run-of-the-mill dietary supplement site (Global Healing).^[25]

Mack has taken Joseph Mercola at face value with regard to fear-mongering about COVID vaccines.^[26]

Election hijacking[edit]

In 2020, Barry County, Michigan Sheriff Dar Leaf, a member of CSPOA, attempted to enlist fellow CSPOA members to seize voting machines because of his belief in Donald Trump's election conspiracy theory.^[27] In 2024, Leaf, who is associated with sovereign citizens was reelected in a landslide in 2024.^[28]

There's a new sheriff in town[edit]

In 2023, Mormon Sam Bushman became the new CEO of CSPOA. Bushman is also the owner of the right-wing Liberty News Radio (LNR), which has given airtime to ex-KKK Grand Wizard David Duke and Unite the Right fascist Jason Kessler. In an interview with Southern Poverty Law Center's Hatewatch, Bushman engaged in slavery apologetics and made a thinly-veiled reference to the International Jewish conspiracy theory ("I believe that evil people run the world. 'The Moneychangers,' I call them."). LNR hosts a program called Blood River Radio by Eddie Miller, which has touted the white genocide conspiracy theory and Holocaust denial. Both Bushman and ex-CEO Mack have claimed to not be racist themselves, but their direct associations make these claims hard to believe.^[29][30]

See also[edit]

• Joe Arpaio
• Militia movement
• Posse Comitatus
• Sovereign citizen

External links[edit]

• Boosted by the pandemic, ‘constitutional sheriffs’ are a political force by Kimberly Kindy (November 2, 2021) The Washington Post.
• Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association

Notes[edit]

References[edit]