Had Badge, Will Travel

An ex-sheriff slings bogus constitutional lessons at cops—with your state’s seal of approval.

- By Stephanie Mencimer, Illustration by Noma Bar

ON A GLORIOUS SATURDAY in October, about 75 people gather inside an airy insulation installer’s warehouse on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, ready for a daylong lesson in resisting tyranny. The mostly white, middle-aged crowd sports Trump 2024 hats and shirts extolling the Second Amendment—but no masks.

As attendees grab donuts and coffee, the event’s headliner, Richard Mack, founder of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA), genially chats with them and hawks his self-published books, including The County Sheriff: America’s Last Hope. Tall and tan at almost 69, Mack has the look of an aging game show host and carries himself with the self-assurance of a minor celebrity. He has deep, decades-long ties to militia and extremist groups. He even wrote the foreword to a book by his friend Randy Weaver, the white separatist whose wife and son were shot by federal agents during an 11-day 1992 standoff at Ruby Ridge, Idaho.

Mack’s organization is made up of hundreds of elected sheriffs and supporters who promote the idea that these county officials have the right to refuse to enforce laws they deem unconstitutional—such as most federal gun laws—and to call up citizen militias to help keep the peace. In their jurisdictions, Mack believes sheriffs supersede the president of the United States.