New Mexico Civil Guard founder Bryce Provance sits for deposition

Bryce Provance wore what seemed to be a Civil Conflict period swimsuit and overcoat when he offered himself at a regulation workplace in Albuquerque on March 3. 

Provance, who is understood by a couple of aliases, was there to provide a deposition for a civil lawsuit towards the New Mexico Civil Guard, an armed paramilitary group he based. Additionally current was the defendants’ counsel, Paul Kennedy.

After taking his seat, Provance pulled out some papers and laid them on the desk.

Amongst them was a duplicate of the Declaration of Independence and the quilt of a guide by Milton William Cooper titled “Behold a Pale Horse,” a 1991 work that’s well-liked amongst adherents to the QAnon conspiracy principle and others harboring anti-government sentiments.

The papers additionally included a sexually specific stick determine drawing depicting a devilish determine surrounded in flames controlling three marionettes whereas a fourth determine, labeled “Georgetown Legislation,” performs a intercourse act.

Close by, a stick determine labeled “me” is proven participating in a intercourse act with one other stick determine. In a phrase balloon, the determine states, “Thanks, Bryce.” 

When requested by the plaintiffs’ lawyer to elucidate the drawing’s relevance, Provance stated, “It is to make me smile whereas I’ve to have a look at you.”

The deposition lasted simply 10 minutes, throughout which Provance refused to reply most questions. 

Six weeks after the deposition, a cell phone beforehand used to contact Provance was now not lively, and Kennedy couldn’t be reached for remark. 

DA seeks injunction towards New Mexico Civil Guard

Bernalillo County District Lawyer Raúl Torrez, who’s operating for state Lawyer Normal within the Democratic Get together major, filed a civil criticism towards the New Mexico Civil Guard in the summertime of 2020.

Vigils, protests and demonstrations had risen across the state supporting the Black Lives Matter motion and denouncing the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in addition to the Las Cruces demise of Antonio Valenzuela after being put in a chokehold early that 12 months. 

The New Mexico Civil Guard was one of some far-right teams that appeared bearing arms at demonstrations in Las Cruces, telling reporters they had been there to assist keep peace. The Civil Guard assembled volunteers and arranged coaching occasions across the state, speculated about operating a slate of county sheriff candidates and appeared with rifles at demonstrations calling for the removing of monuments to Spanish conquistadors. 

At one such protest in Albuquerque, the Civil Guard’s presence was conspicuous as a gaggle of demonstrators tried to tug down “La Jornada,” a well-known statue on the Albuquerque Museum depicting Don Juan de Oñate main a gaggle of settlers. 

A counterprotester unaffiliated with the NMCG shot and wounded a person after being recorded on video assaulting protesters and being chased away.

Whereas the NMCG was indirectly implicated within the taking pictures, Torrez argued in an interview that they weren’t serving to to maintain peace, both. 

“Their presence in that house, armed and a minimum of in political alignment clearly together with his beliefs at that second, emboldened him to do the issues that he did, and emboldened him to take the steps that he took,” he stated in an interview on the Las Cruces Solar-Information workplace. 

Steven Ray Baca, who stated he fired his weapon in self-defense, is dealing with prices together with aggravated battery, battery towards different protesters and illegal carrying of a weapon. Almost two years later, the case remains to be pending trial. 

Torrez’s workplace is searching for a courtroom declaration that the NMCG is an unauthorized armed power and an injunction stopping the group from organizing and working in New Mexico. 

A trial date is ready for December, however might be vacated if the courtroom grants a default judgment.

‘I shredded and burned the whole lot’

The New Mexico Civil Guard designated Provance to talk for the group on the deposition, however he was uncooperative from the very starting, responding “No remark” when requested to state his identify. Requested to elucidate, he answered, “Fifth Modification proper.”

Over the following a number of minutes he refused to reply most questions, declaring he would reply solely to inquiries particularly referenced within the discover of deposition, solely to reply “no remark” or invoke the Fifth Modification safety towards self-incrimination to just about each query.

He did, nonetheless, state that he had been “compelled from the New Mexico Civil Guard based mostly on my previous,” doubtless in reference to information protection of his previous ties to white supremacist teams and organizations celebrating the confederacy. 

Provance introduced he had destroyed information sought by the DA’s workplace for discovery on the group’s membership and actions. “I shredded and burned the whole lot concerning the construction of the New Mexico Civil Guard. I additionally poured bleach on the onerous drive of my laptop computer after which burned it.” 

He claimed to have accomplished so whereas touring from Florida to Tennessee within the fall of 2020, stating he was unaware of a pending lawsuit at the moment. Torrez argued that may’t be true. 

In an April 11, 2022 movement, the state identified that Provance gave a number of information interviews or feedback in regards to the lawsuit previous to when he claims to have destroyed his pc. 

Provance answered textual content messages from a Solar-Information reporter in regards to the lawsuit on July 17, 2020, days after the criticism had been filed. 

Torrez is searching for sanctions for spoliation of proof and contempt of courtroom, together with a default judgment towards the New Mexico Civil Guard and particular person defendants, together with Provance. The movement additionally seeks lawyer’s charges and prices of getting ready for the deposition. 

‘I am not below your guidelines’

Minutes earlier than abruptly ending the deposition, Provance launched a brand new cause for refusing to reply.

“I don’t really feel like commenting,” he stated. “I am a free man below the Structure. I am not below your guidelines, the Bar Affiliation’s guidelines, and I’ve no data of them.” 

The refusal to cooperate with the courtroom’s guidelines and procedures, Torrez stated, demonstrated why policing shouldn’t be left to self-appointed paramilitary teams. 

“Is that this the sort of particular person I would like answerable for a paramilitary group that is armed with semi-automatic rifles?” Torrez requested rhetorically. “There is a cause we’ve the governor answerable for the Nationwide Guard. It is a very ordered and regimented and strictly organized endeavor.” 

The unique criticism is modeled on a technique that has used civil lawsuits towards extremist teams aiming for injunctions and, in some circumstances, monetary damages. The technique was utilized by the Southern Poverty Legislation Middle many years in the past towards the militia wing of the Ku Klux Klan. 

In November, as an illustration, a Virginia jury directed white supremacist figures behind the 2017 “Unite the Proper” rally in Charlottesville to pay $25 million in damages. It was throughout this rally that James Alex Fields drove his automobile right into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing Heather Heyer and wounding others. Fields was later convicted of murdering her and sentenced to life in jail. 

Mary McCord, a Georgetown College regulation professor and head of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Safety, stated her group has used civil laws to focus on extremist teams and draw some distinctions between their actions and constitutional ensures of freedom of speech and meeting and the proper to bear arms. 

“The First Modification does not shield violence, it does not shield incitement to imminent violence,” she stated in an interview. “The Second Modification protects a person proper to bear arms for self-defense, however not personal armies or personal paramilitaries.”

Questioning how to answer the fear and violence in Charlottesville, McCord stated she and colleagues thought state courts may be a venue “to get forward-looking injunctive reduction to ban these teams, whether or not they had been the white nationalists that had been appearing in live performance with one another and interesting in paramilitary methods … or the precise self-professed militia who had been usurping the position of regulation enforcement and purporting to do that themselves … making their very own choices about when and below what circumstances they’d deploy deadly power.”

Attorneys from the institute are serving as co-counsel with Torrez’s workplace on the litigation towards the New Mexico Civil Guard. That will clarify the reference to “Georgetown regulation” in Provance’s stick determine drawing. 

New Mexico Civil Guard retains low profile since lawsuit

Torrez stated an instantaneous final result of the case is that the New Mexico Civil Guard has been extra subdued because the criticism was filed.

The NMCG Fb account, which had been used to muster volunteers, put up political messages and publish photographs of residents who attended Black Lives Matter demonstrations, was deleted by the platform in a widespread purge in 2020 towards a whole lot of accounts “tied to offline anarchist teams that assist violent acts amidst protests, US-based militia organizations and QAnon.”

And the group’s appearances have been smaller and rare.

The final reported look of the New Mexico Civil Guard appears to have been on March 3, the identical day Provance gave his deposition in Albuquerque.

4 members of the NMCG appeared at a rally close to Mesquite in Doña Ana County, wearing camouflage navy garb, with sidearms however no rifles. The rally was a present of assist for a convoy of truckers sure for Washington, D.C. to protest COVID-19 vaccine mandates and different grievances. 

The members instructed a Solar-Information reporter they had been there strictly as individuals within the rally, and weren’t there to maintain order.

Algernon D’Ammassa could be reached at 575-541-5451, adammassa@lcsun-news.com or @AlgernonWrites on Twitter.