A District man was charged Friday with impersonating a U.S. Marshal after he was caught trying to buy insignia clothing at the agency’s Arlington headquarters while wearing a U.S. Marshal Service hat and jacket, court documents said.
On Thursday, Kenneth Irving Brown, 58, was caught trying to buy marshals hats at the Ship’s Hatch, a store at the marshals headquarters that sells Navy and Marshals Service items, according to a sworn statement by Deputy Peter Marketos. Only Navy or marshals employees can purchase items from the store.
It wasn’t the first time Brown had visited the store, and he was wearing a brown U.S. Marshals jacket and a green knit U.S. Marshals hat at the time, the statement said.
While standing in the checkout line, Brown told the clerk he would be an undercover agent at Tuesday’s presidential inauguration, the statement said. The clerk, Brown said, would be able to spot him in pictures standing near President-elect Barack Obama.
Four deputies confronted Brown as he exited the store and asked for identification, the statement said. Brown refused to provide any and was Tasered as he tried to run away.
Deputies later found he had a loaded semiautomatic handgun at his side and a second strapped to his back, the statement said. They also found two U.S. Marshals badges, one attached to a leather holder, another dangling from a neck chain.
Brown later admitted that “he wanted to make a difference and since the cops were never around his neighborhood in the District of Columbia he ‘morphed’ into a U.S. Marshal around November 2007,” Marketos wrote in the statement. He chose being a marshal because he could buy a badge through mail order.
Brown reportedly said he was carrying the two guns because “his research revealed that Marshals were authorized to carry two weapons” and he wanted to “make it look like the real thing,” Marketos wrote. Brown said he bought the guns at a gun collectors armory.
The alleged impersonator concluded the interview by saying he was a martial arts expert and often offered to instruct people on how to disarm people, the statement said.
He is being held without bail.
