The Man Behind the Curtain

Episode 1 of 3

This article has been a long time coming. To substantiate everything I am about to tell you, this article will be screenshot heavy with brief summaries to help you understand the context of what you are looking at. When I began this project, my goal was to tell a story about someone and his organization. After speaking to a few individuals who confirmed theories that I had already formed from my own interactions with them, I believed it was time that someone call this person out for being antithetical to the person and organization that they display themselves as.

They person does a great job with deflecting questions and making themselves look good. Unfortunately, I and many others had the wool pulled over our eyes and when we looked beyond the thin veneer of their own story, we were able to see what this individual and his organization truly stood for.

I speak of the Appalachian Ranger Association and their founder-come-Commander, Mark Polcwiartek. My first interactions with him were from minutemen discord groups before he formed the ARA, and from the start I had a feeling that something was off about the man. I decided on a neutral stance. When he formed the ARA, I was intrigued, and I too had only seen the public relations campaign he ran against everyone for the past few years and took it as gospel. 

It wasn’t until Mark decided to publish a story on the ARA Instagram page about some drama that had sprung up between him and what I expected to be a former member. I had heard rumors that things were off inside the organization, but nothing concrete. I reached out to the page and asked some questions which spawned more questions and eventually snowballed into where I am today.

I wanted to tell the story of the members of the Appalachian Ranger Association that had either left or been removed by Mark. While writing it, I realized that all I was doing was relaying a story that might seem complicated and would need lots of proof. Proof that I now have. So instead of letting you read things twice, I have decided that a twitter files approach is best. I will post screenshot images of the conversations between former members and Mark, or just other things that I have looked into about the man with some brief summaries to help you as the reader understand what you are looking at.

I will present my evidence to help you as the reader understand what you’re looking at. You will be able to see the kind of leadership, transparency, morality, and integrity that Mark Polcwiartek has and arrive at an informed conclusion on your own.

I would have liked nothing better than for this all to have been a big “one dude didn't meld well with another dude who was a bigger fish”. I did not come to that conclusion. If you want my personal opinion, it is that Mark is a narcissistic, pathological liar, and an incompetent unit commander that wants nothing more than to have a personal army to back up his dream of being a local warlord. That's just my opinion, however, and I ask that you make up your own opinion of the man.

Mark has used the following usernames: Mark Anthony, Tyrannis Primus , Marek Antoni, and occasionally Augustus.

Part 1

Mark’s time as a Peace Officer

When I first encountered Mark, it was right after I had resigned from my time in law enforcement. I don't try to blow what I did out of the water. I was an animal control officer for a police department for five years and one month. I was in a minuteman discord group chatting with a few people including one Tyrannus Primus (Mark’s username from time to time). We were talking about law enforcement stuff and Mark commented that he had also recently left a law enforcement agency that he had been working for. He told me he did two years with his department and was in patrol the entire time. He came off as slightly arrogant and ignorant of the career but I didn't care.

Fast-forward to earlier this year when I began looking into Mark. It came to my attention that he has often mentioned his time as a “Peace Officer” and that he either worked in the field for two, five, eight, or ten years - depending on who you asked. He had done everything from patrol to gang task force operations, to crisis intervention. He also worked for two different agencies, one in Ohio (never mentioning the department) and the other was the Knox County Sheriff's Office after he moved to Tennessee. Mark even told people that he put himself through the Sheriff's academy so that he could skip the jail deputy period of working for KCSO and go right to patrol. 

What did not add up was the various time in service he was telling to multiple people, and that no self respecting sheriff's deputy would refer to themselves as an officer, or a peace officer at that. Other things he told people were that he did “jump out operations” which were described to them by Mark as “we would roll up and black bag people in unmarked vehicles and drive off”.

Now I only have an associates of Criminal Justice and worked in my little branch of the justice system in the Commonwealth of Virginia, but I read often. The only time I have ever come across “jump out operations” was during the 2020 protests in Seattle where Federal law enforcement was conducting operations of this sort against alleged members of the self-styled antifa group.

I have not looked into the status of those individuals but that is also beyond the scope of this paper. I have never heard of a Sheriff's office doing this and from my reading in law books, it is considered highly unconstitutional and does not constitute a good arrest. In fact, it violates the sixth amendment to the United States Constitution.

So, with this all in mind, I reached out to the Knox County Sheriff's Office. I figured that I would F.O.I.A. (freedom of information act) his record as an employee with them and let it speak for itself. I was altogether unsurprised by what I found when I reached out.

As you can see, his alleged time with KCSO was fabricated

Not knowing the name of the agency in Ohio that he worked for, I began to dig around. In my time working for my agency, everything we did professionally was tracked and carried over into a database. In the Commonwealth of Virginia we follow DCJS (Department of Criminal Justice Standards). These regulate the amount of hours of in-service training officers and deputies must take each year to stay certified as a law enforcement officer, as well as tracking academy accreditation and additional training hours.

In my search of the Ohio government, I found that you can locate all of this information on the Ohio Attorney General’s website. So I went searching. If I could confirm that he was a certified law enforcement (or “peace officer”) then I could find the agency he worked for and send them a FOIA request. 

When you search for Mark on their website, No records found

To cover all my bases after the Ohio search, I reached out to the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance who handle P.O.S.T. Certification (Peace Officer Standards & Training Commission). This is the department that would have a record if an individual is a certified law enforcement officer in the State of Tennessee. I spoke with Director of Communications, Kevin Walters, who informed me that they do not have any record as current or in their archives of this individual being certified.

My goal is to keep this brief, but I felt that this first section was necessary to get a read on the man. His credibility has not been established and the only thing that we have for proof is that he is a liar. Stolen valor is stupid, but cop stolen valor is a whole other level of cringe. Never go full sheepdog.

One last thing before we move on. Not only did Mark claim to have worked for these organizations, but he also alleged to have shot and killed one person when he was a rookie working for KCSO. Why he thought no one would ever go to fact check that, I have no idea.

Part 2

Integrity and Morality

Mark likes to boast about his integrity and morality and needing to be there for others in the community, but does he believe that? The below is a screenshot of a conversation from before Mark formed the ARA. I don’t recall what the topic was originally about, but it doesn’t really matter as you can read exactly what Mark wrote. Apparently having integrity and morality and building community means divorcing your wife if she sustains a horrendous attack. This speaks for itself.

According to former members, Mark has stated this point of view a few times along with “If my wife got between me and the ARA, I can replace a wife”

Then we get to his hypocritical presentation as a “force for good” where he posts stuff like this:

Now juxtapose this with this segment of private ARA chats to see his true colors:

…will Mark be correcting his own actions, then?

Mark has the public relations front in full swing. But we need to ask, which is it? Are you going to help people or are you going to take their stuff?

Another interesting tidbit is the training facility the ARA has historically used, the Pressmen’s Home. Over a year ago it was purchased by the Davey Resource Group. Until this purchase the ARA had permission to use the facility. It came to my attention that they had not reached out to the new owner. After speaking with DRG about the facility to confirm that they had acquired it, I was given an official statement on the Davey Resource Groups stance which is provided here:

There are (at the time of this publication) photos on the ARA Instagram page that are confirmed as having taken place on the Pressman’s Home facility after the October 2022 purchase. This would be a violation of their 4th bylaw - Illegal activity as prescribed by your State or Federal government will not be tolerated. It is the responsibility of leadership of an organization to make sure they are doing things right and proper. That includes having permission to use private property.

We must demand better from our leaders, always.

If you have the integrity that Mark does, I would suggest you look in the mirror and re-evaluate who you are. I would also recommend that if you are a moral person then you should not associate with Mark and the ARA. Continue to do so at your own peril upon circulation of this document.

Speaking of being moral and having Integrity. Mark has stated a few times that the ARA is a registered 501©(3) (non-profit) organization. He had it listed on their main website that they are:

Now he said that they were a 501©(3) only a few weeks after stating openly that he was thinking of applying for that status. From people I have spoken to about operating one, the process to get that status is anywhere from three months to two years depending on how you applied and the current backlog of applicants. Going rate on average tends to be a year from application to notification of acceptance or denial.

However, there are some things that come up that make you pause and raise an eyebrow.

I brought my concerns to Northern Provisions knowing they were about to make a post on the ARA. Unfortunately, they did not address the matter.

Every time Mark has posted his “community roundtable” questions on Instagram following an FTX, I have asked a simple question -

Mark does not have to answer me, that is his choice. I am not beholden to him and vice versa. But a simple question like this shouldn’t have been ignored.

To date, my questions have gone unanswered. I’m not one to invoke the government, especially the feds but in cases like this they have their utility; were one to look up the ARA(Appalachian or American) on the IRS website you will not (at the time of this publication) find them as a registered 501©(3). Just saying you are something does not make it so.

On October 10th, 2023 it came to our attention that the Office of the Tennessee Secretary of State; Division of Charities, was informed of the statements being made by Mark on his website. Shortly after they looked into the ARA, it was determined that they are not a 501c3, and that Mark had been instructed to remove the statements along with removing the donation links from the website. The ARA website since has made the alterations to reflect this.

Claiming you are a charitable organization is, in my understanding of the law, illegal when you do not actually have that status. We would list it under fraud. Will Mark be investigated for fraud? It is possible.

This is also a friendly reminder that the 4th By-Law of the ARA is to not break laws, be them Local, County, State, or Federal. So what happens now? Will Mark remove himself over violating the organizations 4th By-Law? Will the senior officers and NCO’s hold a vote of no confidence and give Mark a tribunal? Will no one inside the organization bat an eye at their leader saying “Rules for thee but not for me?”. Time will tell, and its a good thing that we have a lot of time because we have a lot to tell.

-While this is a lot to digest, please stay tuned for the second article that will look at Marks leadership style and transparency within the organization. This will be releasing tomorrow morning. I would like to thank you for taking your time to read this and I hope that this helps you make up your mind about the man and the organization which he runs.

-Smokey