A former Washington County constable was arrested Friday in connection with a felony charge of impersonating a police officer.
Tommy Clowers is being held in the Benton County Jail awaiting a bond hearing. He was arrested for criminal impersonation of a law enforcement officer, according to a news release from the Benton County Sheriff’s Office.
The arrest stems from a Jan. 18 complaint that the sheriff’s office received from a person claiming to have been stopped by someone who may not have been an officer. The complainant said the man who stopped him had emergency lights and was wearing a jacket with a sewn-on badge, according to the news release. The man left the scene in his vehicle when the person asked to see his identification, according to the news release.
Deputy Jason Wood, in the sheriff's office specialized operations division, was on patrol Jan. 18 in the Bentonville and saw a vehicle equipped to look like a police vehicle. The vehicle had a badge decal on the door that read Civil Officer and it also had an emergency light bar with blue lights, according to the news release.
Wood was suspicious of the vehicle and recorded the tag number, according to the news release.
Benton County sheriff’s deputies, along with Springdale police, executed a search warrant at Clowers’ home and recovered several items including two vehicles with Civil Officer markings and blue light bars, according to the news release.
Clowers was first elected constable in 1998, according to an April 4, 2010 story in the Northwest Arkansas Times. He lost the constable race in the May 2012 preferential primary.
According to the newss release, Clowers is a former police officer at Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport, but he is currently not working for any law enforcement agency.