Jim Broussard

Jim Broussard is the U.S. Army veteran and great American patriot who, angered by a Reno bar owner's flying a Mexican flag above the American flag, cut the U.S. flag down. He is variously being hailed as a hero and a patriot or decried as a criminal and a vigilante for this act.

On October 2, 2007, Broussard heard on a local talk radio show that the Cantina El Jaripeo near downtown Reno was flying a Mexican flag above a US flag, drove to the site and cut down the flags.

Broussard appeared with talk radio host Bill Manders on Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto on October 3 and said that he "heard on Bill Manders' show that the flags were flying as they were. I found it disturbing to the point that I had to do something AbOUT it. I grabbed my Ka-Bar, I went down there, I left my vehicle a couple of doors down, I found TV cameras rolling as I walked up, I did what was in my heart."

Talk radio host Mike Gallagher told Broussard during an October 3 interview, "I can promise you that Americans view you as a hero." During that interview Broussard explained that his primary concern was what Gallagher referred to as the 'Hispanification' of America. Broussard said, "I feel there’s a lot of this turning our heads on things in concern to the Hispanic community and the things they do. They seem impervious to our laws in a lot of situations."

A veterans' group, the U.S.S. Intrepid Association Inc., in November of 2007 presented Broussard with a U.S. flag that had been raised over the Intrepid July 12, 2007.

Although Cavuto , Gallagher and other reporters stated that flying the U.S. flag in this manner is illegal, the Reno Police Department and the Nevada chapter of the ACLU issued separate press releases stating that while both U.S. code and Nevada statutes contain protocols relating to the display of the American flag, the protocols are advisory only and carry no sanctions for violation.

The Director for the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, Bob Fulkerson, called Broussard's actions "criminal." Right Wing Watch, the online newsmagazine of People for the American Way, called him a vigilante.

The owner of the bar has not pressed charges against Broussard.