PLAINFIELD – Supporters of convicted tax protesters Ed and Elaine Brown reported online and in radio broadcasts that multiple semi-automatic gunshots were fired in the woods behind the couple's Plainfield home late Saturday night.

About 60 calls coming from all over the country clogged emergency telephone lines at Hanover dispatch until around 6:30 a.m. yesterday, Plainfield Police Chief Gordon Gillens said. A second dispatcher came in to help handle the call volume.

"They totally disrupted emergency services by putting all that stuff on the Internet and giving out all these phone numbers to call," Gillens said.

BROWN

Brown supporters also claimed someone had been physically shaking the trailer that houses Jim Hobbs, who is staying on the Browns' property, and theorized that federal agents were trying to provoke a violent clash, according to posts on the Browns' blog.

U.S. Marshal Steve Monier said yesterday that no law enforcement officers were at the Browns' residence over the weekend.

"I don't know anything about it," Monier said. "It's not us, we're not there."

Monier has repeatedly said he wants to avoid a violent confrontation with the Browns and resolve the situation peacefully.

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Plainfield residents living near the Browns said there were no disturbances Saturday night, Gillens said.

"It's a complete fabrication," he said. "There was absolutely no report from anyone up there that there were fireworks or firearms or anything like that." Plainfield police are investigating whether the disruption at the dispatch center amounted to a criminal act.

The Browns assert that federal income taxes are unlawful and part of a Freemason plot to control the masses. They were convicted in January of felony tax evasion and sentenced to more than five years in prison in April.

They have remained at their home since then, avoiding capture, and vow to defend themselves with deadly force if federal agents try to apprehend them.

On the Browns' blog, www.questforfairtrialinconcordnh.com, supporters said they heard between 30 and 40 rounds fired behind the house around midnight Saturday. In a pod cast of a radio interview posted on the site, Brown supporter Danny Riley, 39, said everyone at the Center of Town Road residence was on high alert until dawn.

"Everybody heard the gunshots," he said. "Nobody's hunting at 12 midnight in the back of the woods, you know?"

Riley said supporters at the house were positioned at "battle stations," including one supporter using night-vision goggles to scan the woods from inside a lookout tower.

"This is it. This is it," Riley said during the interview, breathing heavily. "This is the beginning€¦ Enough is enough." Riley said he's prepared to die for the Browns' cause. "I don't know what else to say. I'm lost for words. I'm sweating bullets. I'm wrapped in bulletproof vests, I've got helmets on, and I'm sweating bullets. I've got a guy in the tower. We're ready to go."

Web posts on various sites urged supporters to call local, county, state and federal law enforcement agencies and "Tell them the world is watching!"

Monier said he had no contact with the Browns over the weekend and that his office was not conducting surveillance at their house.

"There's no presence from the marshal's office or any other law enforcement agency up there, other than routine patrols by the Plainfield Police Department," he said. "I don't know what they're talking about."