NEWPORT, Vt. — The Vermont man accused of destroying sheriff’s vehicles last week to the tune of $300,000 is well known to police.

Orleans County Vermont Sheriff Kirk Martin said last week police in at least three northern counties in that state have had dealings with Roger Pion, 34, of Newport, over the years.

Pion has also had a pair of additional confrontations with Vermont officers in the past month, and police say he was armed both times. According to court records, he had a cocked and loaded .38-caliber pistol stashed in his pants during a July 3 road stop in Newport.

He was found to have another loaded pistol in his possession last Thursday after officers surrounded the large farm tractor Pion allegedly used to crush the sheriff’s department vehicles and arrested him.

In the incident last month, Newport City police pulled over the driver of a green 1998 Acura CL for speeding and failing to display a current license plate registration sticker.

Following a search that resulted in a marijuana possession charge against Pion, who was a passenger, police discovered that Pion had an outstanding warrant against him.

While the driver and another passenger obeyed officers’ command to leave the vehicle, Pion refused, they said, and resisted when they started pulling him out forcibly.

“It is important to note, in prior incidents involving law enforcement encounters with Pion, this individual has acted uncooperative and aggressive,” Newport City Police Department officer Aaron Lefebvre said in his sworn account of the incident.

“Pion assumed an assaultive and resistive stance,” Lefebvre, wrote, before his stronger efforts and assistance from two other officers resulted in “Pion being transferred to the ground,” where, according to the officer, he continued to resist arrest.

Police were able to handcuff him, and then summoned an ambulance for the “non-life threatening injuries he sustained during resistance,” Lefebvre wrote.

Pion was already scheduled for a court appearance in Newport on charges that stemmed from that July 3 stop when he was hit with the 14 new charges from the alleged cruiser-crushing and related incidents.

Bob Hookway, Union Leader Correspondent