First geocaching LEO encounter

[+two left feet]

Had my first encounter with a LEO while caching. Went to find a new cache hoping for an FTF. Turned out to be a lamp skirt micro. I pulled up to it and looked around. It was fairly early so very few muggles about so I thought I'd grab it. Got out and had a good look but could not find it. So, I just get in the car and leave. As I drove through the parking lot a police car pulls in behind me, turns on his lights, gets out and asks me for my drivers license. I am figuring I have a brake light out or something until he asks me; "Sir, what were you just doing?" Busted! So I start telling him about geocaching which he had never heard of and tell him a cache was supposed to be over there, pointing at the light. He asks more questions about what caches are and what is in them. After I answer all his questions he pulls out a 35mm film can, hands it to me and says "Then I guess you were looking for THIS." OK, this is weird. I know who placed the cache and this isn't the owner of the cache. Maybe that is what they mean by public servant. They get the caches and deliver them to your car to make 1/1 micros even EASIER! We get to talking and he told me he watched a guy pull up and look around and then go over to the light, get something, take it to his car and then put it back. Looked pretty suspicious to the officer so he waited until the guy was gone and then went to have a look and the found the film can with a cache log in it. While he was wondering what it could be, I pulled up to the same light and got out. So he pulled me over just to figure out what the heck was going on. We had a good visit and I told him all about caching (maybe more than he wanted to know). His final words on the matter were: "There's nothing illegal so it's OK with me." The real kicker was that the previous cacher that the officer had spotted watched the whole thing from behind a building where he was looking for another cache figuring the officer was going to be busy for awhile with me and would not be bothering him. So he took advantage of the time to find another cache. Guess that says something about the lack of stealth for both of us. Neither of us saw a black and white K-9 unit watching us the whole time!

Edited November 27, 2006 by two left feet

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

Great story! Thanks for posting it!

 

I am known to my geoPals as a cop magnet because stuff like that happens to us so often!

 

All of our encounters have been pleasant, some quite funny, and more than one resulted in the officer(s) being interested enough to look for the cache with us.

 

Have fun out there!

Ed

[bogleman]

Too funny

 

My first "official" LEO encounter.

[+wimseyguy]

Scrap of paper for a micro log: $.10

33mm film can for a micro hide: free if you know where to ask

LEO encounter worthy of posting to the forums: priceless

 

Thanks for sharing your story.

[+medicblue]

I'll add a quick one, I went to a local park where a micro is supposed to be. (So far have gone twice, once with my son and so far nothing). As I'm standing in these bushes near a fence looking hard in the bush branches I spy a fella a few feet away crouching to look into the bushes at me. I realized right away what I must have looked like sneaking into some bushes in a park filled with people and Kids so I stepped out and gave him a quick explanation and a cache note so that he could go home and look it up for himself. He eventually said "Well, good luck with your game" and walked away.

 

Definate Kudos to him for stepping up to make sure I wasn't there for some ugly reason, and from now on I tend to wait for slow park days.

[+Clan Delaney]

Just reminds me why I get so nervous when hunting caches without the protection of think timber...

 

My first LEO encounter went well, also.

[+Lighteye]

Great story, the Mrs. and I are definitely LOL. Thanks for sharing!

[+Renegade Knight]

I'm still working on my first LEO encounter. Great story.

[+unicyclist]

I could of had a moment like that.

 

It was my second time to this spot, so I knew the area the cache was in. This area was usually coverd in kids and parents. It was raining cats and dogs. PERFECT TIME. I run out the the spot and behold a police man was sitting in his car. The only car in the parking lot (besides mine.) The cache was about 50 yards straight in front of his car. I park and think about what I should do. I think "What could go wrong? " I casualy walk out to the geocache and back with no questions or anything, Thank God.

 

Thats my closest.

[+Jamie Z]

I posted one of my better police encounters in The Hunt forum a while back.

 

Jamie

[+GClouse]

After geocaching for just over a year, I had my first LEO encounter on Thanksgiving day. My older son (who is autistic ) wanted to get out of the house, so I took him geocaching. The 4th cache we went after was about a half mile from a road along a greenway. After parking the car in a small pull-off area, and unbuckling my son frm the car, a police cruiser pulled up. A woman officer asked if there was a problem. I explained to the officer that myautistic son was bored, and we were going to walk up the greenway a short distance, and made sure it was okay to park where we did, and she said "Okay, have a nice day" and drove on. The topic of geocaching never came up. BTW, my older son seems to enjoy getting out and walking. My younger son also enjoys it, but if there is any bushwhacking to be done.. He wants no part of it.

[+emurock]

I'm still working on my first LEO encounter. Great story.

Me too and thanks for posting the story.

[+thedeadpirate]

Great story! Thanks for posting it!

 

I am known to my geoPals as a cop magnet because stuff like that happens to us so often!

 

All of our encounters have been pleasant, some quite funny, and more than one resulted in the officer(s) being interested enough to look for the cache with us.

 

Have fun out there!

Ed

 

Ed, do you find LEO's are kind of eased by the crutches. I don't have any imperical evidence, but I seem to have an easy time talking with them. I just guess I just don't look all that threatening. We've had a few encounters and they were all pleasant as well.

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

Great story! Thanks for posting it!

 

I am known to my geoPals as a cop magnet because stuff like that happens to us so often!

 

All of our encounters have been pleasant, some quite funny, and more than one resulted in the officer(s) being interested enough to look for the cache with us.

 

Have fun out there!

Ed

 

Ed, do you find LEO's are kind of eased by the crutches. I don't have any imperical evidence, but I seem to have an easy time talking with them. I just guess I just don't look all that threatening. We've had a few encounters and they were all pleasant as well.

 

Oh yeah, it is that way with everyone, not just cops! It's like everyone gives me a pass because I am crippled! For some reason old fat gimps on crutches just don't seem to threaten anyone!

 

Same way with geocachers; I go to events and folks see me in my wheelchair, then we'll go geocaching after and they are amazed, as if walking on crutches is a real trick!

 

I can't wear a prosthesis, so when I am not geocaching I often use a wheelchair; it is particularly funny then, because folks assume that anyone in a wheelchair is helpless!

 

The best ones are the folks who bend over to get on eye level and speak slowly and clearly, as if losing a leg somehow made me an idiot or deaf as well!

 

I pulled a good bit of Shore Patrol duty in the Navy, then later was a Case Monitor for our Department of Youth Services and rode with cops every night, with whom I made a number of life-long friends, and the time spent with them did teach me one useful thing - when I am stopped or approached in my car I never reach for my crutches! Long barrel-looking things being waved around in a car or poked out of a car door tend to make cops do things that might not have a good ending!

 

But yes, I have had many LEOs and others accept me as no threat when they see me that I believe would have treated me more seriously before I got hurt.

 

Thankfully my geoPals give me no quarter; they have hidden three caches around the state dedicated to me, all of them way the hell up on mountaintops! One is a fake leg, very realistic, under a big rock up a serious steep grade that takes me hours to climb. I love it and would be embarrassed if they ever put out a lightpole micro for me!

 

Ed

[CoyoteRed]

We've had several LEO encounters. All friendly. They all wanted to know what we were doing. Some seemed interested. Some seemed to suddenly have more urgent things to do.

 

The question I have to the OP, did he sign the log?

[+NatureGuy360]

As a law enforcement officer I encounter other law enforcement officers all the time. However I'm still waiting for the day when I find someone suspiciously lurking around in the bushes just to find out that it is actually a Geocacher!

[+two left feet]

We've had several LEO encounters. All friendly. They all wanted to know what we were doing. Some seemed interested. Some seemed to suddenly have more urgent things to do.

 

The question I have to the OP, did he sign the log?

 

The cop did not sign the log. Good thought. I should have asked him to. His name was Sgt Evans and he did get a mention in my post.

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

Our ex-Alabama Geocachers Association webmaster was a Deputy Sherriff and delighted in 'busting' cachers!

We got some great stories from those encounters.

[+JC_Geo]

Here is my LOE

 

December 2, 2005

While out geocaching for "Wave to the Engineer" cache WP#GCK8NH, I had my first encounter with the local law enforcement.

This cache appeared to be a very easy drive up and grab. The park was empty this morning and I was able to drive right up to the cache location. I searched inside and out at the logical location with no luck. As I was getting ready to leave, I had a visit from the local law enforcement. She wanted to know what I was doing. I told here geocaching, which she knew about. She asked where the cache was hidden and what size cache I was looking for. I showed her the printout and she proceeded to go back to her car, with the printout. She reached around in the car for something and pulls out...... A GARMIN VISTA. Quickly she puts in the coords and says, "maybe your Legend is off". SO we both point to the exact location, do some more searching and still have no luck locating it. I guess we both DNFd that cache.

[+Moore9KSUcats]

To the above post... is she also a geocacher, or did you find out if she has since become more interested in geocaching?

 

Malia

[+JC_Geo]

Malia,

 

She was a begining geocacher with, I think 20 finds. I have run into her a couple times since. Once in uniform and once on the hunt.

Edited November 29, 2006 by JC_Geo

[+BuxCamper]

Here is my LOE

 

December 2, 2005

While out geocaching for "Wave to the Engineer" cache WP#GCK8NH, I had my first encounter with the local law enforcement.

This cache appeared to be a very easy drive up and grab. The park was empty this morning and I was able to drive right up to the cache location. I searched inside and out at the logical location with no luck. As I was getting ready to leave, I had a visit from the local law enforcement. She wanted to know what I was doing. I told here geocaching, which she knew about. She asked where the cache was hidden and what size cache I was looking for. I showed her the printout and she proceeded to go back to her car, with the printout. She reached around in the car for something and pulls out...... A GARMIN VISTA. Quickly she puts in the coords and says, "maybe your Legend is off". SO we both point to the exact location, do some more searching and still have no luck locating it. I guess we both DNFd that cache.

 

In another thread I commented that I have considered the possibility of finding something that requires police intervention. I wonder how many LEOs carry a GPSr at least in the patrol vehicle? Would make it easier to give my coordinates to 911 and wait until the police arrived rather than trek back to a trail head and then lead them back. Stupid me would probably forget to mark the location for a return journey.

[+Wadcutter]

I wonder how many LEOs carry a GPSr at least in the patrol vehicle? Would make it easier to give my coordinates to 911 and wait until the police arrived rather than trek back to a trail head and then lead them back. Stupid me would probably forget to mark the location for a return journey.

All our squad cars (about 950 marked) have GPS which feeds into their in-car laptop computer mapping program. All our crashes are identified on the crash report by the GPS coords. No more of this "525 ft west of the corner of Main and 23rd Ave".

If someone needs help and gives their coords it's a simple matter of the Trop punching the coords into his computer and it will give them directions to the spot.

[+resqroz]

I was looking for a cache in the parking lot of our zoo. The coordinates put it near a chain link fence so I was sticking my fingers down into the posts when a park police car pulled up asking what I was doing. I told him that I was looking for a cache and started to explain ewhat it is when he said that he was a cacher but didn't know about this one.

On the flip side I am a reserve deputy on a mountain rescue team. I always look for caches in our patrol area in the mountains when I do patrols. Its nice to be able to drive to some of these caches that are usually hike in only.

[+two left feet]

Thanks for all the cool posts and stories.

 

I got to thinking about it and actually we did have a previous encounter with a LEO, but I did not think about it when I started this thread. It was a cache at a New Mexico State Trooper HQ placed by a retired trooper. Feels kind of funny to walk up to a Trooper HQ and poke around in the bushes near the front door!! One of the troopers saw us and came out and said hello and talked to us. He is also a cacher and works the remote Northern part of NM. So a GPS is an essential part of his equipment. Cache is GCKY0A in Raton NM. Stop by if you are ever up that way.

[+nekom]

My first and so far only encounter was one that I initiated. On the way back from a cache in a park, we spotted some very suspicious papers in a garbage bag that had been pretty much left in the middle of the woods. It was some man's personal information, I mean EVERYTHING, criminal record, court papers, copies of all sorts of forms of ID just dumped in the woods. Figured the right thing to do was to collect them and take them to the park office, where nobody was on duty, but a county sheriff drove by and we flagged him down, gave him the papers, and he was as puzzled as we were as to what they could have been doing there. After looking over the papers, he mentioned "this guy sure sounds like an ***hole")! He didn't ask us what we were doing up there, but we casusally mentioned that we had been up there caching, he said that he was aware of the activity (not surprising since there are about a dozen caches in that park). We gave him the GPS coordinates of where we found it and our phone number and he thanked us and was off. Never did hear anything more on it. Wierd stuff.

[+emb021]

The topic of this thread really had me confused until I took a look at the articles.

 

You see, for me (and many others), LEO means "Low Earth Orbit". I call cops 'cops' or 'police', never LEO.

[+BuxCamper]

All our squad cars (about 950 marked) have GPS which feeds into their in-car laptop computer mapping program. All our crashes are identified on the crash report by the GPS coords. No more of this "525 ft west of the corner of Main and 23rd Ave".

If someone needs help and gives their coords it's a simple matter of the Trop punching the coords into his computer and it will give them directions to the spot.

 

Please note that I am NOT going to explain to shift supervisor why the car has to be towed out of the mud or a branch punched a hole in the radiator!

 

Probably is better if I move away from the scene anyway lest I accidently damage some evidence.

[me_chris]

The topic of this thread really had me confused until I took a look at the articles.

 

You see, for me (and many others), LEO means "Low Earth Orbit". I call cops 'cops' or 'police', never LEO.

 

Yeah, I also thought Low Earth Orbit, and expected a thread about UFOs....

[k_statealan]

I've only had a couple but my last one made me a little nervous.

 

I was on a long caching trip around western Kansas and was at the end of a long day. It was a couple hours after dark and I was in extreme southwest Kansas (I had just come away from the virtual at the KS-OK-CO tri-border). This part of the country is very isolated. Only 3,300 people in that whole county--2100 of those in one town along the border. So about 10:30 I start heading for the campground the map says is at the Cimmarron Natl Grasslands. I go up the paved road 6 or 7 miles and I start to realize that I may have gone too far so I turn around. I find my way back to the gravel road I was supposed to go on and turn down it. I hadn't seen the glow of any headlights anywhere in sight--and its really flat out there so it shouldn't be a problem to see any--but all of a sudden I see a pair of headlights in my rear view mirror less than 1/8th of a mile back and he's gaining. I don't know what to expect. This dirt road is 15 miles to the next paved one with the campground about 4 miles in or so. Headlights coming out of nowhere are really making me nervous as there isn't even a farm around for miles and the nearest town is a good 15 miles away. I slow down in the hopes that he'll pass but he sticks right behind me. I finally get to the place where the GPS says there is a turnoff (I was hoping it was the camping area) and I pull in to shine my headlights on the sign when the car pulls up next to me. Only then did I see the sherriff's department logo and breathe a sigh of relief. He asked if I was lost and I told him I was looking for the camping area. He told me I found it (thank God) and left.

 

But what were the odds of running into a deputy out there? Some counties in that part of the state only have a handful of deputies covering 400 square miles. I just wish he had flashed his lights right away just to let me know who he was.

[+norsehawk]

I have never been confronted yet, but I was searching for a now archived cache, was a stand of trees behind a baseball field, trashcan, and a bush in the middle of the trees.

 

I'm drinking the mountain dew I got from the nearby convienence store, starting to do some searching, and a police car pulls up, parks right next to the tree, about 5 feet from where I am searching, and proceeds to start eating lunch.

 

I finish my drink, drop the bottle in the trash can, and decide not to wait him out otherwise he might start getting suspicious.

 

Cache was called "Frank Tack's Oasis" I didn't notice if he was Officer Tack or not.

[+Woodbutcher68]

I've only had one close call. I was going to place a new cache and when I pulled into the parking area, I noticed a police car sitting on the road to my cache. Nobody's supposed to drive on that road, but the barricades have been gone for a while. I decided to go for it and as I approached the car, I noticed that the officer was sound asleep. I quietly walked by, not wanting to wake the officer, since I didn't have any donuts to calm him down. When I returned about 20 minutes later, he was still sleeping, so I quietly passed him again. He finally woke up when I was about 100 feet beyond him and drove away, not knowing what I had done.

[+RabidRabit]

I was in one of the seedier parts of town at the end of the road in a kind of industrial area. I was attempting to find a microcache somewhere nearby. I'm new to caching so I'm playing with my G.P.S. attempting to figure out where I'm supposed to go. Well the cache was located inside a cablevision cord running up the side of this pole where it connected with another cablevision line. So I'm concentrating on this micro and unscrewing the connection. About thirty seconds goes by before I'm able to unscrew it and I do this little victory dance.....I look to my left and there is a Mountie in his car staring at me quite intently...... I've got an end of a cable cord in each hand....I've got about three days of growth on my face and the knees of my jeans are muddy from kneeling and looking under things for this cache.

He had never heard of caching, I showed him the log that was in the micro and attempted to educate him on the sport for the next twenty minutes. He couldn't grasp the concept but let me go without taking me for a psych consult.

[+Woodlit]

I've never had such an encounter while looking for a cache, but I have had several run-ins with the cops while looking for benchmarks.

One was inevitable only because it was cemented into the parking lot of the police dept. The other was on a large pull-off on the side of a busy county road.

Both times I explained what benchmarks were, and both times the officers sounded interested. Either that or they were giving me credit for having the perfect story made up, to cover what I was "really" doing.

[+onfire4jesus]

Had my first LEO encounter this weekend. Drove with my family from Wisconsin to Pittsburgh for a family gathering. We pull into a park to find a cache there and there's a police car leaving. He flags me down to tell me the park is closed. I ask him if we can go in anyway (I mean after all I drove 800 miles to find this cache - I don't want to leave when I'm only 1000 feet away.) My wife nearly spits her teeth across the car - she can't believe I asked that. I quickly explain we're geocaching. Blank expression from the police officer. I'm kicking myself for the geocaching brochure I printed out last week which is still sitting on my desk back in Wisconsin. So I give him a run down of the basics and explain that there is a cache hidden in the park. He mulls it over and gives us the go ahead. My wife got a lot of mileage out of the story at the gathering.

Edited January 10, 2007 by steveherrick