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Ever Stopped by Police


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This happened to my spouse yesterday. She is in Ohio visiting family and was geocaching at a rest area along the highway. She found the cache and proceeded to find another up the road. On the way back, across the road from the first Cache at the rest area, is a cache at the opposite side rest area. She arrived at this second rest area an hour after the first one. A self appointed "homeland security" truck driver having nothing better to do, saw them at the first one and then recognized the car an hour later and called the POLICE. :)

 

The POLICE show up behind the car and my spouse needs to explain what she is doing. the Office said that a truck driver recognized the car and told the police that 2 people were burying things in the woods. He went into the woods to find the first one and when he saw the car across the highway, called the police.

 

The officer called a buddy, after she showed him the papers and explained the sport, and his buddy new about it. She told him to tell the driver to place the cache he pulled out of the woods back where he found it so others will be able to find it in the future.

 

The officer was nice and let them go and quickly made a U-turn to speak to the truck driver that was standing near his truck on the other side of the road. Hopefully all will be OK with the caches there.

 

Anyone else have a story to tell? :lol:

 

Cheers!

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... A self appointed "homeland security" truck driver having nothing better to do, saw them at the first one and then recognized the car an hour later and called the POLICE. :lol: ...

 

The truck driver probably belongs to Highway Watch. They get training in suspiciouse behavor. Geocachers fit the profile in much of this training. What we do is harmless. It happens to resemble in some ways things that aren't.

 

That said. I've only been stopped by drunk rednecks and a guy in a Dodge Ram who was wondering what "a guy with a young girl was doing along side the road on a snowy day heading off into the woods in the middle of nowhere holding a box of some kind". Yeah, looks funny but my daughter and I were placing a cache.

Edited by Renegade Knight
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This happened to my spouse yesterday. She is in Ohio visiting family and was geocaching at a rest area along the highway. She found the cache and proceeded to find another up the road. On the way back, across the road from the first Cache at the rest area, is a cache at the opposite side rest area. She arrived at this second rest area an hour after the first one. A self appointed "homeland security" truck driver having nothing better to do, saw them at the first one and then recognized the car an hour later and called the POLICE. :)

 

The POLICE show up behind the car and my spouse needs to explain what she is doing. the Office said that a truck driver recognized the car and told the police that 2 people were burying things in the woods. He went into the woods to find the first one and when he saw the car across the highway, called the police.

 

The officer called a buddy, after she showed him the papers and explained the sport, and his buddy new about it. She told him to tell the driver to place the cache he pulled out of the woods back where he found it so others will be able to find it in the future.

 

The officer was nice and let them go and quickly made a U-turn to speak to the truck driver that was standing near his truck on the other side of the road. Hopefully all will be OK with the caches there.

 

Anyone else have a story to tell? :lol:

 

Cheers!

 

In Scottsdale Arizona... Sadly to say I was caching in a parking lot hoping for divine intervention instead of another LPC. I hear a car roll up behind me as I am walking to a deserted end of the lot. I keep walking and do not look behind me figuring the car was just parking. He circles around in front of me and points to my left. I'm thinking "here we go" and begin reciting my "this is what I'm doing out here" speech. But he points again and yells "it's over there, you are going the wrong way" and then flashes his GPS at me. Turns out he's a cacher and has hides in the area. He chatted with me for about 10 minutes and even offered to take me caching if I was around the next afternoon. Cool guy.

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... A self appointed "homeland security" truck driver having nothing better to do, saw them at the first one and then recognized the car an hour later and called the POLICE. :lol: ...

 

The truck driver probably belongs to Highway Watch. They get training in suspiciouse behavor. Geocachers fit the profile in much of this training. What we do is harmless. It happens to resemble in some ways things that aren't.

Which is exactly why whenever anyone asks I tell them that I am geocaching and even have the panflet laminated and in my cache bag at all times. Works a lot better than trying to spend 20 minutes explaining why a woman with 3 kids is in the middle of a forest bushwacking.

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Which is exactly why whenever anyone asks I tell them that I am geocaching and even have the panflet laminated and in my cache bag at all times. Works a lot better than trying to spend 20 minutes explaining why a woman with 3 kids is in the middle of a forest bushwacking.

Good idea of laminating the brochure, we have just been making copies to hand out.

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Stopped twice, I think. Both times it ended up being a quick check by the police to make sure we weren't hardened criminals on the lamb before they left us to go about our business. Well, the one time in California they kept driving by eyeballing us; they'd been watching us for a while before one stopped to talk to us, to make sure we had no intentions of "vandalizing something". We ended up leaving because we obviously weren't wanted in their section of town. It was one of those places where every teenager drives a porsche or BMW and we were in a 60-something mustang that didn't quite "fit in".

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Yes. We parked our car to go walk on a levee to find a cache. Didn't find the cache, so we returned to the car and drove off. A couple miles down the road we got pulled over. Seems a resident called the cops on us (though as far as I know we were parked legally and walking on public property). My husband made some fumbling explanation of geocaching that really made no sense. He also had left his wallet at home and was the driver. Despite all that, the officer let us go without further questions.

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We've been stopped by police, highway patrol, sheriff, and even a game warden. I would say around 6 or 7 times, but never had any problems as most of them just shook their heads and moved on after we told them what we were doing. This doesn't bother me at all since it lets me know that those men and women are being observant and doing their job. ;)

 

But i also know a person who got stopped by a security guard while looking for a light pole cache at the mall. She told us that it wasn't a pleasant encounter as the guard got pretty upset about it. It wasn't long afterwards that the cache was archived.

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In about 3 years of caching, I've been stopped 3 times by law enforcement but I never felt they their inquiries were unwarranted. First time was by a county sheriff who was checking out my car which was in a parking area of an old Corps of Enginneer park at 0330 hours in the morning. I think I took the guy by surprize when I emerged from the woods. After an exchange of pleasentries, I informed him what I was doing and provided him with the URL off the bottom of my cache page (yes, I'm one of the folks who's not paperless). He thought I was crazy for be out at this time of the morning but I told him it was the best time to get the night cache in the area. After telling me to be careful, he left.

 

My second experience was with a local policeman. He was checking out what I was doing along a trail. It appears this area has been used in the past as a quick escape route for folks who have vandalized houses in the area. After explaining what I was doing the officer left as he was already familiar with geocaching.

 

My last encounter was probably my best. It was in the New Mexican desert just west of the Texas border and about three miles north of the Mexican border. I was traveling down a dirt track when I noticed a vehicle following from a distance. He kept pace with me for about 15 minutes while mantaining his distance and then closed in while turning on his lights. As he approached I noticed the U.S. Border Patrol markings. The officer pulled me over not to prevent me from caching but to warn me of the not-so-good activities in the area and to ensure I was okay. After providing the warning and wishing me luck with my caching we departed our ways. It was good to know there was someone out there concerned enough to warn us "good guys" about potential problems we could encounter in the area.

 

All my encounters have been good so far.

Edited by eagletrek
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We've only been stopped once, by a police officer who came over to ask us what we were doing and did we realize that Walmart was closed. :anibad:

 

The cache in question was near some sheds that were chained to a fence, so I can see where he might have thought we were up to no good. We explained about geocaching, not sure if we were making much sense or not. I wasn't too worried as we had already found the cache and had just finished replacing it. I knew we could always use the "Look, here it is - this explains everything - see, we're not crazy after all" speech, while showing him the cache. Not so sure I would have been as calm had we not found it yet.

 

Evidently, we weren't as crazy sounding as we thought, for he simply pointed at the GPSr mounted on the dash, asked if that is what it was, and let us go on our way. He was really rather nice about it.

;)

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This happened to my spouse yesterday. She is in Ohio visiting family and was geocaching at a rest area along the highway. She found the cache and proceeded to find another up the road. On the way back, across the road from the first Cache at the rest area, is a cache at the opposite side rest area. She arrived at this second rest area an hour after the first one. A self appointed "homeland security" truck driver having nothing better to do, saw them at the first one and then recognized the car an hour later and called the POLICE. :anibad:

 

The POLICE show up behind the car and my spouse needs to explain what she is doing. the Office said that a truck driver recognized the car and told the police that 2 people were burying things in the woods. He went into the woods to find the first one and when he saw the car across the highway, called the police.

 

The officer called a buddy, after she showed him the papers and explained the sport, and his buddy new about it. She told him to tell the driver to place the cache he pulled out of the woods back where he found it so others will be able to find it in the future.

 

The officer was nice and let them go and quickly made a U-turn to speak to the truck driver that was standing near his truck on the other side of the road. Hopefully all will be OK with the caches there.

 

Anyone else have a story to tell? ;)

 

Cheers!

 

Yes... and yes.

 

 

michelle

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This happened to my spouse yesterday. She is in Ohio visiting family and was geocaching at a rest area along the highway. She found the cache and proceeded to find another up the road. On the way back, across the road from the first Cache at the rest area, is a cache at the opposite side rest area. She arrived at this second rest area an hour after the first one. A self appointed "homeland security" truck driver having nothing better to do, saw them at the first one and then recognized the car an hour later and called the POLICE. ;)

 

The POLICE show up behind the car and my spouse needs to explain what she is doing. the Office said that a truck driver recognized the car and told the police that 2 people were burying things in the woods. He went into the woods to find the first one and when he saw the car across the highway, called the police.

 

The officer called a buddy, after she showed him the papers and explained the sport, and his buddy new about it. She told him to tell the driver to place the cache he pulled out of the woods back where he found it so others will be able to find it in the future.

 

The officer was nice and let them go and quickly made a U-turn to speak to the truck driver that was standing near his truck on the other side of the road. Hopefully all will be OK with the caches there.

 

Anyone else have a story to tell? ;)

 

Cheers!

 

Yes... and yes.

 

 

michelle

 

WOW!!!! After reading your story, they should call you Miss Congeniality!!! :anibad:

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Just the other day I was looking for a cache just outside of downtown Minneapolis on my way home from work. It's located near a major bridge along the river. I pulled up started to look for the cache. Shortly after, Minneapolis Police and a Park Ranger show up and start walking up towards the underpass. They were looking at something, but I wasn't sure what. For a brief moment, I thought that maybe they were out geocaching too. I couldn't find the cache without walking right up to the two officers, so I went back to my car for a smoke. The Park Ranger walked up and asked me how I was doing. I replied that I was well and said, "You're probably wondering what I'm doing wandering about." He smiled and said, "Nope, not really. We got a call about some kids spraypainting under the bridge, you didn't happen to see anyone did you?" I explaind that I didn't and that I arrived just a few seconds before they did. They were doing some more investigating, so I decided to come back another day. Glad I was able to find it a few days later... I didn't want to get muggled by cops!

 

-G

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As I am still pretty new - I have yet to have any encounters - but if it happens - I can tell you in advance (unless they are really jerks about it) that I will just be glad they are doing their job - the opposite just wouldn't be acceptable.

 

With that said (and I know its been linked to before, but......) what is the "official" brochure you guys print off and carry around to give to those who might question you. I'd like to do that and add it to my bag I carry when I go out on a hunt.

 

Thanks!

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Two stories regarding the long arm of the law.

 

Caching in Orange County California - long way from home. Investigating a large electrical box on the side of one of their mega-malls. Here a voice say, "Excuse me sir, but what are you doing?". Explain caching, and chat for a bit. She is satisfied and moves on.

 

About four of us caching on the University of Oregon Campus at night. Two bike cops ride by and then return a few minutes later. Again, explain caching. This time they HELP. Still end up with a DNF. If it was easy, it wouldn't be fun. ;)

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<snip> we've all already read the OP, no need to waste any more bandwith or pixels</snip>

 

Anyone else have a story to tell? :P

 

Cheers!

 

Yes... and yes.

 

 

michelle

 

WOW!!!! After reading your story, they should call you Miss Congeniality!!! :P

Wow, you must have met her in person! :P

 

Back OT, yes I cannot count the number of times I've had the "this is what geocaching is all about" discussion with LEO's. I even had a deputy sheriff help find and retrieve a particular cache in Jacksonville FL during a late night post GW3 romp. ;)

 

We had several caching LEO's contact the local departments and agencies prior to GeoWoodstock 5 to minimize any unecessary encounters. I have heard several nice stories, and no problematic ones so far from the 1800+ cachers that came to town that weekend. I even got a few friendly waves from patrol cars myself during a postmidnight downtown run. :anibad:;):P

 

I would strongly encourage the hosts of events to do the same.

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Over five years playing, over 2000 finds and ONE encounter with a rent-a-cop on a private college campus.

 

No idea what I'm doing wrong. :P

 

Bret

My guess is your choice of transportation? ;)

Or maybe it's the cigars? ;)

 

You bringing me some cigars to GeoBash????

 

I guess it could be that I try to look like I'm supposed to be there. I've been approached by a few people who ask. Sometimes I remember to have a few copies of the brochure or the folding card on me, but those are pretty rare times.

 

More often than not, I'm usually caching where there are very few police, so I guess that helps.

 

That might be why I've found and reported 3 meth labs over the past few years too.

 

I'm working on my "Meth Cacher Gold" pin. :anibad:

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I've been stopped 3 times. Two of them were about 10 minutes apart by different officers.

 

The first time I was questioned was around 10:30 PM. I was after a micro that was in an alleyway behind some local businesses. All of a sudden the whole world lit up. There were two police cars and three officers (one was a trainee) and they had BRIGHT lights lighting up my truck and myself. I was in the truck signing the log sheet at the time. I got out smiling and said something like, "Uh, oh. I guess I'm busted eh?" I explained what I was doing and they asked if I had found it. I showed them the cache and they watched me return it to the hiding place. They said they were glad they didn't have to fill out the paperwork needed if I had been a burglar or vandal.

 

The second and third times I was stopped at caches along rural highways. I had pulled off by a "farmer" sign - one of those signs that shows a guy on a tractor - where a local cacher has a series of caches. Almost immediately a Highway Patrol car pulled in behind me. I was completely off the road and legally parked but the officer was concerned that I might have a problem of some sort that had prompted me to pull off. I told him I was geocaching and he laughed and said to be careful and left. About 10 minutes later I had stopped at another cache in the series - on a different highway - and had the same thing happen. Again, the officer asked if I had a problem and needed assistance. The second officer had never heard of geocaching so I explained it to him and handed him one of the info cards I had printed up from geocacher-u.com. I printed them on card stock so they are nice and heavy cards. He seemed to think I was a dork but just said to be careful near the road and then he left.

 

I'm careful to not break any laws when caching - I pay attention to posted hours and such - so I don't really mind being stopped and checked out. It just shows that the officers are actually doing their jobs.

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So, let me see.

 

There's the time I was geocaching on a pedestrian crossing over the freeway when a motorcycle cop zoomed over with his lights flashing -- and it being commute hour, I decided to give the folks on the Hwy 101 parking lot a show by dropping everything and assuming the position against the fencing for all to see. (The cop was a buddy of mine and he came out to harass me. ;) )

 

Then there was the time recently when I was looking around in the back of a parking lot behind a local business when I became aware of an officer in the next parking lot over. I continued to go about my business, found the cache, brought it to hood of my truck and signed the log, dropped a diabetes TB and then took the cache across the adoining parking lot and asked the officer if he would like to sign the log, too. :anibad: I asked him if he was wondering what I was doing and he said "yes, you had me curious." I explained what I was doing and he indicated that his brother geocaches in southern California. He declined on signing the log but wished me well as we parted ways. I've since had him pull up to say "hi" a few times and ask me how the hunt is going when I've been in the area.

 

Just the other night when I was working with my wife at Project Graduation, we saw one of my wife's old classmates who is now an officer on the high-school detail. We got to talking a little and somehow the subject of geocaching came up and "do you know so-and-so", etc. As it turns out he had never heard of geocaching and I gave him the short explanation of how it all works. He thought it was pretty interesting, especially when I told him how many hundreds are hidden right here in town, and now has an awareness of it that he hadn't had before. Maybe if he sees someone out doing something "suspicious" and they say they are geocachers, he'll go "Oh, yeah! My friend told me about that. Have you found very many? Have fun!"

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Wow, everyone. Thanks for sharing your stories. We've been doing this for about 6 months now and "never had any trouble." Famous last words. My wife told her daughter that just before the nice police officer showed up!

 

I think I have felt like we were being watched a few times while caching in neighborhoods but otherwise no other problems.

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I haven't been stopped myself, but while caching a few months ago, I found a log that was signed by a member of our local police service. Seems a guest at the nearby Delta hotel, which overlooks the cache site, saw some "suspicious activity", and reported it. The constable checked out the cache, signed the log, and replaced it as found!

 

ve1bvd

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<snip> we've all already read the OP, no need to waste any more bandwith or pixels</snip>

 

Anyone else have a story to tell? :D

 

Cheers!

 

Yes... and yes.

 

 

michelle

 

WOW!!!! After reading your story, they should call you Miss Congeniality!!! :D

Wow, you must have met her in person! :D

 

...edited to delete the non-essentials

 

It's my bubbly, effervescent-ness.

 

 

michelle

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I'm the half that was stopped by the Sheriff and let me say I am happy to know that they and the truck driver are on the watch! When I showed the GPS unit and the paperwork with a brief explanation - the officer was super nice and interested!

 

Like they say in NY - If you see something, say something! Even though it was me and geocaching, I'm glad they did!

 

(but I won't make that mistake again - hehehehe)

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My frequent cache hunting partners have a retired police car as a daily driver. It makes a great cachemobile and it attracts LEO's like flies (and also chases muggle kids like your wouldn't believe). While out caching the GeoCopCar, we've been offered free coffee at McDonalds, asked "so...who ya with?" a bunch of times, and even had an officer help us find a cache after asking if we were with INS and we explained what we really were doing.

 

Personally, I've been questioned three times in just short of two years of caching. All three times a 'concerned citizen' called the police to report suspicious activity. Two were out in the middle of nowhere and the other was in a small park next to a power plant along Lake Erie. I offered to explain Geocaching (with my hands in plain view and no abrupt movements) and was on my way in just a few moments. I've never been inclined to make up a story to protect a cache placement and risk running afoul of the law. Caching is a game...police with guns are about as real as it gets.

 

IMHO, the more that law enforcement officers are aware of what we're doing, the less chance that other cachers will have negative experiences.

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I was stopped by a Sherrif officer in WA State while caching on a hill that had a cell site on it that overlooked the town of Mt. Vernon. After I explained what I was doing, he was very pleasant and seemed very interested. I wouldn't be surprised if he became a geocacher himself.

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Yes, and at least 4 times. In fact, an officer drove up on me during a hunt yesterday.

 

A month and a half ago, a HOT female officer drove up on me while I was searching for a cache near a park-n-ride. I must have a thing for secure women in uniform who carry guns? :o It was dark and I must have looked a little "odd." I explained the activity and she seemed curious. I told her that the cache was only abut 75 feet away. I pointed in the direction, she turned her squad to point that way as to illuminate the area. She got out and walked over to GZ. She looked for a few seconds and stated that she saw nothing but a rock. I said "that's it." I picked it up and showed her the cache and log. She seemed surprised and interested (not in me, but in caching).

 

I've had a few officers watch from a distance, only to approach as I was about to leave. I explain what I'm doing and none seem to have any problem with it.

 

There are a few officer cachers in our area, and I've actually cached with one.

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Not only was I stopped by police, but I was detained by officers with assault weapons drawn and pointed right at me. It all happened on Friday, the 15th of June. I went into work early that day, so I was able to leave around 4:00. So instead of going home, I decided to go geocaching for an hour or so. There were a couple of caches near my home in Taylorsville, Utah that I hadn't been able to find. So I went over to the park near my home and found the first one. I then found the second one a few minutes later.

 

I looked at my pocket query and noticed that there was one more close by. So I decided to go and find it as well. I drove over to the location and determined that the cache must be on a walkway that went over the road near an elementary school. So I walked up the walkway and started to look around. I had my GPS in my hand and was pacing back and forth on the walkway for about 15-20 minutes. The time was now a little after 5:00 pm and traffic was getting heavy from all the people driving home from work, so I decided to go home and try this one another day. So I walked back down the walkway and as I got to the bottom, I heard very loudly, "Get down on the ground!!!" I looked up and saw two police officers with guns drawn pointed right at me. So I immediately dropped to the ground, let go of my GPS, and spread my arms and legs out. The officers slowly approached me and proceeded to handcuff me. They then proceeded to search me and asked if I had any weapons on me. I told them of course not.

 

When they sat me up, they asked what I was doing up on the walkway. I then proceeded to explain that I was geocaching. They obviously did not know what that was by the look on their faces, so I had to explain what my GPS was, what geocaching was, and that there was a geocache up on the walkway above the road. I asked why I was being detained and they said that someone driving by called the police to report that I was up on the walkway with a gun and that I may be planning on commiting suicide. They explained to me that when they arrived on the scene, they saw me up on the walkway pacing back and forth with something in my hand. One officer watched me with binoculars for about 5 minutes, but couldn't tell what was in my hand. So they made the decision to not take any chances and to use every precaution available.

 

So after they realized that I was not a threat either to myself or others, they took the handcuffs off me. I continued to sit on the ground. One officer told me that I could stand up not, but I told him that I still needed a minute to collect my thoughts. When I was finally comfortable standing up, I started talking with the officers and they said that with the world we live in with shooting like Virginia Tech, they simply couldn't take and chances, especially since I was on a walkway near an elementary school. After our discussion, I was free to go.

 

So that is my first encounter with a police officer while geocaching. I'm hoping it will be my last! I guess one result of this story is if you are in a high-profile area, it might be best to cache with someone else instead of going alone.

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