jedilovin33 Posted August 25, 2004 Share Posted August 25, 2004 No Run ins with the Po-Po's. But some old lady cought me snooping around her back yard fence and demanded i explain what i was doing. So... I quickly flashed my GPS unit and said that i was with the Gas company or some thing and that i was looking for a dangres leak. I then "advised" her to go in side for her safty. She did what i said but watched me from her window. By now i was imbersed at how much of an a** i had been and left with out finding the cach. I only wish i had read this forem before i went on that cach. Jedilovin33 Quote Link to comment
mudhuggers Posted August 25, 2004 Share Posted August 25, 2004 was a foot of snow on the ground, parked the truck, trudged to the cache, came back to the car to have a Highway Patrol ask us what we were doing. i showed her the cache sheet, and gps and she said that she was checking the truck for dead or hurt people/bodies. I guess the place I stopped was not uncommon to have bad people meet and do deals there. I told her thanks for keeping an eye on the car while I was gone. **schewwww** Quote Link to comment
kayaker22589 Posted August 27, 2004 Share Posted August 27, 2004 As of today I have a really funny almost run in with the fuzz. I was at Exxon with my friends and I had just been geocaching. I had not foun the cache so I still had my YJTB in my pocket. i got it out to show to my friends and then put it back in my pocket. Three minutes later the manager of the store comes up and taps me on the back. He tells me to turn out my pockets right away. I start deliberatley (for effect, I really hadn't stolen anything) with my cargo pocket that contains the YJTB and pull it out. Then I pull out my other pocket and theres my Gps. Then the other pocket-cell phone and the last pocket-pocket knife. The guy was quite embarrassed and apologized and gave me a free DR.Pepper. Quote Link to comment
tdiller Posted October 8, 2004 Share Posted October 8, 2004 The local county forest preserve district has handheld GPS for the officers. I was returning from a find and noticed the officer in the parking lot. My car was the only other one there. I went up to his vehicle and started talking to him. He asked what I had in my hand (my GPSr). He pulled out his GPS and told me he doesn't like to turn it on because he thought that his boss could track his whereabouts. He also showed me that he has a listing of all the caches on forest preserve property. He even asked me if I had found the cache closer to my house. I said no but I knew of a shorter way to it. He smiled and said "just don't park your car near that entrance" . I did that cache the next day by walking to it from my house. It was a shorter walk than parking in the park parking lot. Quote Link to comment
quietbert Posted October 11, 2004 Share Posted October 11, 2004 (edited) I had an interesting experiance in finding a freshly killed moose about 20 feet from a cache that had obviously been illegaly shot and only the best of the meat + head taken. A feeding eagle tipped me to the finding. Another strange twist was a personal item reght next to the remains. I left the item next to the moose and called the local F&W Warden, giving him the area and the exact GPS location plus datum. The Warden was able to go directly to the site, retrieve and identify the item, which belonged to a known violator. He got a search warrant and went to the man's home. The person was in the process of preparing some choice moose meat for lunch as he entered the home. Needless to say, both the Warden and this geocacher was excited to have been a part of getting the goods on this poacher. Edited October 11, 2004 by quietbert Quote Link to comment
+ironman114 Posted October 11, 2004 Share Posted October 11, 2004 (edited) I had an interesting experiance in finding a freshly killed moose about 20 feet from a cache that had obviously been illegaly shot and only the best of the meat + head taken. A feeding eagle tipped me to the finding. Another strange twist was a personal item reght next to the remains. I left the item next to the moose and called the local F&W Warden, giving him the area and the exact GPS location plus datum. The Warden was able to go directly to the site, retrieve and identify the item, which belonged to a known violator. He got a search warrant and went to the man's home. The person was in the process of preparing some choice moose meat for lunch as he entered the home. Needless to say, both the Warden and this geocacher was excited to have been a part of getting the goods on this poacher. good for you (I dislike poachers and persons that are wastefull of wildlife)and welcome to the forums. Did you explain to him how you knew the exact coordinates? Edited October 11, 2004 by ironman114 Quote Link to comment
quietbert Posted October 11, 2004 Share Posted October 11, 2004 (edited) good for you (I dislike poachers and persons that are wastefull of wildlife)and welcome to the forums. Did you explain to him how you knew the exact coordinates? Yes, he knew of geocaching and the Warden knew how to handle GPS coodiates. Edited October 11, 2004 by quietbert Quote Link to comment
+Capt Prozac Posted October 11, 2004 Share Posted October 11, 2004 Never caught by cops but did have to explain to my crew once what I was doing. I fly tanker aircraft for the air force. A couple of years back, I took a few travel bugs with me on refueling missions over Afghanistan. When fighters came up to refuel, I would ask them to pull up real close off the left side of my cockpit to get photos of the travel bugs with fighter aircraft in the background. Two of the crewmemebers thought it was fun. The third thought it was really stupid and there were more important things to do. . . I am now in Afghanistan and have a travel bug. I am constantly snapping photos of the travel bug next to captured Iraqi weapons, bunkers, destroyed tanks . . . all of this out of site of the security forces. Capt Prozac Quote Link to comment
+Goldfinch Posted October 13, 2004 Share Posted October 13, 2004 I ran into a little problem on one of the caches I was doing. The print-out stated that the cache was placed with the permission of the water athority. Here is the log I left My Log . I actually got a "warning ticket". So if there is a cache that looks as if it is on property that has anything that looks as if it is near anything that would cause concern for security. I will not search for it. There are more caches that I will be able to find so I feel I can pick the ones I want to do. Goldfinch Quote Link to comment
+Faderaven Posted October 13, 2004 Share Posted October 13, 2004 I had an interesting experiance in finding a freshly killed moose about 20 feet from a cache that had obviously been illegaly shot and only the best of the meat + head taken. A feeding eagle tipped me to the finding. Another strange twist was a personal item reght next to the remains. I left the item next to the moose and called the local F&W Warden, giving him the area and the exact GPS location plus datum. The Warden was able to go directly to the site, retrieve and identify the item, which belonged to a known violator. He got a search warrant and went to the man's home. The person was in the process of preparing some choice moose meat for lunch as he entered the home. Needless to say, both the Warden and this geocacher was excited to have been a part of getting the goods on this poacher. What was the personal item? A wallet? Quote Link to comment
The Foster Clan Posted October 14, 2004 Share Posted October 14, 2004 We've never had a run in with police while Geocaching but I'm sure it will happen some day. After all, we are sneaking around in wooded area's most of the time so I'm sure somebody will call us in some time. We do try to stay out of sight when doing the hunts too. Jon. Quote Link to comment
+greengolftee87 Posted October 14, 2004 Share Posted October 14, 2004 Beleve it or not I have had more run-ins with the cops trying to play home run derby at a local baseball diamond than geocaching. Quote Link to comment
+ZackJones Posted October 21, 2004 Share Posted October 21, 2004 I had to explain it last weekend at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Airport Bug Exchange The cops were very cool and seemed quite interested in geocaching. Zack Quote Link to comment
+dhenninger Posted October 21, 2004 Share Posted October 21, 2004 I was questioned by an officer the other day while caching. I was walking down a paved trail (that he was driving on) in a seldom used park. I started to explain myself to him (the truth) and he couldn't believe that someone would try to hide something there. He asked if they were buried, "No just hidden." Then he asked if I intended to STEAL the cache . Was this guy a security guard for an urban cache now ? He let me go on my way and told me to be careful. When I finally returned to me car (just after sunset) there was another police car waiting by my car. Noo not again! This officer just followed me for a while after leaving the park. I did find both caches that day, so all in all it was a good day Dave Quote Link to comment
quietbert Posted October 23, 2004 Share Posted October 23, 2004 Parked in a turn out near a cache site holding my GPS out the car window. Officer pulls up and asks me "Are you OK?" He sat in the cruiser while I explained geocaching, and showed him the printout of my "victim". Well, anyway he was an outdoor guy and told me he had a birthday in about a week and now could tell his wife what she could get him for a gift. Another Geocacher is among us. quietbert Quote Link to comment
+evergreenhiker! Posted October 24, 2004 Share Posted October 24, 2004 Heck I've had more then my share of police encounters. One time I admit I was probably not using my best judgement....trying for a FTF in a neighborhood setting at ten pm. After 20 minutes of searching and searching, a light shone in my face. Lights. 3 cops converged on me. They told me someone had called on me and said I should leave. I told htem what I was doing and showed them my PDA so they would know that I was just caching. One of them seemed pretty interested and even suggested I checked that rock in front of me. After that they escorted me out of the trail to the road where I left them to go to my car. Whew! Another time I was trying Cruiser Guy's multi micro...devilish one that includes a bridge crossing I90. MOtorists reported me up there and cops converged...three of them again. This time they were suspicious and drilled me, but relented when I explained geocaching. Another time at the cache machine in Portland, I checked into a room...Beaverton area. They came to my door!!! Never had this happen before. The old hotel lady apparently thought I looked suspicious...suppose I did after a day of hard core caching. The cops checked my room out and soon figured out I was an OK guy and apologized and left. Geez!!! I will never go back to that damned motel. Though I would like to, I will not name the establishment. Couple other times were no big deal. One in Edmonds...traffic cop got so interested he forgot his job for a minute! Young guy....seemed like a fun deal to him. The others were downtown by old Sicks Stadium. Bad part of town. I showed them the geo sheet and they left. Some shady looking characters up the street asked me "What they doing talking to you?" I shrugged and kept moving on and found the cache few minutes later. Quote Link to comment
+evergreenhiker! Posted October 24, 2004 Share Posted October 24, 2004 I had an interesting experiance in finding a freshly killed moose about 20 feet from a cache that had obviously been illegaly shot and only the best of the meat + head taken. A feeding eagle tipped me to the finding. Another strange twist was a personal item reght next to the remains. I left the item next to the moose and called the local F&W Warden, giving him the area and the exact GPS location plus datum. The Warden was able to go directly to the site, retrieve and identify the item, which belonged to a known violator. He got a search warrant and went to the man's home. The person was in the process of preparing some choice moose meat for lunch as he entered the home. Needless to say, both the Warden and this geocacher was excited to have been a part of getting the goods on this poacher. Cool!!!! Glad to see those poachers caught. Quote Link to comment
+Zzzoey & illDRIVEuNav Posted October 25, 2004 Share Posted October 25, 2004 We had an encounter once, but it turned out the cop was looking out for our best interests... We had a police encounter, too. You see, there's a shooting range nearby, and this cache was in the direct line of fire. We had the cache in our vehicle when a cowboy with a badge drove up on an old atv with a miniature dog in his lap. He informed us that we were lookin' to catch some serious lead from some cannon wielding gents across the way. I'm not embellishing here, that's exactly what he said. So we did the quickest log in history and luckily he drove off so we rehid it. But now apparently it's gone. Glad we didn't leave anything. The cache, Elmo's Lookout in SW Colorado, was removed and archived soon after our visit. So I guess sometimes it can be a good thing when the cops show up... There's always a first for everything. Quote Link to comment
+boasark Posted October 26, 2004 Share Posted October 26, 2004 A friend of mine and I had an encounter with the police this past weekend. We were going to a lake north of where we live to cache - the town just before the lake has several caches in it - 1 being under a phone booth at the local Casey's and another under the phone booth at the local Walgreens, so thought we would hit those. I had already done them, but was just getting my friend and gd to log a few extra easy ones. We were sitting at Casey's for about 15 min. - by the time my friend and her grand daughter had found the cache - logged it and then we logged in our own books. Went on to Walgreens - did the cache there and were sitting in the van logging when a cop comes up to the window of the van. He was parked behind us blocking us in. He asked us if we had just come from Casey's and we told him yes. Then he asked if we had bought gas - we told him no that we were geocaching and gave him one of the brochures from geocaching U. He asked us if we would go back to Casey's with him to get it straightened out so back we went. The kid at the counter thought we had gotten gas then pulled up in front of the store. They had someone drive off and not pay for gas at this time and because we were sitting out front for so long, he had taken our license plate # down and then when we left, called the cops. The van is bright red, so very easy to see. Anyway, we got it all straightened out and did not have to go to jail. We are both Girl Scouts and were wearing GS shirts - that could have been a story! I guess we got our excitement for the day. boasark Quote Link to comment
+ZackJones Posted October 26, 2004 Share Posted October 26, 2004 Does anyone know if there is a presentation that could be sent out to law enforcement agencies explaining geocaching? If so I'd like to send one to the local cops around here in GA. Zack Quote Link to comment
+bluegrassfan Posted October 26, 2004 Share Posted October 26, 2004 On one occasion, local residents called the Kentucky State Police (KSP). An officer arrived and called out to me on his cruiser PA. I crawled out from under a train caboose where the cache was hidden to speak with him. I gave him cache page to keep. The KSP are issued Magellan GPSRs. I explained that geocaching is a good way to become familiar with the operation of a GPS, it limitations, and it good points. He sounded interested, especially when I mentioned that a Louisville, KY dog rescue team was using geocaching for their training. While geocaching in Louisville, KY, two counting police officers arrived to tell me I was on private property. I had signed the cache log about 30 seconds before their arrival. I explained what I was doing, they made it very clear that I was to leave. I mentioned that they might want to contact the cache owner or Groundspeak about removing the cache. One officer said they didn't need to contact anyone. I then stated that he may be coming back to the cache often because there are thousands of people who could possibly hunt the cache in the future, and that he could spent the rest of his carrer confronting geocachers. He didn't seem to believe me. He said he hoped he would see me anymore, and I told him that once we find a cache we usually don't go back again because there is no need. I did pass him later in the day as I was looking to another cache, so he followed me. I went to a small park and he watched. He approached me and asked if I was still looking for hidden treasures. I said yes. He then told me I was again on private property. But I informed him that the parks system was aware that geocaches are hidden in their parks and that as far as I knew geocaching is not against the law. While discussing it with him, another geocacher arrived and hunted for the same cache. I told the officer that I told him earlier that othere people would be looking for the caches. I think he finally realized we were not up to no good. Someday I may have to rely on my friendship of a police officer (male) who is married to a judge (female) to make testament to my character in order to handle some geocaching situation. They both know what it is about, especially him, because I have explained it to him. I have even offered to go speak to my local police (I don't live in Louisville, but rather a small community of about 25,000) about geocaching. They also have GPSRs and I am trying to get my friend interested enough so he can get the message through to them. The best thing to do is be polite, show them a cache page (I usually use a PDA now), give them the Geocaching.com info. I have even given the muggle sheet my an unplaced cache for their future reference. Quote Link to comment
+OzeMo Posted November 1, 2004 Share Posted November 1, 2004 I was tryingn to find a cache for the 5th time once and just as I gave up I climbed down the hill and started to walk out down the trail when I could see my car I noticed 2 squads and 4 police officers walking towrds me. I know I didn't do any thing wrong but its kind of werid to be walking down a narrow trail towards a group of officers it turns out they were looking for a boy that had run away and asked me if i had seen a kid running and i had so they quickly ran off down the trail but it was still werid to see them all walking twords me Quote Link to comment
+legal1 Posted November 8, 2004 Share Posted November 8, 2004 Being an officer, I have gone and staked out a known cache to see who some local cachers are. After contacting them and grilling them about thier so-called hobby, I let them know that I also cache. Soem of the stories I have been told. Plus sneaking up on them is a lot of fun! How mean can you be, that is awful, but I love it, when I was still working, I'm a retired Federal Agent, I never had that much fun. Quote Link to comment
+Ed Rad Posted November 22, 2004 Share Posted November 22, 2004 Stopped last Tuesday while hunting #19 Advance to Go, Collect $200 Here's my log... Well this was f'in interesting. Heading home after the website meeting, FallenFaery and I decided to stop and grab it. No problem with the find. We looked around a bit trying to find the Monoploy connection and suddenly there were three (yes, 3) police cars pulling up behind us. WTF??? Of course we are asked what we are doing blah blah blah...handed over the id's and proceeded to answer more questions from Officer Friendly. There was accusations of marijuana and or other paraphenalia. We figured out only after the officer stated that someone observed a "rolling" of somthing that what he was getting at. Well the only rolling going on this evening was the rolling of the log and the rolling of our eyes. Now back in the days of college experimentations, I was never very good at the rolling technique so to be accused of rolling one is very funny to me. Tip for you youngsters out there.... befriend a person who can roll a most excellent spliff or visit the local shop and purchase a cool buddha statue (if you know what I mean!) Well...after being asked multiple times we finally copped to geocaching. I really hate explaining what it is so I try to avoid it all together. I'm sure the officer thought were were nuts but he seemed to buy it. One last pot queston, I guess just to make sure and he let us go. SO... a call was placed to Greenback. We wanted to thank him for the wonderful placement and almost getting us arrested. There was a few funny thought on the way home like... ..."Do you folks have any marijuana?" ..."Not on me officer. I left it in my other jacket!" While handing over your I.D. ... ..."dadgum, I better get my $20 back from her..." (Of course I got smacked for that one....) I think it was a case of the "Man" trying to keep us down! POWER TO THE PEOPLE!!!!!! ATTICA! ATTICA!! ATTICA!!! Quote Link to comment
+cyan_blue Posted November 24, 2004 Share Posted November 24, 2004 Yes! I've had to explain what we were doing to a local cop when he found a group of us 'caching on a garage rooftop. And even better... he joined our search! Here's the log of that hunt, which contains a great photo of him helping us out... http://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?LU...e4-d980d26d2ce0 Quote Link to comment
+joefrog Posted November 24, 2004 Share Posted November 24, 2004 Never caught by cops but did have to explain to my crew once what I was doing. I fly tanker aircraft for the air force. A couple of years back, I took a few travel bugs with me on refueling missions over Afghanistan. When fighters came up to refuel, I would ask them to pull up real close off the left side of my cockpit to get photos of the travel bugs with fighter aircraft in the background. Two of the crewmemebers thought it was fun. The third thought it was really stupid and there were more important things to do. . . I am now in Afghanistan and have a travel bug. I am constantly snapping photos of the travel bug next to captured Iraqi weapons, bunkers, destroyed tanks . . . all of this out of site of the security forces. Capt Prozac Now, THAT is cool TB usage! Ya'll, the pics are in his gallery! Quote Link to comment
sorchah Posted November 27, 2004 Share Posted November 27, 2004 on my first cache, police came after the first part (it was a multi). they asked: 'Doing that computer thingy?' Quote Link to comment
+n3uea Posted November 28, 2004 Share Posted November 28, 2004 I was out caching on Thanksgiving & some other cachers were working on a cache I had already done when the local PD showed up. I explained to the PD what they were doing & he seemed happy when I showed him my paperwork & GPSr. He also knew me because I work on the local Paramedic unit, which I'm sure didn't hurt. Quote Link to comment
magellan315 Posted November 28, 2004 Share Posted November 28, 2004 I didn't have to explain to the police but I got caught by a father and two young children within 60' of the cache. He was pretty sure I was not a local. Fortunately I had put one of the brochures from Geocacher-U in my pack and gave it to him. In between that and his kids "finding" the cache helped alot. I'm making sure I always have the brochure with me. Quote Link to comment
+sammyslinger Posted December 6, 2004 Share Posted December 6, 2004 Here we go. While out caching, we ran into a park ranger. He asked us what we were doing. We tried out best to explain to him what we were doing. The explanation we gave was very thorough, but he still did not get it. He was lost. He thought we were putting GPS receivers on deer. What was really scary is that he had gun! Wow! I hope he never pulls me over. Quote Link to comment
+Sparrowhawk Posted December 6, 2004 Share Posted December 6, 2004 (edited) I was born with a "Tigger" kind of personality energy which I've always been ashamed of (I really envy very shy, restrained people because they can hide themselves much easier than I ever could) and I am always trying to keep a leash on the energy which is difficult, so I always get depressed about that. HOWEVER... I have actually found at least one good use for that hyper energy for a change... avoiding problems with cops! Cop comes along, I let loose the energy into happy, boisterous "Dude, you rock! I did WHAT? THANK YOU! Dude! I wanna be cool! And you are helping me with this feedback! Dude, what ELSE can I do to be responsible? Are my lights working right? " etc. etc. etc... Basically imagine Tigger on 5 cups of modified happy-caffiene and acting like the cop was the COOLEST thing one's seen all year! Five minutes of THAT, and usually the cop is like: "Ok, OK, you! (laugh!) You're outta here. Carry on." Five times stopped by cops for various small things, and no ticket YET. So here I am at the former LAX airport cache (since archived) and here comes a motorcycle cop. Cache full of bugs is literally at my feet. Hooo, boy. Time to turn up the "blow the cop's mind" useful-happy-energy to something-to-the-the power-of-11, not just 11. That poor LAX airport cop didn't know what hit him. I went into instant "WOW! A REAL COP! COOOOOOOL!" mode. He was regaled with how COOL it was to fly to LA, and what's your job like anyway? That's COOL!!!! HEY DUDE!!!! I'm going to the JPL open house this weekend! Do you have any advice while I am here? I LOVE looking at these planes flying in, that is so COOL!! That's why I'm here, and I get to bring my little toy project with me too! LOOK AT THESE COOL TOYS IN THIS TUPPERWARE! I get to bring this stuff and work on it as I watch the planes!!! Hey dude, let me tell you my story of when a cop saved me from my own stupidity back in Portland! THAT was cool too! DUDE! I can do custom graphics!! Have my business card!! Let me do any custom Photoshop work you'd ever want to do! I LOVE to do that! THAT would be COOL...! I was outta there - with the cache nice and stashed safe again - in 5 minutes flat. Edited December 6, 2004 by Sparrowhawk Quote Link to comment
+SerenityNow Posted December 10, 2004 Share Posted December 10, 2004 Last winter, after meeting some out of town cachers for dinner, we agreed to take them out for some night caching in our area. One park we stopped at closes at dusk, but we were all in the zone. We crossed our fingers and plunged in. After about half an hour of searching for a 35 mm film canister in the woods we saw a bright light shining in at us from the parking lot. BUSTED! We quickly made our way out and explained the situation. The officer obviously ran our plates and turned up nothing unusual and after hearing our story asked us if we would lose points or something if we didn't find the cache. We said not exactly, but something like that. He then asked if 15 minutes more would be sufficient, that's when the next shift would be coming on and we'd have to go through the explaination all over again. We said sure and he let us go search again. The sad part of the story is that the cache was a no-find. It turns out it was missing. It was great meeting a law enforcement officer who understood who the bad guys really are though. Quote Link to comment
+g3geoblazers Posted December 10, 2004 Share Posted December 10, 2004 (edited) We didn't actually get stopped by the police but had a VERY close call. We were looking for a cache in front of a 1 acre electrical substation in Jacksonville and I parked near the gate that enters the area. We walked out near the main road where the GPS led us. We spent 10-15 minutes checking trees, moving rocks, (the usual), etc looking and were starting to give up on that one for the day when a police cruiser pulled into the other entrance of the zone, backed his car in and proceeded to watch us as we loaded up and left. Rather close call. I saw those brochures at the front of this thread. Definitely going to have to carry those with us. Joe G3 Geoblazers Edited December 10, 2004 by g3geoblazers Quote Link to comment
+robert Posted December 11, 2004 Share Posted December 11, 2004 Having an MGS shirt on helped our buddy Simulatmore recently. He also gave the officer the URL for our site which he was able to view on the laptop in his squad car. Read about it here: http://www.mdgps.org/modules.php?name=News...article&sid=231 Quote Link to comment
+ValleyRat & TillyMouse Posted December 16, 2004 Share Posted December 16, 2004 My Mesquite Border Patrol Cache in the Rio Grande Valley is hidden near the entrance to the Border Patrol Station. Both finders were also found by the Border Patrol. Texas Cops (even BP Agents) are nice folks, too. Quote Link to comment
+g3geoblazers Posted December 17, 2004 Share Posted December 17, 2004 Yikes! I couldn't imagine getting picked up by the BP... *shakes head* Joe Quote Link to comment
+wb5ury Posted December 17, 2004 Share Posted December 17, 2004 One fall afternoon in central PA, my sons and I were tracking down 3 elusive cache'. When we pulled into the parking area, we were confronted with a city cop putting up yellow tape right where our GPSr pointed to. We were o-r-d-e-r-e-d to move along since there had been a robbery next to the park and the police had found evidence in the area. We went ahead and did 2 other cache' along the trail and came back and the cops were gone but the tape laying on the ground (should I have cito'd?). We did that cache and got out of dodge.... (ok actually a ford). Quote Link to comment
+sbukosky Posted December 19, 2004 Share Posted December 19, 2004 (edited) While standing in the doorway of an abandoned farm yard building and looking at the waypoint marker that was hidden, a man and some boys walk by and he gives me a dirty look. Later, after finishing the series and approaching my car, two squads descend upon me. I'm patted down and asked a bunch of questions. Turns out the guy reported me for shooting up drugs!!! Edited December 19, 2004 by sbukosky Quote Link to comment
+cudlecub Posted December 20, 2004 Share Posted December 20, 2004 Since this thread is back to life, here's my story..... Well, my experience with having to explain to the authorities was quite unusual. A bud and I were caching in an area about 50 miles from his home and about 70 miles from mine. We were atop a mountain and after finding the cache, I decided to find the highpoint. I climbed on some rocks and came up with the elevation of the high point. As I went to climb down, I noticed a tent / tarp that was rolled up and pushed against the other side of the rocks. Being the curious one I climbed to the other side and nudged the tent / tarp with my foot. There was some weight to it and I also noticed snow underneath. It had snowed within the past 2 days there so whatever it was was recently left. My first thought and my thoughts to this day is that it was a body. We were in the national forest and although I have a concealed carry permit for the .40 I carry and 9 mm that's kept in my car when out in the wild, it is illegal to posess a firearm on federal property. So we drive the 40 miles to his house and I ditched my firearms there. We travelled back to the police station for the county we were in and tell them what I saw (my bud pretty much freaked out and fortunately wanted to get out of there like I did and not stick around.) I'm yet to go paperless so I had printouts of the caches we visited that day and also had one of the brochures from Geo U to help explain what had us up on the mountain top with 40 mph wind gusts and snow. This information was helpfull in the explanation of what we were doing there and is something I keep in the vehicle with me all the time now. The first line of questioning wasn't bad. We pretty much gave our statements and personal information and left. The following day, I received a call from the police and they wanted me to come in for more questioning. I was more than willing to help with anything they may be investigating, but to have to drive roughly 70 miles at the drop of a hat was a little crazy when we had already given our statements. The cop on the line tried talking tuff to me and I told him I would give him a call right back. I contacted my local sherriff who I am good friends with and explained what happened and asked his advice. He called them while I was on the line and we had a 3-way conversation in which they then allowed me to come up the following day. My buddy was also called in again to give another statement and they took fingerprints from each of us. A few days later they called each of us back and asked us to bring in the shoes that we were wearing the day we were in that area and they took imprints of them. I do recall it was quite muddy in the parking area and also in the field where I found the "tarp." Although we provided all the information we could, they are yet to providel us any information. I don't receive any local news for that area and can't find out if anything has came about with what I found. That's my education of the police in small town America about geocaching and possibly a find of something I don't want to know was inside. Quote Link to comment
+horsegeeks Posted December 20, 2004 Share Posted December 20, 2004 I've enjoyed reading about these encounters. We've been approached a few times but nothing came anywhere close to being serious. One that I remember, our son and I were in Virginia, caching in the Norfolk area prior to the Hampton Roads event earlier this year. We made a bad call on the coordinates and were searching a guardrail when a Virginia Highway Patrolman pulled up and asked what we were doing. We told him and showed him the cache sheet. He got out and actually helped us look for it. Nice guy. We didn't find it even with his help, turns out it was across the fence close to the guardrail. He did tell us it was against Virginia law to park, even safely, on an entrance ramp in Virginia so we were good the rest of THAT trip. Not as interesting as some of the rest of the encounters but it was memorable to us. Quote Link to comment
+Ladybug Kids Posted December 27, 2004 Share Posted December 27, 2004 I've been approached twice by law enforcement officers. The first time was by airport police and is logged here: Fairbanks Travel Bug Drop Box. I also showed the officer the cache's hiding place. The second time was by two sheriff deputies on a bike trail in New York when my father-in-law and I were geocaching. They asked what we were looking for and we told them we actually didn't know, but we would know it when we saw it . After about ten minutes of discussion about GPSrs and accuracy, their curiosity seemed satisfied and they moved on. In both cases, just telling the officers straight up what we were doing led to smiles, shrugged shoulders, and "have a good day." Quote Link to comment
+nctreker Posted December 27, 2004 Share Posted December 27, 2004 Had an interesting encounter on Music City Audition #9 Civic Center View. Here is my log entry concerning the incident. Decided after a successful Fletch find to head over to this one since the storm had moved past. Spent about 45 minutes searching when Raleigh's finest showed up. Next 10 minutes were spent explaining geocaching while his car sat in the middle of McDowell street. He was very nice but very suspicious. I showed my GPS, my logsheet, my drivers license, my blood donor card. He finally just shrugged and said okay but did warn this area was being watched. By this time I could attest to that. There were folks standing on the sidewalk watching, standing on the parking deck watching, siting at stoplights watching. I decided retreat was the best course of action at this point. I'm going to let this one cool down awhile before I revisit. I made it back a couple of weeks later and found the cache. Wimseyguy has several hides in downtown Raleigh that keep you looking over your shoulder for both muggles and officers. Quote Link to comment
+5 Posted December 28, 2004 Share Posted December 28, 2004 Don't worry about the cops shrugging their shoulders at geocaching, I do that when people talk about golf... Quote Link to comment
+BigWhiteTruck Posted January 2, 2005 Share Posted January 2, 2005 This just happened to me tonight! At This cache My Log Quote Link to comment
+groovefoot Posted January 2, 2005 Share Posted January 2, 2005 I ran into the US Park Police At the Golden Gate Bridge on 12/31/2004. Here is the Cache... ...and the Log. Quote Link to comment
+jaigh_taylor Posted January 2, 2005 Share Posted January 2, 2005 Has anyone executed a slightly more proactive approach to dealing with law enforcement types? I'm thinking of something along the lines of a press kit, but tailored for regional law enforcement. Just something a local caching group could send to city, county, state, and parks guys so they know what's up. With luck, the information would perkolate down through the ranks to the field personel. I dunno, just an idea. =p Quote Link to comment
+Wadcutter Posted January 3, 2005 Share Posted January 3, 2005 Has anyone executed a slightly more proactive approach to dealing with law enforcement types? You're only about 3 years too late. Geocaching was covered in an intel bulletin that went out to all LE agencies about 3 years ago. It was sent out to alert agencies what people are doing walking around in the woods and on city streets carrying a GPSr. That's how I found out about Geocaching and decided to give it a try. Quote Link to comment
+Logscaler and Red Posted January 3, 2005 Share Posted January 3, 2005 Well it also happened to us last night. Again. I have decided that when cache hunting, it is wise to look all around at the area your in while cacheing. Red and I where parked in Coos Bay looking over a cache page when a local pulled up right in front of our rig - blocking us but I think my Ram could have taken him backwards down the street easy - flipped on the spotlights right into our faces (did I mention I was parked facing the wrong direction on a dead end street?) sat in his rig and ran our plates. Then he got out and came around to the drivers window - which I had already run down as well as turning on all the overhead lights - and asked what we where doing. We tried to explain what we where doing but you could see his eyes kinda glaze over with lack of interest. He told us to have a nice day (It was after 10 at night) and then got in his car and left us alone. Red and I got out and started hunting the cache. Then I noticed we where parked in front of the gate leading into the local county and city shops, with a flock of squad cars parked just over the fence. Never did find the cache either. Cops once a trip is enough me thinks. Logscaler. Quote Link to comment
+orome Posted January 4, 2005 Share Posted January 4, 2005 "I'm sorry park ordinance N43 20.200 requires that you can only trade quality items at this cache site no McToys are allowed here."After they get over being stunned and looking like deer caught in the headlights Now that's comedy. Thanks for the belly-laugh! Quote Link to comment
+orome Posted January 4, 2005 Share Posted January 4, 2005 As for getting stopped by cops or rangers - sounds like most have pretty good stories to share. We'll hear from the ones who don't in, say, five to ten. Quote Link to comment
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