How Well Is Geocaching Known To Law Enforcement?

1k · March 23, 2005

I have had occasion to explain geocaching to police officers on more than one occasion. I generally try to avoid such interviews, as I don't know what their attitude will be.

I am wondering how well geocaching is known within the law enforcement community. I know we have a few officers who post in the forums, but are nongeocaching policemen becoming aware of the sport? And if they are, how is the word spreading? Is it word of mouth, or was there a 4-page spread in "Today's Cop" magazine? An FBI bulletin?

And what is the attitude of law enforcement to geocaching, generally? Are we seen as subversive weirdos? Pesky trespassers? Harmless dorks?

Part of my reason for asking is that it occurs to me that as word of the sport spreads, local peace officers are more likely to know what geocaching is, and also to know where the local hides are. Therefore, when a cop questions you, he or she may already have a pretty good idea what you're up to. Just something to think about.

24.7k · March 23, 2005

Every major city in Southern Idaho has geocachers on the police force that I know of. I still think there is a lot of diffusion of knowledge that can take place. For some reason I have never been questioned by officers while caching though I can't say the same about people who were either right in front of me or right behind me. Most of the time they are relieved when they hear what we are doing. We are not teenagers looking for a party spot, or people looking for trouble, but we might spot it and report it and that works for them.

That's my experience.

1.7k · March 23, 2005

You might want to consider printing some copies of this brochure from Geocacher-U.com, it should help with any explanations to the police.

1.4k · March 23, 2005

In the department where I serve, one of the largest agencies in the state, we have a multitude of geocachers. We even have geocachers that are EOD and that helps with any 'bomb' issues regarding geocaches. I actively promote the hobby and have made myself available to educate non-geocaching officers about the hobby. You would be surprised at the number of officers that are aware of geocaching. Cheers!

18.9k · March 23, 2005

Police Officers please comment...

If they never heard of Geocaching - how would they know to comment.......

Anyway.....back on topic

Our group has met with local Law enforcement and we provide them with maps of hides in the area so they have at least some reference to the game. I can only hope they share the information across the department.

1k · March 24, 2005

...
If they never heard of Geocaching - how would they know to comment.......

Police officers with no knowledge of geocaching are excused from responding to the post.

March 24, 2005

I've asked a police detective (LAPD) that I know (about 6 months ago) and he has never heard geocaching. At the time, he was intrigued by the idea but didn't see any harm in it.

I once got stopped by a comminity college police - they wanted to find out what I was doing. When I explained to them what geocaching was he had heard of it from some newspaper article.

March 24, 2005

Well, I've been a Deputy/Lieutenant for 27 years, and yes there was either a FBI or DHS bulletin put out quite a while back that explained the sport with the slant of "everybody walking around with a GPSr is not a terrorist".... :tired:

However, I only recently (this year) got involved in the sport myself. There are quite a few at my department who either cache or at least know of the sport.

It would help to have the aformentioned printouts to give the officers as well as the printed page with the cache info (or a paperless version available). That should convince pretty much any "reasonable" muggle officer. Unfortunately there are always going to be the one or two in an area that nothing will convince and they give everyone a bad rap...

Trust me, 99.9% of them don't want to do the paperwork associated with hassling you and would be happy to take no action after a short field interview to satisfy any concern about suspicious activity they observed (people with GPSr or just poking around usually fits that bill)...

March 24, 2005

i know at my department the area converation officers (game wardens) are all aware of caching. they are the ones around my area that would most likely be called to a cacher call. Whenever we get at dispatch of someone walking around in circle with a walkie talkie or telephone. we usually tell the officers it could be a cacher. Most of my dispatchers are also cachers.

March 24, 2005

I've mentioned it a few times around the office. I've found that many people in general have heard about geocaching, but don't really know what it's all about. If you have a handout or a good explaination, you generally won't have any problems. As long as you're honest. Really, you may find this hard to believe, but people try to lie to us all the time. That's when we really get interested in what's going on... :tired: The only problem I can think of is maybe doing night caches (maybe say in parks that close at dusk), or caches on private property. Even then as long as you're nice, you'll probably just be told to leave. Big deal.

1.4k · March 24, 2005

Well, I've been a Deputy/Lieutenant for 27 years, and yes there was either a FBI or DHS bulletin put out quite a while back that explained the sport with the slant of "everybody walking around with a GPSr is not a terrorist"....

Hello Lt from a fellow deputy. I first became aware of geocaching from a teletype from a few years ago regarding a bomb squad (I believe somewhere in NV?) that blew-up a geocache. The bulletin did go on to explain the hobby. I became intrigued and the rest is history :tired:

Trust me, 99.9% of them don't want to do the paperwork associated with hassling you and would be happy to take no action after a short field interview to satisfy any concern about suspicious activity they observed (people with GPSr or just poking around usually fits that bill)...

Amen! I have to do enough I/O reports without adding to my workload by writing incident reports about people searching for trinkets in the bushes. If I am dispatched due to a concerned citizen/muggle seeing someone acting strangely, I am more than happy to respond, but if it turns out to be a geocacher that is doing no harm, I'll be 10-8 as soon as possible.

1k · March 24, 2005

...a bomb squad (I believe somewhere in NV?) that blew-up a geocache. ...

Wow--talk about being muggled! :tired:

March 24, 2005

Well as I posted on a different forum earlier, I have had thee suspicious person calls that were cachers, one was looking for one of my hides. We have had a pipe bomb detonate in a city park, and in the search of the area an ammo box cache was located. However I was there and was able to explain as was my LT who is a geocacher too.

Luckily, our two big local papers in Dallas and Ft Worth had done several articles on geocaching so that healped spread the word. Like the other Officer said, I have several caches hidden in the city where I work so I keep on eye on them. :tired:

March 24, 2005

Well, the police in my town know about Geocaching at this point, but I doubt any of them cache. And judging from the attitude of the officer(s) I have the "opportunity" to speak with, my take is that they don't get it, don't want to get it, and would rather caches didn't exist around here.

Not that that will stop me....

To quote one officer that found one of my caches - "What is THIS s&$*!?"

Fabulous :tired:

3.9k · March 24, 2005

We have been approached by law enforcment 4 times. All 4 times we were night caching, of course. On at least two of those times, the officers were "playing ignorant" just to be sure that we knew what we were talking about. I guess they were making sure we weren't using it as a cover for clandestine operations. I guess a bunch of folks running around in cammo trousers, green tee shirts, packbacks and electronic devices do look a "tad" bit suspicious. :tired:

1.5k · March 24, 2005

a bomb squad (I believe somewhere in NV?) that blew-up a geocache.

Don't know about any incident in NV, but a bomb squad blew up this cache in WA.

20.7k · March 24, 2005

I've only been questioned by the police twice while I've been geocaching.

One time, I was looking for a virt in the median near LAX. The police officers drove up in their squad car and yelled at me to put away my camera and get back to the other side of the street. I yelled back that it wasn't a camera and went back across the street. Luckily, that was were the virt was located.

The other time I had forgotten about. I was hanging out with BruceS as he went after a small cache in a park which was on hospital property. The little park closed at dusk and it was getting kinda dark. While he was looking for it, an officer drove up (it might have been a security guard, I don't recall). I went to talk to the officer while Bruce kept looking. I explained what we were doing and chatted for a couple of minutes, allowing Bruce more time to look. The officer was cool, but he made us leave.

March 24, 2005

One time, I was looking for a virt in the median near LAX. The police officers drove up in their squad car and yelled at me to put away my camera and get back to the other side of the street. I yelled back that it wasn't a camera and went back across the street. Luckily, that was were the virt was located.

That must be "Pushing Tin". Another cacher I know got hauled to the police station for doing the same thing. Lucky for him a friend he knew was working there and told the officers that he was okay and they released him.

Consider yourself lucky!

March 25, 2005

Keep one thing in mind when you deal with the police, and this is good advice anytime you get stopped, for whatever reason.

You know what you are doing out there is harmless, the cop doesn't. He may have received a report of a prowler or a suspicious person in the area, you. He will be acting as if you are a threat, because until he knows better, you are. Cops have one overriding goal every day. Go home at the end of the tour with the same amount of working body parts you started the day with.

What to do if stopped:

First and foremost, keep your hands where the officer can see them. If possible, splay open your fingers so the officer can see you don't have a weapon. Follow all directions, verbal or motioned, to the letter. This is not the time to argue.

Do not play games with the cop. This is going to sound ridiculous, but I had people make motions as if they had a weapon in their belts, just to p!ss me off. They call it street baiting or some such idiocy. It's a good way to get an up close and personal view of the business end of a semi-auto pistol.

Generally speaking, once you make yourself understood, and explain fully what you are doing, you will be sent on your way, assuming you aren't tresspassing or committing some other infraction. Do not attempt to BS the cop. Any cop with more than 6 months out of the academy knows a line when he hears one. Nothing raises a cop's suspicion faster than someone who is lying, and lying for no apparent reason.

Tell the truth, explain the sport and you'll go on your way. Play games with the cop, and he'll play games with you. Remember, he's paid to be there, and overtime pay straightening out something like this is still pay. Just cooperate.

March 25, 2005

a bomb squad (I believe somewhere in NV?) that blew-up a geocache.

Don't know about any incident in NV, but a bomb squad blew up this cache in WA.

They took out this one in TX, too.

1.4k · March 25, 2005

There are plenty of other threads about caches being blown up. Lets stay on topic here. Thanks.

March 25, 2005

I was approached this evening at a public park by a city marshal in a patrol car. I explained what I was doing, looking for a cache. It was 10:45 PM, and the signs stated that the park closed at 11:00 PM. He was totally satisfied with my explanation, and asked for this URL and asked where he could obtain a GPS unit and how much they cost. I may have recruited a new member to the sport. He had to go lock up some other parks, but said he would leave this one open for me for an extra hour. I located the cache in less than 5 minutes and left before his return.

March 25, 2005

We were stopped twice last weekend by security at the USGS. I knew about the raoming patrols as I use to work there and now that for the most part these guys are really nice. Sure enough, we mentioned that we were geocaching and the first asked if we found it and were we going after the other one on their property. This was on our way back to our truck. As we were heading to the other end of the property for the second one, another security guy stopped us. Once again, it was have fun and be careful. No explanations needed. Of course, it helps that the Survey uses GPS in their work!

Terri

1.7k · March 25, 2005

There is an ongoing thread about encouters with police, here.

March 25, 2005

Keep one thing in mind when you deal with the police, and this is good advice anytime you get stopped, for whatever reason.

You know what you are doing out there is harmless, the cop doesn't. He may have received a report of a prowler or a suspicious person in the area, you. He will be acting as if you are a threat, because until he knows better, you are. Cops have one overriding goal every day. Go home at the end of the tour with the same amount of working body parts you started the day with.

What to do if stopped:

First and foremost, keep your hands where the officer can see them. If possible, splay open your fingers so the officer can see you don't have a weapon. Follow all directions, verbal or motioned, to the letter. This is not the time to argue.

Do not play games with the cop. This is going to sound ridiculous, but I had people make motions as if they had a weapon in their belts, just to p!ss me off. They call it street baiting or some such idiocy. It's a good way to get an up close and personal view of the business end of a semi-auto pistol.

Generally speaking, once you make yourself understood, and explain fully what you are doing, you will be sent on your way, assuming you aren't tresspassing or committing some other infraction. Do not attempt to BS the cop. Any cop with more than 6 months out of the academy knows a line when he hears one. Nothing raises a cop's suspicion faster than someone who is lying, and lying for no apparent reason.

Tell the truth, explain the sport and you'll go on your way. Play games with the cop, and he'll play games with you. Remember, he's paid to be there, and overtime pay straightening out something like this is still pay. Just cooperate.

i have to agree with this 100% ive never been in much trouble in my life. and i credit that partly to always being upfront and honest to law enforcement. not that ive ever done anything real bad, but still. when im confronted with law enforcement, im just honest. even if i was in the wrong. they know how to smell the bs a mile away. they get it throw at them allday everyday. coming clean and making their job easier will just get them to take it alot easier on you. no different than a fast food place. if you hassled the guy behind the counter and he had to work your orderout of you for 15 minutes, youre a lot more likely to have your burger spit on than if you just tell the guy so he can do his job.

just last night, me and the gf were geocaching after dark for the first time, in a state park that closes at 11. we only had a couple more in the park to do for the day and figured wed try for a couple. one was at the very back of the park and when we got back there i saw a set of headlights that just disappeared for no reason. so i turned down the sideroad. and much to my surprise the headlighst suddenly appeared on us along with a spotlight.

so we slowly crept up to each other and i rolled down my window. i couldnt see his face with the spotlight in my eyes. all i heard was "do you need any help". now there was 1000 things i couldve said right there. but i just stared into the light and said "Nope, just out geocaching. were trying to get these last caches before the park closes" and proceeded to hold up the gps and give him a big smile.

i really wish i couldve seen his face. there was an akward pause after that. seemed like 20-25 seconds but it was probaly only about 5. and he replied "well, good luck".

the girlfriend was spooked after that and didnt wanna attempt anymore. shethought we were going to get in trouble. i explained to her. were doing nothing illegal. the park is open till 11, we have every right to be here until then. theres nothing were doing wrong. but we left anyways well be back though

March 25, 2005

My question is for Renegade Knight. Just how many major cities are there in southern Idaho?

Seriously, I met up with a local officer on patrol while looking for a cache near a playground (there were no children around), and explained what I was doing. He asked all sorts of tech questions about the GPSr as he was thinking about buying one fro hunting and he actually helped me look for the cache for a few minutes, which we found.

March 25, 2005

I think most of the officers in our area are aware of the sport and about 15 of us participate in some form or another. As previously mentioned, a little common sense goes a long ways, especially at night. Several out of town cachers have been stopped on their way back to their cars with a friendly "I know what you are looking for." Remember that we are human just like everybody else, only once in awhile we get shot at, so naturally we are a little defensive. I can tell you from experience, getting shot hurts and takes a very long time to recover from, in some aspects, one never does fully recover. Neither do those one works with.

The best approach is to just be honest, it would help if you just gave them a printout of what you are looking for, not necessarily the exact cache, but a cache sheet, so the have some idea what is going on. I have been stopped in other cities and without telling them I was an officer, I had no problems explaining the game. Of course, my pickup usually has six or more ammocans with GeoCache stenciled on them sliding around in the bed. Glen*

24.7k · March 25, 2005

My question is for Renegade Knight. Just how many major cities are there in southern Idaho? ...

Major is a relative term.

Boise, Nampa, Caldwell, Meridian, Twin Falls, Burley, Pocatello, Idaho Falls would make my list. 20K and up and I might of slipped a 10k town in there.

There are probably more illegals in California than there are people in Idaho. Come to think of it, the Governator has more Hummers than some towns in Idaho have people.

March 25, 2005

Are you talking about Burley proper, or would that be the greater Burley metropolitan area?

9.4k · March 26, 2005

I am wondering how well geocaching is known within the law enforcement community. I know we have a few officers who post in the forums, but are nongeocaching policemen becoming aware of the sport?

The only police officer I worked with was when I dialed 911 after discovering a tree stump filled with drugs. His brother was a geocacher so I didn't have to explain much about it.

(edit: proofread!)

Edited March 26, 2005 by Jeremy

March 26, 2005

The only police officer I worked with was when I dialed 911 after discovering a tree stump filled with drugs. His brother was a geocacher so I didn't have to explain much about it.

Hmmm ... must have been FTF.

9.4k · March 26, 2005

The only police officer I worked with was when I dialed 911 after discovering a tree stump filled with drugs. His brother was a geocacher so I didn't have to explain much about it.

Hmmm ... must have been FTF.

Considering it was filled to the brim with Cialis, there are all sorts of fun pun-filled jokes to top that.

To keep on topic, it was interesting trying to explain why we were where we were off trail in the woods to discover such a thing. Fortunately he was aware of geocaching so it made more sense.

Edited March 26, 2005 by Jeremy

March 26, 2005

Considering it was filled to the brim with Cialis, there are all sorts of fun pun-filled jokes to top that.

Oh yea, but that would go right over the cliff taking this off topic quick.

Holding all the lines I thought of, the spike meter could not handle the load.

9.3k · March 26, 2005

I'm a Deputy Sheriff (12 years), with Seminole County, in Florida. It seems that very few of our deputies are knowledgable about geocaching, as I find myself educating them on a regular basis.

March 27, 2005

I guess a bunch of folks running around in cammo trousers, green tee shirts, packbacks and electronic devices do look a "tad" bit suspicious.

Make that camo pants, camo boots, camo hat, camo shirt, camo socks, camo undies, e.t.c.

and camo smileys too

March 27, 2005

I was stopped by a reservation officer this week (first time being stopped).

Quote from my log:

"We were stopped by an officer while looking for this cache. Wohoo!! Team TARG3T's official first stop!! He instantly spotted the GPSrs and knew exactly what we were doing. Nice Guy. We chatted about how he owned a GPSr (but wasn't very familiar with using it) and thought that the geocaching thing was pretty interesting. He pointed us to where he saw other people searching for the cache and we found it there."

Basically the longer version of the story was that it was just a little after dusk on a roadside cache. I was standing on a side of a nearly deserted road letting my GPSr settle when he stopped by. He instantly called out "is that a GPS?". He knew exactly what I was doing. Although he was not a geocacher, he knew of the sport and of the cache in question. He liked the idea of geocaching as it was "something to do". He also stated it was "nice to see people out here doing something positive instead of wrecking the place." We also talked a little about how he had a GPSr, but wasn't very familiar with it. He then pointed us toward the general spot he saw other people looking for it before and continued on with his patrol.

Edited March 28, 2005 by T@rget

2.2k · March 28, 2005

what you didn't offer to take him caching to teach him how to use the gps and convert another innocent to the addiction?

April 1, 2005

Keep one thing in mind when you deal with the police, and this is good advice anytime you get stopped, for whatever reason.

You know what you are doing out there is harmless, the cop doesn't. He may have received a report of a prowler or a suspicious person in the area, you. He will be acting as if you are a threat, because until he knows better, you are. Cops have one overriding goal every day. Go home at the end of the tour with the same amount of working body parts you started the day with.

What to do if stopped:

First and foremost, keep your hands where the officer can see them. If possible, splay open your fingers so the officer can see you don't have a weapon. Follow all directions, verbal or motioned, to the letter. This is not the time to argue.

Do not play games with the cop. This is going to sound ridiculous, but I had people make motions as if they had a weapon in their belts, just to p!ss me off. They call it street baiting or some such idiocy. It's a good way to get an up close and personal view of the business end of a semi-auto pistol.

Generally speaking, once you make yourself understood, and explain fully what you are doing, you will be sent on your way, assuming you aren't tresspassing or committing some other infraction. Do not attempt to BS the cop. Any cop with more than 6 months out of the academy knows a line when he hears one. Nothing raises a cop's suspicion faster than someone who is lying, and lying for no apparent reason.

Tell the truth, explain the sport and you'll go on your way. Play games with the cop, and he'll play games with you. Remember, he's paid to be there, and overtime pay straightening out something like this is still pay. Just cooperate.

As a police officer, I agree with these instructions 100%!! I have one other officer on my department that I recruited.

My very computer oriented brother recruited me. Most people I have talked to are clueless. So bearing this in mind....I always cache with my ID (driver's license) and brochure. I have never been stopped by another officer, but am prepared in case of any contacts.

If you have a photo ID and a brochure that explains the sport, it will make for an easy explanation of what you're doing in an area.

April 2, 2005

Boise, Nampa, Caldwell, Meridian, Twin Falls, Burley, Pocatello, Idaho Falls would make my list.

Meridian, as in Meridian Platinum?

I'm addicted :lol:

How Well Is Geocaching Known To Law Enforcement?

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