Trespassing with permission?

[Silverfinder99]

Let me give you a little beforehand info before I tell you what happened. I live in Jacksonville AR just north of Little Rock. My neighbor works for Little Rock National airport in the grounds maintenance department. He and I have become pretty good friends since I moved to Arkansas and he took it upon himself (I didn't even ask him about it) to get me permission to Mdetect an area on one side of the airport that used to be a large neighborhood dating to the early 1900's. He came over one afternoon and handed me two business cards. I asked him what they were and he said they were a couple of business cards from the airport grounds manager and that he had given them to my neighbor to give to me as permission to metal detect this area that is owned by the airport but is neither used by the airport nor is even inside of their fence. The property actually sits at the very end of the runways between the fence and the Arkansas river. My neighbor tld me that he knew I liked hunting old homesites so he took it upon himself to ask his boss if I could be allowed to metal detect out there since since people always go out to this site to pick up pecans from the many gigantic pecan trees on the property. His boss (the man in charge of all the airport property) eagerly agreed and said absolutely! Especially knowing that I would be picking up all the trash I ran across since people have been using this area for years as a place to dump their household garbage. He gave my neighbor the two cards to give to me. He told him to tell me to take these with me when I'm out there detecting just in case anybody ask. I thanked my neighbor for going out of his way to land me a great spot to detect and I headed out to detect it with my wife the next day. (oh yeah I forgot to mention, I could bring whoever I wanted). We hunted it a couple of hours and found mostly junk but it was old junk so I didn't lose interest. Annnnnndddd then the next day happened................

The next day I decided to invite a couple of my hunting buddies to come along with me. We got there and all started swinging and heading our own directions. (we all road together BTW to keep a low profile just because) We weren't there twenty minutes and I was kneeled down digging a target when I heard a woman's voice behind me. Kind of startled I quickly turned around and saw a female police officer walking towards me. I didn't hear what she said initially so I asked her what she said. She said in a very rude voice "I said what are you doing!" I politely told her we were just doing a little metal detecting. My two buddies were a couple of hundred yards away where I was and hadn't noticed the officer yet. The officer then told me I wasn't supposed to be here and that I was trespassing. I told her no mam, I have permission from the airfield manager as I was reaching for my wallet to show her the cards I had been given. I handed her the card she took a very quick glance at it ( I don't think she could have even read it as quickly as the glance was) and handed it back to me. She asked me for my I.D., I handed it to her and she told me that she needed my proof of insurance for my truck. Let me pause for a moment to fill you in on a little more information.

As I mentioned earlier I just recently moved to Arkansas and I've been moving here rather slowly over the course of a few months. I already had a house rented here but I still own a house back in Texas where I've been bouncing back and forth to over the past few months taking care of all my unfinished business in Texas before I move to Arkansas permanently. During this time I went ahead and transferred my car insurance to my Arkansas address but had not yet changed my drivers license or my vehicle registration as I was spending so much time in Texas still I didn't see the need to as of yet.

The officer asked me why I had Texas tags on my truck. I told her because I had just moved here permanently within the last month and that I hadn't found my birth certificate nor my vehicle registration papers yet nor had had the time to yet to take care of it. She asked how long I had lived here and I told her just about a month as I was handing her my proof of insurance. She noticed right away that the issue date for my insurance was dated three month earlier under my Arkansas address. Before I realized what she was talking about she asked me why I was lying to her and asked me what I was trying to hide. I told her I'm not lying to you about anything why are you accusing me of that? She said your insurance card says you've been here since April. Getting kind of pissed by her attitude I kind of started give her a little back. I told her if she had been listening to me I just explained that to her thoroughly. Changing the subject she asked if there was anything in my truck that she needed to know about and I told her no. She then asked if she could take a look and I told her no that she didn't have any reason to and that she had no probable cause to and she dropped the issue at that time. I asked her why she was treating me like I've done something wrong, I'm just out here metal detecting with my friends and I have permission to be here and I even showed you the card of the man who gave me permission. At that time she took out her cell phone and dialed a number and said "I'll find out if you have permission". She stood close enough to me at first that I could hear her side of the conversation she explained to the person on the other end that myself and two other guys were out here metal detecting then explained the area we were at to the person on the other end and said that I had told her that we had been given permission to be there by the airfield manager. Then she walked away further so that I could no longer hear her. She hung up the phone walked over to me and said that so and so was on there way to our location and that she would deal with me when they got there. I told her that's fine by me I'm ready to get back to detecting(with a hint of smart a** in my voice) . She then got back in her car while I leaned against my truck waiting on this unknown person to arrive and while she ran me for warrants. In the mean time my two buddies had finally noticed her over there harassing me and had walked back over to where we were and I proceeded to explain what was going on to them. A good half hour or more later the officer finally got out of her vehicle and gave me back my documents and then started harassing my buddies. She looked at their I.D.'s and handed them right back and made nothing of it. She then told all of us that we were trespassing and that "whoever" she talked to on the phone said to let us go but for us not to come back or we'd go to jail. Thoroughly pissed at this point and having my buddies right there as witnesses I decided to start my smart a** line of questioning for her. I asked her " so it's ok for people to come out here all the time and pick up pecans, ride bikes, and dump trash and no one bothers them but me and my buddies can't come out here and pick up trash with permission without being harassed by the cops?" Then she got real nasty! She said "you've already lied to me at least once and I just told you you were free to go and now you want to argue with me. Then my buddy jumped in and said "whoa whoa" he's just asking you a question. He explained we didn't just drive by this place and decide to stop and hunt without permission. We tried to do it the right way and according to you we didn't so he's just trying to figure out what we need to do to obtain permission from the proper authority. I told him well said buddy. Then she said I personally don't care if you guys are here either way I'm just telling you what they just told me and I have to enforce what they say. So you guys need to leave now. I said ok, but I will be back with more permission and I'd really rather not go through all of this unnecessary harassment again if you don't mind (keep in mind I had smoke billowing out of my ears at this point) she said if I come back and catch you here again I will do just what I did this time and if I find out you don't have permission again you'll go to jail. I may or may not have said ok I'll see you soon. If I didn't I wish I had of. She then got in her car and left after wasting an hour of our time.

The next day I told my neighbor what had happened and he called his boss and told him what had happened and his boss got just as pissed as I was and my neighbor actually new the person the officer had called and asked her about the previous day and explained to her that I had been given permission by the airfield manager. This lady told my neighbor that she had not told the officer that we could not be there that in fact she told her that as long as we had permission from who we said we had permission from and that we were not inside of the airport fence then we could metal detect all we wanted.

Sorry about such a long story but I had to explain it thoroughly. Just wondering if any of ou have had a similar experienece and if you have how did you handle it and if you were me how would you have handled it and what do you think my next move should be?

And that cop had the audacity to call me a liar. I personally think this woman has no business wearing a badge but perhaps a name tag a mc Donald's she would probably fit right in with their customer service criteria.
Again sorry for the long post.

 

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[WiFiPunk]

That was incredibly long but, a good read. haha
I praise you on your patience. I probably would have just ignored her and kept detecting.

I've only had a couple of cops come up to me to ask me "find anything?"
The funny thing is when that happens and your actually somewhere you shouldn't be. lol

 

[dustytrails123]

If you were smart you would go down and file harassment charge against her and it would stay on her permanent record....i assure you cops dont like that 1 bit

 

[FCCDFEd]

WOW Unfortunately, some people who wear badges have badgeitis. Seems like a lot of cops/law enforcement believe everyone is guilty of something. You did do the right thing though by keeping your cool as best as you could. Good Luck in the future. HH

 

[Silverfinder99]

Afraid if I had done that I would have definitely gone to jail. This ****** was just looking for any excuse she could come up with to haul me to jail. After I get all my identification and registration issues fixed I will be going back just to taunt her. I think if I kill her with kindness that will drive her nuts more than anything. Does anyone think that I should file a complaint about her?

 

[Silverfinder99]

Thanks dustytrails answered my question before I could ask.

 

[Silverfinder99]

If you were smart you would go down and file harassment charge against her and it would stay on her permanent record....i assure you cops dont like that 1 bit

I wasn't thinking of this at the time so it never even dawned on me to get her name and badge number. Is there any way of me finding this info out?

 

[dustytrails123]

Id go to the station and talk to the chief about it and you can either file a complaint or let them know if your bothered again by her you will file a complaint ....i had to do this with a stalker with a badge in the past and never had a problem with the guy after talking to the chief.....only bad thing is now the stalker with a badge is the chief lol

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

Just go to the airport manager and ask if he would mind giving you a short note stating you have permission to hunt there and move on. You want to fly under the radar.......

 

[tcornel]

Get written permission from the airport manager. Then file formal complaint against the officer once you find out who it is. Or just keep hunting there and establish a cordial relationship when she questions you again.

Year ago my dad was open burning in violation of epa statues. Local police would constantly pull past the no trespassing signs to tell him to stop.
However they had no authority to do so but kept it up. Soooooooooooo one day he did a citizen's arrest on the patrolman and blocked his vehicle in! Trespassing is a crime (even for a policeman) unless there is a crime or immediate safety. The cop had to call in over the radio to his chief and found out that he was under arrest. The chief told the patrolman to talk to my dad and he would probably let him go without filing charges.
Of course he did.

Two weeks later the fire chief did the same thing and they almost came to blows. At that time I went to the chief's office and asked him to file
charges against my dad! He was astounded. But I wanted him to tell me the statute he was charging him under. He spent almost a half hour and finally said he could probably charge him with being a public nuisance! I told him stop or there would be harrassment charges. He stopped.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Silver-finder, no need to apologize for the long post. You had to get it off your chest, and it was good reading for us.

My opinion is that this occurance had little to do with "trespassing" (since you weren't) and little to do with "permission" (since you had it). What I mean is: most of the topics that come up, in an md'ing forum, with those words, will usually be along the lines of someone wanting to know when or where or if he needs permission. Like for example: in a case like you describe: un-posted un-fenced land, where others go un-bothered(like a corner-vacant lot with a cut-through path), and airport owned (which some people consider to be quasi-public anyhow!!).

So really then, your post has almost nothing to do with being someplace where you couldn't be, to begin with, nor does it have to do with your chosen activity in that place (md'ing in this case), nor does it have to do with lack of permission (as if it was even needed, in the first place). So on ALL counts, this post is entirely about a cop who just wanted to harrass someone, for trivial or no reasons.

The only thing I'd be afraid of (when she went to call in to check your alibi, or if you were to pursue it with a complaint to her supervisor), is the following un-desirable consequence: The "airfield manager", upon potential questioning of his having given you permission, might start to regret it, as it's just going to consume his time, and perhaps he'd be "called into question" by superiors above him, etc.... In other words, while it's great to never argue with a "yes", but on the other hand, sometimes those persons who give you the "yes", certainly don't want to get involved in legal spats later on, that develope from it

Here's two experiences I had to compare with yours: one time, a friend and I got permission from a farmer (row crops) to hunt on his land, where it directly borders a historic monument/preserve place. He said we could be there, as long as it was fallow time. It was casual, just with the shrug of his shoulders, upon catching him in his pickup truck at the roads exiting the fields. We didn't argue with the permission, and went at it The first trip, we did good (buttons from the 1820's, a reale, etc..). So a few weeks later, we were there again. THIS TIME HOWEVER, a curator/caretaker lady from the adjacent sacred historical site saw us. She came over and started hollering at us from her side of the dirt road. We assured her we had permission. Well, just like in your case, she was quite suspect of our story, and proceeded to pepper us with challenges, asking who ..... exactly ...... it was who gave us permission, etc.... We didn't even know the guy's name, exact that we knew he was some sort of owner or boss, so that's the best we could tell the lady. Well she marched back in to her caretaker trailer, and gets on the phone making a bunch of calls! At this point (maybe not unlike your situation), I realized that EVEN THOUGH WE "had permission", yet it was plain to see that if push-came-to-shove, this farmer was CERTAINLY going to side on the side of his neighbor, whom ...... for all we knew..... they knew each other personally. And we, on the other hand, were just a couple of yahoos from out of town somewhere that he didn't know. And afterall, why should he want to be "bothered" if this was going to be an issue? So we fully expected our "permission" to get yanked on the spot (or worse yet, that no one wherever she was calling, would even take responsibility for it, or perhaps the fellow we'd talked to wouldn't even remember the brief road-side encounter weeks earlier, or whatever). Eventually, she walked back over to the roadside, and started telling us that we couldn't cross to her side of the road (we already knew that), and so forth. She proceeded to keep a leery eye on us for the next hour or so, before we got the creeps and called it a day.

I sort of knew, that if we proceeded to go back under this very flimsy "permission", that she might make more of a huff, and some higher up landowner/boss might just tire of her griping, and yank our permission. So our solution was that ever since then, we only hunt this site at night. It just fits better with our work schedules anyhow, and ..... out of site is out of mind. To me, that is sometimes the best solution.

You could certainly file harrassment charges against her if you want. But just know: that if you do, that your whole permission (and whether or not certain persons in certain positions were in authority to have done that to begin with), might be called into question, scrutinized, etc.... This may have the un-desirable effect of simply giving md'ing a bad name, and causing the person grief, and having him wish he'd never done it, and so forth.

On the other hand, one time, when I'd been roughed up by person in a badge, I did file a complaint against his supervisors. It wasn't quite the same scenario as your story. In this case, it was the back-country bivwac areas of an army base near me. The base is not "off-limits" to the public (this was before 9/11), so hikers, dog-walkers , etc... were not an un-common site. Nor was md'ing the issue when I was being harrassed. Instead, it was where I'd parked my truck: I'd pulled off onto a gravel shoulder, when ..... unbeknownst to me .......... the rules of the road were to "stay on pavement". This was what the MP was going ballistic over. He had his gun pointed at us, and was yelling, called for backups, etc.... In the end, he just let us go, and escorted us all the way to the exit of the army base!

I was pretty shook up at our treatment, so the next day, I went to his superiors at the base's MP office, and filed a complaint. As it turns out, un-beknownst to me, was that this officer had (and would eventually accumulate) several such "gun-waving" abuses of power, condescending attitude, complaints, etc... When he accumulated his 4th such complaint (of which mine was just one), it triggered a big military court case against him, of which I was a witness brought in to relate my specific incident. The bottom line is: that officer was relegated to a desk job for the rest of his career, and could never carry a gun again! So yes, there are times when a complaint is meritted too.

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

Tom is correct as usual, that is what I meant by "fly under the radar"....

 

[dustytrails123]

Thats whats wrong with this country everyone shuts there mouth and never complains when there being abused by the system...so now she gets away with ruining there day and straight out lying about what she was told by the land owner/manager when questioned...so the next time something like that comes up she can do the same without consequences for her actions....im not a sheep sometimes you have to stand up for yourself even if your the only 1

 

[Tom_in_CA]

reply

Thats whats wrong with this country everyone shuts there mouth and never complains when there being abused by the system...so now she gets away with ruining there day and straight out lying about what she was told by the land owner/manager when questioned...so the next time something like that comes up she can do the same without consequences for her actions....im not a sheep sometimes you have to stand up for yourself even if your the only 1

Dusty, yes, you have a point. The viewpoint to simply "avoid such busy-bodies" (fly under the radar, go at their "off-shifts" times, or even a night, etc...), will simply allow these persons to continue to "get away with it". So from that perspective, I see your point. Yes, sometimes a complaint is meritted. However, we are in an "odd-hobby" that draws the stares of curious on-lookers, as you know. And it has "connotations" (that you might make a mess, or that you might find something valuable and [gasp] keep it, etc...). So sometimes you have to weigh out the greater good or evil in this decision.

In a similar vein, I have a real problem with persons who find out there's no rules prohibiting detecting (for example) in their particular city. Or better yet, they "get permission" from city hall. So in these people's minds, in either scenario, they feel this "gives them rights" to go at high noon, in front of anyone and everyone, and expect utterly no busy-bodies, gripers, etc... So imagine their surprise, when even though they "have permission" or they "found no rules prohibiting it", yet someone gripes (that you might harm earthworms, or that you'll leave marks, etc....). So you see, sometimes "flying under the radar" and picking more opportune times, is the best thing, in our hobby, which is admittely odd, draws stares, etc.... Example: If I go to a park and see them tending the grass that day, I pick somewhere else to go EVEN when there's no specific rule against what I'm doing and EVEN when I may "have permission", etc.. Yah, some people consider that "sneaking around" or "they don't like looking over their shoulders", etc... But I'm sorry to say, that this is simply not a hobby where you're going to get everyone to "love you". (except perhaps in the most innocuous of beaches and sandboxes). Otherwise, why kick hornet's nests? If I see a convention of archaeologists going on at a beach party, gee, I guess I'll choose another beach to go to that day, etc.... Kinda like nose-picking, even though it's "legal", yet we all sorta use a little discretion, eh?

So there's a time and a place for both opinions, I guess .

 

[Silverfinder99]

I'm a firm believer in what goes around comes around. She's got her day coming.

 

[dholland02]

She sounds like alot of woman cops in my town, she thinks she has something to prove because she's a female cop. Like someone else said see if thy manager could write u a permission slip
Just like in grade school and when and you know she's gonna watch just hand it to her and say see I told u i had permission and keep detecting.

 

[SuburbiaStopPushing]

That's ridiculous, I'd file a complaint with the department. And for future reference, you should ALWAYS ask cops for their department affiliation and badge number. You'd be amazed how often their tone changes once they know that if you do happen to submit a complaint, it'll come back to them personally, without fail. Videotaping future encounters, depending on your State law, also might be smart.

So much for Protect and Serve. Cops these days are just glorified tax collectors that have the legal right to shoot you. No surprise that she got so snippy after you denied her the right to sniff around your truck for probable cause. It's terrifying knowing that people like the officer in question have nothing better to do than harass hobbyists like yourself.

 

[smoldrn]

And if you live long enough, you'll realize that cops only like, & trust, other cops. Everyone else, to them, is a potential criminal.

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

Please stop the attacks on the police, we have members that are current or former law officers. When someone says " all" are this or that you are including members here. It is the same as saying all Irish, British, Americans white or black are a specific way and it simply is not true.

To talk about a specific official is not the same as saying "all".

 

[kyrock]

I don't know what state you live in, but from what I have been told and how I was raised, you don't question or harass a police officer. Just blows my mind!