Yet another bomb scare…

[DeputyDog]

The three times I’ve seen the men in blue, they were pretty understanding about what I was doing. My concern is going to be more for the CO than me doing the caches. I can always explain to the cops what I’m doing, but if I’m already gone by the time they get there, who knows.

[CodeJunkie]

@gilldorAFK wrote:

How nice that everyone assumes the local law enforcement doesn’t know anything about geocaching…

Not to say all, but the incident commander was apparently over zealous or ignorant. To be totally clueless is not acceptable. And to act defiant is just plain wrong. “They should have learned…”? Who’s they? Those of us that weren’t there?

Definately not a personal attack on you gilldorAFK, but your organization seems to be a bit disfunctional in this area.

I’m also convinced this is a localized incident. I’ve had my share of run-ins with the law while caching and all have been very pleasant experiences.

[Todd300]

DeputyDog,

Thanks for sticking up for me in the Press Gazette article comments. Appreciate it.

[zuma]

@gilldorAFK wrote:

How nice that everyone assumes the local law enforcement doesn’t know anything about geocaching… I actually work for Ashwaubenon Public Safety and just started geocaching in the last year. Of course it was my scheduled day off on the day of the incident, but after I read it in the paper, I did email the Lt and explained how it works. Pretty unfortunate that everyone is archiving their caches in the area (we haven’t had a chance to find them all yet), but sadly I am not surprised that certain neighborhoods call it in as “suspicious activity.” 🙁

Great. Maybe you can help us loop back with the local police department and get them up to speed? We appreciate any help we can get.

I worked in EMS for more than 20 years, and know well the law enforcement, firefighting, and EMS culture of protecting the brothers in uniform from civilian awareness of screw-ups. So I understand your instinct. But really this whole incident appears impossible for law enforcement to defend, assuming press reports are correct.

zuma

[goirish75]

I too am finding some of the posts on here disheartening. For one, to just give up geocaching because of these rare isolated incidents is not only ignorant and short sighted, but exactly the kind of quitting attitude our sport doesn’t need to properly represent it. Secondly, each contact with law enforcement is a case by case basis, and one negative contact with some officers should not be the measuring stick by which all police contacts should be judged. Also remember, YOUR attitude in the field towards law enforcement will determine their response and attitude toward you. If you happen to run into an overzealous cop, there’s nothing to be gained by getting into a pissing match with them in the field. Speak with their boss later, the ,chief of police or the county sheriff and address the issue in a an adult professional manner at the top. I’m not here to defend either side, seeing as I fall on both sides as a cacher and as a police officer. Just try to keep an open mind. You wouldn’t quit driving just because someone has a crash would you? So instead of quitting caching and archiving caches, hang in here, don’t let this be your crutch to quit. Use it as a chance to educate others and turn some muggles into geocachers.

[DeputyDog]

@Todd300 wrote:

DeputyDog,

Thanks for sticking up for me in the Press Gazette article comments. Appreciate it.

Anytime. I didn’t like the bashing that was going on and then them using wrong info.

[gilldorAFK]

@CodeJunkie wrote:

@gilldorAFK wrote:

“They should have learned…”? Who’s they? Those of us that weren’t there?

I never said they should have learned so idk what you are referring to. I’m only one employee there. I can’t speak for all of my… what you call “organization.” I did my part in notifying the investigator as to what geocaching is, and confirming that there is one in the area of Cormier School. Whether or not they choose to hear me out is up to them. I sympathize for Todd and TKKS because I can see where public geocaching should be an acceptable practice. Could the authorities done more to investigate? Probably. You can’t control the public unfortunately. But sometimes you get nosy people who see something out of the ordinary and have to call it in. I can’t explain geocaching to 45+ police officers for one dept. Hopefully this incident opens up the area to what geocaching is so they don’t call in stuff like this and use up tax-paying resources.

[gotta run]

@gilldorAFK wrote:

How nice that everyone assumes the local law enforcement doesn’t know anything about geocaching… I actually work for Ashwaubenon Public Safety and just started geocaching in the last year. Of course it was my scheduled day off on the day of the incident, but after I read it in the paper, I did email the Lt and explained how it works. Pretty unfortunate that everyone is archiving their caches in the area (we haven’t had a chance to find them all yet), but sadly I am not surprised that certain neighborhoods call it in as “suspicious activity.” 🙁

gildorAFK,

I hope that you try to understand some of the underlying frustration with this issue that is bubbling under the surface here with this situation, seeing that it is the second one in the GB metro area in as many years, if memory serves. And with that said, people who post here a lot know a lot of the “inside baseball” and can be a little short in their responses, myself included.

I think we would all agree that police are not out to harass geocachers, and many of them are quite familiar with the game, with those numbers growing all the time. We also appreciate the responses of police to citizen calls–after all, if we make a call, we hope someone comes on our behalf.

However, there is also a fair number of folks in law enforcement who are still obviously not and this is causing an unnecessary response that is harmful to our game and the public response to it.

In this particular case, with a geocache in place on public property, with a container clearly labelled “geocache,” and the container in place for a length of time, I’m simply not sure what else the cache owner could have done. They could have had paperwork filled out in triplicate with the parks office but if the response is to blow things up once the bomb squad is called–because again, remember, this cache was clearly labelled–what good would it do?

Therefore, the best answer is to educate law enforcement so that the response to concerns about a small container in an isolated area of a park (as happened in Allouez) or stuck in a remote corner of fencing, far away from buildings or people (as happened in Ashwaubenon), is “Oh, that’s a geocache.”

So, how do we accomplish this education? Is there a willingness on the part of local law enforcement to become more aware of this legal recreational activity?

I guess this is where I would like you to chime in. You mentioned you are in Public Safety. Who can we talk to? Your Lieutenant? How can we start a dialog? What role as a WGA member or friend (not sure which–I don’t see you on the member list) can you play to help advance the game?

On the Left Side of the Road...

[tkks]

This is TKKS. I spoke to an officer today about the case, and he was professional and polite, and so was I. I don’t know what is going to happen, if anything, but please don’t bash anybody on our account. While there is probably some misinformation out there, and probably some misunderstanding, please try to be polite. Perhaps we can avoid similar situations in the future by talking about caching and explaining how it works. I’ll volunteer. And we’re not quitting caching, just hiding.

[gotta run]

–>Edit– tkks’ response came in while I was typing

On the Left Side of the Road...

[DeputyDog]

Well I’m glad ttks has decided to stick around. I do think I’m done hiding and will stick to finding. I’m still very new and was just getting around to the hiding aspect. Maybe once this all calms down, I can back to the drawing board on a Gone in Sixty Seconds multi.

[gilldorAFK]

No offense taken. I just didn’t want people thinking that I trying to be one-sided because I wasn’t. I love geocaching, like I said I am new to geocaching, we’ve only found three caches. I am not a member of the WGA because I am still getting into it, I found this website in one of the comments on the Press Gazette website and thought it was interesting. I would love to help out with more public awareness. Green Bay is broken up into diff’t municipalities, so I am not sure where to start with Allouez, Bellevue, the City of GB, etc. But if you want to talk to someone at Ashwaubenon, I would suggest maybe emailing Commander VerVaeren. He does alot of the public relations, information, all that kinds of stuff. Sometimes all it takes is a department-wide email to officers to let them know what geocaching is, how to access the geocaching website and who knows…maybe add some more members! 🙂 Glad to hear you haven’t completely abandoned, TKKS, in fact my gf and I were just talking today about how frustrated we were about not finding High and Lois…every time we drive by the park we think about it. We were sad to see it archived 🙁

[labrat_wr]

does anybody know if the PD followed up with the person that called this in? Sometimes it is not the lack of knowledge by law enforcement but a lack of knowledge by the general public and a need for law enforcement to respond in a way that ensures the public safety. If they would have just blown off the caller, that would have had negative response too.
A little knowledge is dangerous on all parts.

Disclaimer : Always answering to a higher power.

[Vegas Gamblers]

Let’s all get on the same page. Calling the police “fools in blue”, “Barney Fife”, “Stupid Ass” are wrong. We all can sit here and “Monday morning quarterback”, for every situation that happens and complain about how a cahce was placed, location, container or that it was blown up. Law Enforcement does know about Geocaching but not all Law Enforcement officers are as informed as others. When a suspicious package is called in the “package” is x-rayed. If it is contained within a post, guardrail, tree or bush, labled or not, no bomb squad or any Law Enforcemen personnel will get with in fifty yards of the package. All the lables on the exterior of the container will not be seen by the x-ray. They will check for powders, wires or suspicious items. On an x-ray a magnet, log sheet or pencil can look wrong. All bomb squads will blow things up for the sake of safety than take risk of looking into the area to make sure it is a non-suspicious item. There are things blown up every day by different bomb squads in Wisconsin, boxes, briefcases, planters, not just Geocaches.

I feel the WGA should reach out to Law Enforcement, however, you will not teach everyone.

Let’s not jump on the Law Enforcement is stupid bandwagon and just get by knowing that they are out here trying to protect us from all evils.

This is one cache out of 14,000+ in this fine state that we live in. Move along people, there is nothing more to see here.

[geolivestrong]

Kudos VG….you just said what I have been a little too pissed off to say. All I can say is wow…. 👿

[Author]

Posts