Zuma and KSpud Questioned by Johnny Law

[uws22]

in my first two years of caching, I was first stopped by a city police dept, then by US Border Patrol, and then a Bureau of Land Management Ranger. The police dept thought I was crazy for doing it, especially since it was nearly nightfall. They were the only ones who called me in, checked my car, confirmed my GPSr, etc.
The BP thought I was trying to circumvent their stop along the freeway… and the BLM guy thought kind of the same thing when I drove over one of their “secret” wire sensors out in the desert.
Of the three, the locals PD was definitely the most hostile toward me… and all three groups were aware of geocaching.

[hunter-killer]

We have had run ins at the border a few times, the worst being on a trip to Duluth for the races. We ended up in the office of the United States customs at the Canada U.S. border, waiting to see if they were going to snap on some latex gloves. We were on one of our regular trips to Duluth. We took the GPSs the laptop, my radio power supply and other electronic goodies that are necessary while caching. The customs officer asked the nature of our visit and we mention, shopping and geocaching. We had to explain geocaching to him several times, then as we are waiting to get our documents back we see him handing them to someone else and says to us park on the side and come on in. Now Killer panics. What’s going on? After 20 minutes of sitting in the office no one saying anything to us, them at their computers typing away and staring at us, finally an officer walks up to us and asks for the keys to the truck. We ask what’s going on, barely a response other than wait here we will be back. Killer is trembling now and another 30 minutes go by. They are going over the truck with a fine tooth comb. Finally he returns and asks the nature of our visit. Again I tell him shopping and a bit of geocaching. He hands us the keys and says I hope you find what you are looking for. Guess they were looking up what geocaching was. Needless to say on subsequent visits we just tell them shopping and make no mention of geocaching. Not sure if the mention of geocaching triggered a red flag or this was just a random search, but it scared the hell out of us.

[Ashen15]

My better half is a LEO and its been a horrible, horrible year for those behind the badge and their families. Guns, radios, and backup haven’t saved over 50 officers from dying (a number not far behind the number of military deaths in Afghanistan) and an even greater number from getting hurt. The attitude was certainly not necessary, professional, or appropriate but everyone has bad days. Both of us will agree that there are plenty of jerk cops. My husband opted for a physical search by TSA on every leg of our flights this past week and even knowing exactly what they were doing and why he said he felt like a criminal afterwards. I get jumpy every time a squad is behind me. I think its part of human nature.

Departments get faxes and e-mails from Homeland Security, the FBI, etc. almost daily with things going on and who knows what “intel” he’d been passed that day or recently.

I’m sorry you had a bad experience. Most officers I know hand out their business card after any interaction (unless the department isn’t paying for them which is common) but you can always ask for one and contact a superior. Just use judgement and compare it to any bad experience you have with a bank teller, grocery store bagger, or customer service rep. before you make the decision to make a complaint.

[Author]

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