The mini knock

[bvanevery]

Never once have I parked in a public park after hours. The rules are always posted, and breaking them is a good way to get LEO attention. Why would anyone expect things to be set up any differently? It's not like there's nowhere else to go. Parks are for hanging out during the day.

Some National Forests have "Fee Use Areas". They've always been pretty obviously posted. An $80 Interagency Pass is good for standard amenities in Fee Use Areas, like sitting at a picnic table. A pass doesn't cover things like camping. I did one time have an argument with some private contracted custodian who wanted to say my pass wasn't good for using the picnic table. I said it is, it says so in plain language on the back. He grumbled incredibly but I don't think he called any LEOs. If he had, I would have stood my ground and showed the officer exactly what my pass says on the back. No way a private contractor is going to bilk me out of what I paid $80 for to not be bothered by the trivial things for a year.

If you're cheating, and you get caught, well, that's the reality you're choosing. Not like there's nowhere else to go. Plenty of parts of NFs are free to do whatever you want in.

I don't get why anyone would pay camping fees for anything, ever. Unless you're in the middle of Yellowstone and want to take more than 1 day before leaving. That's pretty extreme. There's always somewhere to park. Perhaps some people don't understand where to park so that they're unlikely to be bothered.

 

[Unchained]

The OP was there during the day, when the park was open.

 

[bvanevery]

The OP was there during the day, when the park was open.

Well, if there was really no legal issue involved such as opening hours or use fees, here's an anecdote of how it ended the last time I ran into something like that. I've arrived in some small coastal town just over the Florida border. Georgia to the north. There's a park, there are no stated hours for the park. I park my car and do my laptop thing, running off my deep cycle battery. It gets dark, but hey there's no stated law against it so whatever, I keep doing my thing.

Around 8 PM some cop comes nosing up. Says something about people often have drugs or make out in cars or such. I say none of those apply to me or some such. Can't remember why else he's asking anything, he really has no business to. We've established in conversation that he's on some kind of fishing expedition and has no probable cause to be bothering me. I'm here legally doing legal things during the park's opening hours.

He asks if he can see my ID. I say, "No, and it's rude of you to ask." He gets pissed. Says I won't catch any break from him if I do anything wrong. Tells his partner, you see him do anything wrong, you take him to jail.

On the one hand, I'm tired of these tin pot dictators intimidating people with "MAY I see your ID." Had that unpleasant experience while briefly hanging out with a harmless woman and her family in a NF up near Asheville. 2 FS LEOs come barging in, asking questions, "May I see your ID." I gave it to him grudgingly, saying I didn't really think he had a right to it. Triggered a bit of a speech from him about the difficulties of his job, how he said "MAY I", therefore he hasn't violated my rights, I can go apply for a FS LEO job right now if I think I can do it better, he'll sit at this picnic table all day if he feels like (which I think is probably harassment but I don't say anything at this point, I just let him roll).

Went back to civilization after that Asheville incident, looked up laws, which is why I responded to that FL podunk cop as I did. Gonna take a stand and retrain some of these guys. I used to do this professionally as a signature gatherer, the "no you may not see my ID" thing. This isn't China.

On the other hand, I realized that because I had taken a stand, there was now a consequence. I had intended to sleep at the local Walmart that night. What if it's still his county and he happens to be the one on patrol there? What if he makes trouble for me? I decided not to risk it. I went over the Georgia border and stayed at the welcome center. Pretty much my stand cost me gas. I didn't really like that coastal town anyways, I was already pretty bored with it and planning to leave. But the fact that I felt it necessary to modify my plans, made me think about how I might play it in the future. I might do it the same way, I might not.

 

[jeanontheroad]

Sheesh! First, you gripe about somebody being killed in his vehicle because thugs were running loose, then you gripe because the cops try to keep an eye on a stranger who, for all they know, could be the same kind of thug. Just can't please you.

 

[Patrick46]

I get a kick outta LEO's, rent-a-cops, and anyone wearing a uniform and a badge who try and intimidate me. (and it really pisses 'em off if you start snickering at their little 'power play'.)
What....do I look like I'm some squirley kid, with my tattoos and grey beard??

Yeah, you could say I have a bad taste for 'authority figures', but I just stay extremely calm and keep very mellow and they usually go away without ruffling my feathers, nor I theirs.

If they DO keep it up, then I start asking them questions, like their name, what department or office do they work for, and who their direct supervisor is. Turns out, that THEY don't like to answer questions any more then I do.

"Tells his partner, if you see him do anything wrong, YOU take him to jail."...nice! Way ta pass the buck!!

 

[bvanevery]

Sheesh! First, you gripe about somebody being killed in his vehicle because thugs were running loose, then you gripe because the cops try to keep an eye on a stranger who, for all they know, could be the same kind of thug. Just can't please you.

I don't gripe about LEOs who do it politely, "just checking up," not asking me for ID. I've had that experience with enough cops to know the difference. Cops shouldn't be going on fishing expeditions and they shouldn't be interrogating people with ID checks just because they "look different" or their vehicles don't display the level of wealth of the surrounding neighborhood. This is a free country and I will stand my ground on that.

When's the last time you had 2 cops just barge into your campsite in a National Forest, guns obviously at their sides, start asking you nosy questions, and saying "MAY I see your ID?" You don't know how that's gonna go with armed LEOs out in the middle of nowhere, they aren't all shining examples of professionalism. And what are we, just a random man and a woman, in fact she had 2 kids. These did not turn out to be as bad as some stories I've heard. "MAY I" see your ID is perfectly legal for them to ask, but I know they're attempting and succeeding at intimidating people into handing over IDs they don't have to. They prey on people's ignorance of their rights as US citizens.

Civil liberties are important and it's not about "being pleased."

I do not mind some cop driving slowly along a county / NF road looking at what I'm doing at my campsite and keeping his / her eye peeled. In fact I welcomed it. One time I asked a cop if there was a lot of crime in the area, because I hadn't seen someone doing it in a NF before. He said no, it's just a county road and standard practice to patrol. Made sense, I just wasn't familiar with a NF that was that closely abutted to civilization before. This was north of Blacksburg VA. Lotta joggers and bikers using the trails of that NF for recreation. In fact they would often run right by my campsite at various times of the day.

Finally... no LEOs are gonna be there when someone comes to jack you while you're asleep in your car. The odds of them being at the right place at the right time are decidedly against. Patrols create a presence and a deterrence, they do not stop things from happening.

---

If they DO keep it up, then I start asking them questions, like their name, what department or office do they work for, and who their direct supervisor is. Turns out, that THEY don't like to answer questions any more then I do.

Yes, and I've done that professionally before. Still, I learned tactically the hard way that making your ideological stand and getting falsely arrested for it isn't terribly profitable. I have empathy for anyone who's been handcuffed, head down in the squad car, and fingerprinted at the jail. Good life experience, part of why I did it, although emotionally crappy at the time. I have my activist cred as a result. Afterwards I got apprised of better tactics: if they threaten arrest, obey commands and leave. Signature gathering bosses will come back later and take on the police dept. directly, with tape recorders, strongly intoned legalese, etc. My sig boss in WA was credited with almost singlehandledly securing and expanding the rights of gatherers in that state. He was real good at it because he was an ex-cop!

I have yet to apply that sort of drill as a homeless person. I'm not yet convinced that Charleston is bad enough to be worth the effort in that regard. I had that 1 "you're loitering" experience. I got my window tapped on at 2:45 AM somewhere else. Was not charged or made to move on, but it's uncertain whether that will be true in the future. Officer said, "I'm pretty sure this is illegal but I'm not gonna enforce right now." Yeaaaah he was a nice enough guy, I didn't give him trouble (and generally don't when one of 'em "has" me), but he wouldn't be the 1st cop I've met who doesn't know the law. But neither do I right now, here, exactly, so that means avoidance drills for the moment.

I stood my ground at an electrical outlet in the back of a building at a public park in Savannah. People had been using that same outlet for all kinds of things on a big stage, which I doubt anyone was paying for, and I saw it as no different than any other outlet in the park, which people were being allowed to use. Standing my ground there got me "permanently banned" from the area around that building, which includes the park's bathroom. On pain of criminal trespass. I have not had time and energy to fight that particular legal battle, I've had bigger fish to fry. But I wonder what my rights down there really are.

 

[user 423]

This topic was discussed at length on the old forum with many different viewpoints. Is it possible to link to that thread?

 

[VanLifeCrisis]

Ive had a few different experiences with cops and private people since this, and really after i assured the ENTIRE sherriff dept that nothing is shady in my van and im just trying to not lose my job nearby, they havent bothered me in months. Just about everyone around knows or suspects what i do so i just relax, stay atn the park n ride or pilot

If someone runs me off or calls the cops, ill just roll with it. I havent found any law or ordinance yet so most i suspect ill get is a check out and go back to sleep

---

For private busybodies, i just moved on even if i knew it wasnt technically thier right to toss me. Just easier that way when you are tethered to a locale.

 

[bvanevery]

I have some advantages for LEO interaction. 1) I've done this professionally, with mall security guards and the occasional cop breathing down my neck or doing something inappropriate, although most have been professional. I may be angry about some of these experience but I usually handle it well at the time. 2) I'm white. 3) I have a cute dog that officers like. 4) I'm in a car, they can see a lot of things they care about in plain sight. No wonderings about what's going on in that van, no tinted windows. 5) My car may look like crap, but I myself dress fairly normally, have no tattoos, speak normally and intelligently. I don't fit any obvious personality profile of a druggie or felon... and I'm willing to make that semi-prejudicial statement, because as a signature gatherer I've registered lots of said people to vote and know what some of the patterns are. All those sketchy people you see in downtown Seattle, for instance, they're all ex-felons. Which says a lot about our criminal "justice" system, to have that kind of population on the streets... anyways, getting back to the list. 6) In addition to what I look like, I'm not actually addicted to anything, or have any mental problems. 7) I have no criminal record. I can easily hand over my ID, they run me, and at that point the vast majority of LEOs I've run into cease to care. They're out to serve warrants and catch troublemakers, mostly. That's not me. Heard it said at a late night stop in Greenville SC on a cold winter's night, "He doesn't have a record, so I don't care." Said to a few other cops that had come to check me out. They were looking for people trying to rob the business park, not a guy testing out a REI camp bed with his dog. 8) Despite my firm Second Amendment stance, I'm not a gun owner. Cops seem to like it when they ask about weapons (which is probably nosy and I might be within my rights in various jurisdictions to say nothing), and I confirm I have no gun. I do say I have a knife I use in the woods, so that they feel I did confess something and don't have much reason to probe me for lack of honesty. I think I may amend that in the future to "hand axe" though, because a Gurkha knife is a forward sloping blade, which I mainly use to chop wood, so I would not be lying. I don't talk about the bear spray anymore because 1 revelation is enough and who knows what nonsense some jurisdictions might say about "chemical weapons".