Hope all of you had a good weekend, mine was terrible to say the least. To make a long story short, I got arrested for something I didn't do, and am now facing one year in jail with up to a $5,000 fine for contributing alcohol to minors. I had gone up camping for the weekend and arrived early friday morning. I stopped and bought a half rack at the store and had a couple beers during the process of setting up camp. This was early in the morning. The first of my buddies didn't arrive till after 5:30 p.m. or so that night. The second bunch that arrived was under 21 and had apparhently been drinking before they arrived, as they were drunk when they got to my camp. I had roughly 7-8 beers in my cooler sitting next to my tent under a tarp of which nobody had touched other than myself earlier that day.

A gal got up to go to the bathroom when on the way back, we heard a noise and she shined the light to see what it was. A man yelled at her to get the light off of him while grabbing for her arm. In the reflection, I saw a gun on his side, along with a second guy with a gun coming behind him. I immediately went into attack mode, and cleared the big log with everybody sitting on it, grabbed the guy in an immobilization technique to make sure he wouldn't pull his gun, then picked him up and took out the second guy behind him who also had a gun. My buddies all saw this take place, and shined there lights only to see a third guy coming for us. At that moment, two other guys came in from behind us, along with 3 vehicles with flashing lights. The guy I had pinned on the ground was a state patrol guy, on top of a sheriff, with the game warden coming in the rear. Two guys from behind were cops, and the vehicles were another state patrol, another sheriff, forest service guy and more cops. They said I was damn lucky they didn't arrest me for assaulting two officers, then wanted to know who I was and who had trained me. I had apparhently used a maneuver only law enforcement and military people are supposed to know to immobilize their own men with their own move, taking out two of them at the same time. They did a background search and decided that my 12 years martial arts background would also give me that knowledge.

Everyone in camp was arrested, including a guy who had not touched any alcohol at all, and blew a .000 on a sobriety test. Everyone of them is facing a day in jail and a fine, while I am facing a year in jail with a $5,000 fine. What I'm curious about is do any of you know if the manner in which they approached us was legal? Is it considered entrapment? They did not identify themselves in any way shape or form-ever. It was only after the guys came in from behind did I actually see the uniforms of the guys I had on the ground-here I thought two guys were coming from the bushes to grab this girl-they had guns and I wasn't going to let anything happen to any of us. I was cited for contributing to minors under the age of 21. Nobody had had any of my beer-I still had 7-8 in the cooler, I hadn't even had a beer since earlier that day. Everybody there said that they did not get alcohol from me, they got it elsewhere and drank it before they got to my camp. They didn't even make me dump out what was left, they said it was OK in my cooler.

As it stands now, I have a lawyer and am going to court on the 18th. Does anybody know the technicalities of entrapment, or not identifying themselves? Was this type of arrest even legal? We were harrassed the second night too even when nobody was drinking at all, and two of our vehicles were pulled over both saturday and sunday after the initial arrest to search for more alcohol.

I know this does not pertain to atv's in general, so if the bulletin board system deletes this post, that is alright by me. I'm just curious as to what else I should do, as I did not committ the crime I'm being charged of. There have been a few posts lately stating "atv's and alcohol don't mix", so I thought I'd share this little incident. Any of you out there who have alcohol in camp, be absolutely certain it is distanced from any minors who may be in the area. I realize state laws vary and the penalties won't be the same in all conditions, but if I happen to get punished for this supposed crime of which I didn't even committ, I stand to loose my great new job, and most likely my boy-who I've been fighting in court for the last 2.5 years to get visitation to see.

Sorry to be so long with this one, however alcohol is a very serious issue, not just with atv's, but any time there are persons under the legal age around. Please think twice before drinking around minors. I'd really hate to see somebody else end up in the situation I'm in now.

Best of luck to everybody,

mike
a.k.a. "the criminal"

 

Cowboy, I wish you all the luck in the world and a Darn good lawyer. I Think that if your lawyer gets signed depositions from the minors that you were not the person who got them their beer, that should clear up that part. BUT, They may want you to pay a price for taking 2 of them out of action. No charges, just because you made them look bad. It's a shame this happened this way. DA's will throw the book at a minor infraction and plea bargin murder down to jaywalking. All I can say is, I wish you the best.

 

I'm sorry to hear about that dude. Where were you camping? Where there any warnings givin to this "attack" by the police? It sounds fishy to me. Why were they after you guys? I get harrased all the time simply because of my truck after 10 pm on Friday or saturday night even though I live 1 mile from the local illegal drag strip. I race don't get me wrong but very rarely and I have never been caught. I just get pulled over all the time for doing 43-44 in a 45 zone if you get my drift. I think they were on a wild gooose chase or you guys were really messing around. i have a very high respect for the law but sometimes I question the methods/tactics/policies of certain agencies and who they "target". I realy can't give you any advise but to pursue every option of harassment, entrapment, and the fact that they didn't identify themselves really worries me. I would have reacted they same way. Don't go to jail man...we've got ride coming up. Good luck.

Jason

 

I'm sorry to hear about that dude. Where were you camping? Where there any warnings givin to this "attack" by the police? It sounds fishy to me. Why were they after you guys? I get harrased all the time simply because of my truck after 10 pm on Friday or saturday night even though I live 1 mile from the local illegal drag strip. I race don't get me wrong but very rarely and I have never been caught. I just get pulled over all the time for doing 43-44 in a 45 zone if you get my drift. I think they were on a wild gooose chase or you guys were really messing around. i have a very high respect for the law but sometimes I question the methods/tactics/policies of certain agencies and who they "target". I realy can't give you any advise but to pursue every option of harassment, entrapment, and the fact that they didn't identify themselves really worries me. I would have reacted they same way. Don't go to jail man...we've got ride coming up. Good luck.

Jason

 

that sounds like the weekend from hell. the fact they had a game warden with them allows the police to raid your camp without a warrant; however, i've heard people in texas say that it is not legal for a peace officer to ride with a game warden to take advantage of his "no warrant needed" power.
did this take place on public or private land?? were there any firearms in camp?? if not the game warden had no business being there.
i may be wrong, but that's how it is in texas.

texascat

 

Thanks for the help and suggestions. To try to answer some questions, yes, I had a .32 walther concealed under my flannel, under my carhartt bibs, along with a s&w .357 mag in the right side pocket of the bibs. All I saw at first was the two guys with guns coming for us dressed in black, and one reaching for the girl, while demanding she get the light off of him. When I had them on the ground and saw the third coming for me, I couldn't decide whether to pull my .357 or hope that my buddies could get to him before he got me. I have to admit, I was pretty nervous at this point, not knowing what would happen next. Finally all the flashlights came on and the other cop rigs pulled in, I could see these guys were indeed law enforcement, so I backed off. They took my .357, put it on my 'Cat, said they trusted I wouldn't touch it till after they left. I said fine, no problem. They then saw some beer cans laying in a pile and said well, looks like we need to check id's. Then, later in the evening, they questioned us about the drugs. There was one officer of which I didn't recognize his uniform, he didn't say anything to anybody, just kept a watch on things while they were doing the drug search. I asked him something about my arrest, he said he was called in for other reasons and as that didn't come up, he had no jurisdiction. Does that mean he was a fed or dea?

We were up in the blue mountains, just north of Oregon a short distance. It was forest service land, which is used by the public. We did not have any music playing at all, nobody was being rowdy, there was no yelling at all. We were just sitting around a fire talking and telling stories. There were 7 of us, with a total of 8 empty beer cans on the ground in a pile, with one guy not drinking at all, and me not having a beer since earlier that day before everybody showed up. The highest sobriety test was a .02, which was one of the gals who was drunk before she showed up.

I talked to a buddy back home who is a cop, he said he had heard over a radio that there was going to be a drug bust up in the area that we were in. Apparhently a state patrol rig had spotted a truck driving out of the ordinary and ran the plates, which showed a previous drug conviction and 3-4 minor in possession convictions. I found out this afternoon that that truck was owned by one of the girls who was in our camp. I can only speculate that her truck was the one they saw and the state patrol then followed her in the area, possibly calling in the rest of the agencies and setting up the whole deal. I don't know if this is true or not, but I just found out that the gal got off probation 10 days prior to our camping trip. Man, I wish I had have known that before, she definately would not have been allowed anywhere near my camp.

Anyway, I hope this answers some of your questions. I finally found a lawyer who is supposed to be pretty good. I can't be found guilty for a crime I didn't committ for one thing, but I've also been offerred a great job opportunity of which I face to loose, along with my boy at the same time. I just hope this lawyer can work some magic here.

Thanks again to you guys and sorry once again for the long post, I'm pretty stressed over this whole ordeal.

Best of luck and good riding to you!

Mike

 

Good luck to ya Cowboy. I hope things work out for you. I always worry about the same kinds of things like who is going to show up and what kind of person are they. I had a similar thing happen to me at a bar just before I became a teacher. I went in and one of my friends from my old job was there. he was a minor at the time so he was in there with a fake id. He came up and sat down at my table and then the cops came over and busted him and tried to get me for contributing and other garbage. It took 1/2 hour to work it out and they finally let me go. I would have failed my DPS inspection for working in schools if that had happed and I sure wouldn't be on an ATV web site right now. All I can say is good luck and take care.

Jason

 

Man, Mike, Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time!!

I would imagine that a decent lawyer with experience with the presiding judge should be able to make this go away. I'm not sure how far away (which county?) this happened from where you live, but I would make sure the lawyer you hire has experience in the area where the summons was issued. It sounds like the cops went on a fishing trip & were surprised by the way you reacted (which was pretty understandable in my opinion in this day & age). They probably felt they had to arrest you to save face. I know you are thinking about the worst case scenarios (1 year in jail, $5,000 fine) but I'm sure you'll be able to make most, if not all, of this go away. The thing to remember is "you didn't do anything wrong" & they didn't catch you doing anything wrong. They went looking for someone doing something really wrong!

Keep your chin up.

By the way, what's the new job you've been offered?

Lance

 

Hey Cowboy,
I am really sorry to hear about your terrible weekend. One of my good friends is an attorney, so I called him and asked his opinion. He told me he needed to know a little more information. He asked me what level of offense were you charged with? He also wanted to know if you had to spend the night in jail and post bond? He went on to say that from what I had told him(what I read on your post) it sounded like you had a really good chance of fighting and winning the case. Especially if you had no prior knowledge of any wrongdoing by this girl. He was really surprised that you were not charged with assaulting a police officer. He said since you were not charged with that, that your case should be pretty strong if, like you said, the other people had written statements saying that you did not give the minors alcohol. He also told me to make sure you had a good attorney who was very, very, familiar with Oregon law. He said if you had anymore questions to ask me and I could call him. He ended by saying that he didn't really know what to say about the law officers not identifying themselves when they first came onto the scene. In Texas, a game warden has total immunity against having to have a search warrant. They can go anywhere, anytime! I hope this helps and if there are anymore questions you would like me to ask him feel free to email me.

 

Quote:

"It was forest service land, which is used by the public."

Oh-ohhhh.

IMHO there were too many police agencies are involved in this alleged beer bust (raid).

Which police agency wrote out the tickets?

Hypothetically - could it be that somebody has been growing "weed" in the area and you guys were perceived as the alleged cultivators?

Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time! Good luck Cowboy.