Police Catch 2 Boys Shooting Ducks with a Pellet Rifle What is the Proper Response?

L

LanceOregon

Moderator
I saw in our weekly city crime report that people witnessed two young boys this past week shooting ducks at a local pond with a pellet rifle. 911 was called, and an officer arrived on the scene.

The report said that the officer took the pellet gun, and counseled the two boy about how what they were doing was against the law. He then drove them home, and turned over both the boys and their rifle to their mother.

While he recorded detailed info about the incident, he decided to not arrest either boy. Instead, he let them both off with just a warning. He did not even confiscate their gun!

Do you think that this officer did the right thing here? Was this the best way to serve justice and the interests of society?

Note: No dead or injured ducks were found. It is unknown if any were wounded.

If a dead duck had been retrieved, should the officer have then handled the case differently? Or was this still the best avenue to take??

State and Federal Wildlife officials were apparently never even notified of the incident, despite the fact that there are numerous Federal and State laws that protect waterfowl from both harassment and harm.

Is this perhaps a case, where the best thing to actually do is to simply ignore the law??

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I was a WCO (wildlife conservation officer) for years and I would say the officer in question probably read the situation and the demeanor/attitude of the boys in question and decided to let them go.
I wasn't there, but it was probably the best thing to do and in today's society, it is refreshing to hear about an officer who uses his head ALONG WITH HIS POWER and doesn't throw the book at a couple of youngsters that otherwise may have been good kids.

This is in stark contrast to what happened here to a few of my sons friends.

They were filming a video for History class at school.
They were depicting a war seen--some of the boys were dressed in hunting camo--others just had on dark clothing.
They had a couple of BB guns, some of those rubber band guns you may have seen at flee markets, and some cap guns.
They were acting out the scene when someone called the police and told them someone was "shooting" and some kids had guns.
Swat responded--no kidding--SWAT.
Long story short---they scared the hell out of the kids and actually drew down on them and threw them on the ground---some where crying and roughed up.
ALL for a freshman class history video!!
I know I felt safer!!:rolleyes:
 
40 years ago this was the normal response to something like this. Officers were given great latitude to size up a situation and make the call. One reason was that when the boys got home he could expect cooperation from the parents to administer any needed punishment and to help keep them from doing it again. Now and officer can expect either a discrimination complaint or a lawsuit for harassment. They have to follow the letter of the law and treat each case the same whether it is a minor infraction or major.

On one hand I would say he handled it perfectly but at the same time left himself open to all kinds of problems. For the most part the days of expecting parents to hand out punishment for kids breaking laws are gone.
 
Good points PT but I have to respectfully disagree with:

"They have to follow the letter of the law and treat each case the same whether it is a minor infraction or major."

That's not true--wish it was, but it isn't.
SELECTIVE ENFORCEMENT is and has always been used and is a problem in my eyes.

When I lived in a very small city in PA, if you were from the "right" family, you could get away with anything and I mean anything.
Everyone knew this, people complained about how so and so NEVER got a ticket or arrested etc. but there was nothing that could be done.
Others however were ticketed and arrested etc. and payed their fines etc.

Ever get a speeding ticket when it seemed the officer just picked you out of many??--To bad--he can let 50 people go and ticket you.
What did that congressman get for killing the motorcycle rider---ran him over--dead---what did he get??
What would you get?
 
I think that the officer handled the situation fairly. It seems from the OP, the attidute of the boys was humble. So the very fact they were approached and talked to by the police, probably cured the problem. Dependant on the age, boys will be boys. I did simalar things as a kid. Most men have. No reason to fine them for harrassment of wildlife.
 
I wasn't there, but it was probably the best thing to do and in today's society, it is refreshing to hear about an officer who uses his head ALONG WITH HIS POWER and doesn't throw the book at a couple of youngsters that otherwise may have been good kids.
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Indeed. That does not differ materially from my youth spending summer afternoons shooting pidgeons with my BB gun. The old people in the neighborhood hated it -- they actually fed the things.

Full disclosure: I was pulled over for driving around a high enforcement suburb here with expired tags. I was twelve. The fellow wasn't happy about it, called my father, and had someone else drive my little VW home. No ticket. To say I felt gratitude would be understatement.

Somehow, I turned out not to be a serial murderer.

To a point a show of force (telling the boys to stop, giving them a talking to, taking them home and speaking with mother) adds to the real authority of the police. People who make good calls naturally acquire more genuine authority and respect. We can imagine the mother's future admonition to "remember what the policeman told you".

Past a certain point, a show of formal authority poorly exercised detracts from actual authority. Had the policeman overreacted, he would have likely triggered a defensive reaction in the parents and had a family who came to view the police as the other side. That doesn't really help anyone.
 
Somebody needs to send that copper a dozen of the finest creme-filled donuts. That is called 'common-sense law enforcement' which involves the officer using sound discretion to solve problems w/o making an arrest on every call.

There are still a few who practice it, despite the current trend toward shaved-head automatons in bdu's, with badges. These guys probably understood that it is normal for young boys with pellet rifles to shoot at ducks- and two other critically-important things:

  • A little re-direction of youthful enthusiasm is all that's needed here
  • The parents can probably handle that job better than the state.
 
I think cop probably handled situation the way the boys attitudes permitted. Just hope parents did the same and there where further consequences at home. Common sense, what a breath of fresh air.
 
"They have to follow the letter of the law and treat each case the same whether it is a minor infraction or major."

That's not true--wish it was, but it isn't.
SELECTIVE ENFORCEMENT is and has always been used and is a problem in my eyes.
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I understand your point and agree. Where I am coming from is I grew up on a tobacco farm and we would have around 10 families that lived on our farm that would work for us. We always called them the hands on the place and I did not realize until much later in life that they were actually called in other parts of the country the shameful term Share-Croppers. Any way they would live on the farm and my Grandfather or Father would furnish them a house to live in, transportation to work and to town for shopping, transportation to the doctor, money for special occasions such as Christmas etc. Some people would equate them to slaves except they were free to go where ever they wanted to and work for whoever they wanted to. At the end of the season they would be given a bonus and any moeny they had borrowed during the year would be settled up and taken out of the bonus.

The reason I give this background is that about every Sunday morning the local Sheriff or Police Chief would call the house and tell my Father that one of the hands had gotten in a fight last night and to come get him out of jail. Usually the fine would be about $30 or so for carrying a gun or drunk and disorderly. My Father would go down to the jail and get him out before he went to church. No big deal. Now you have to get a lawyer, go before the judge and all that stuff. No more calls from the Sheriff. The good old days are gone. And before anyone get too upset those "hands" were about half and half between Black and White. I suppose now they would be Mexican and have to have green cards, an INS agent and interpreter to go with them.
 
"SELECTIVE ENFORCEMENT is and has always been used and is a problem in my eyes."

Law enforcement officers can abuse their power, that's for sure. But as a practical matter, they *must* be selective in how they enforce the law. If they really did make an arrest every time they saw a law broken, the jail/court/prison system would collapse under the strain. That's why reputable police agencies go far out of their way to hire officers who have both integrity and common sense.

I'm glad these two kids didn't get caught up in any sort of "zero tolerance" nonsense. Fact is, probably their mom knows how to mete out punishment that is, to them, *at least* as severe as what they could have gotten from the criminal justice system.

Tim
 
When I lived in a very small city in PA, if you were from the "right" family, you could get away with anything and I mean anything. Everyone knew this, people complained about how so and so NEVER got a ticket or arrested etc. but there was nothing that could be done.
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I don't think these kids got away with anything. Its a good thing the officer who took the call responded like Andy of Mayberry and taught them a valuable lesson without creating a police record rather than responding like Barney Fife who would have overreacted and tossed them in the pokey. :)
 
they *must* be selective in how they enforce the law.

You have a point--BUT, try to explain that to people who see "some" always getting away with something and "others" always getting pinched.
That was my point.
The use of "selective" enforcement has built in problems.

I have seen people get away with killing another human being with little more than a slap on the wrist and in direct conflict with the law---while I have seen others spend years in jail from a lesser offense.
Depends who you know.
 
The use of "selective" enforcement has built in problems.
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Yes, absolutely.

Without knowing more about this, it sounds like the officer probably acted appropriately. But there's a lot of middle ground here between letting them off with a warning and arresting them, putting them into the court system, etc.

Some options that come to mind:

Put them in the back of the squad car, go have a chat with parents, then let them go depending on how that turns out.

Confiscate the pellet gun.

Give them a citation for a suitable misdemeanor and make them take a hunter safety class. (OK, I know this would be a judge's discretion, not the cop's -- but still.)

I sorta like the last -- they clearly have an interest in the sport, so why not see that they learn something about how to do it right?
 
They aren't interested in "hunting" they are interested in killing things for entertainment, a decent segment of this board probably thinks thats OK but I personally believe it has a decent chance of being a precursor to the manifestation of more violent tendencies.
 
I am far from a violent person, yet when i was young I used to shoot pigeons, squirrels, lizards, crows with my pellet gun. I see this as boys being boys. Mutilating a cat or dog is another story. You live you learn, and grow up, now i enjoy shooting paper, and only kill roaches and spiders, with a shoe. I think this cop acted appropriatley, should he catch them again, straight to juvy.
 
There is an old saying that it is better to be caught spitting on the sidewalk by an Italian cop than by an Irish cop.

The Irish cops says, "The law is the law, and spitting on the sidewalk is illegal." He then hauls you off to jail.

The Italian cop remembers spitting on the sidewalk a few times himself, so he gives you a warning not to do it again, and goes on his way.

I think that applies here.
 
They aren't interested in "hunting" they are interested in killing things for entertainment, a decent segment of this board probably thinks thats OK but I personally believe it has a decent chance of being a precursor to the manifestation of more violent tendencies.
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Stating that a "decent segment of this board probably" thinks that killing for entertainment is insulting. Do I take the second part of your statement to mean that a "decent segment" of this board also manifests violent tendencies?

The cop did a good job with a couple of kids who were just acting like kids.
 
They aren't interested in "hunting" they are interested in killing things for entertainment
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It's not always as easy as we might wish to tell these apart. Seems to me there's a continuum of reasons why people hunt, and some of it is, basically, killing things for entertainment: at one end there's subsistence hunting, people who hunt for food out of economic necessity; at the other (for example) people who spend large amounts of $$ to go on guided trophy hunts in exotic places. Does the meat from their kills go to waste some of the time? Of course. And do varmint hunters eat their kills? Not all the time, I suspect... :barf:

So once you accept that people may hunt for reasons other than putting food on the table, where do you draw the line between "sport" and "entertainment?" How do you tell the difference? If you think that what these boys did can be described as an irresponsible, wrongheaded form of "sport," then why not try to educate them?
 
Is this perhaps a case, where the best thing to actually do is to simply ignore the law??
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I don't think officer discretion is always a horrible thing. I've benefited from it a time or two myself. Even had they killed a bird or two, I'd probably have let them go with a warning.

If he recorded the details of the incident, I'd just like to know that he also filed those details somewhere, so that if another officer runs across the same boys doing the same crap, he knows they already used their freebie! ;)
 
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