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

Without "selective enforcement" officers would be slaves to the system. Automatons with no real decision making authority. Identical looking crimes are not always identical. Officers must have discretion for dealing with people when responding to incidents.

Lack of selective enforcement is how the 11 year old girl that gave her friend at school an Aspirin was suspended for "drug dealing". That one became a national story due to lack of common sense by the admins of the school. Charging a couple kids with felonies for shooting birds goes in the same category. What you do is keep them in mind and advise your fellow officers. IF they continue to make trouble, you consider it intentional instead of a one time mistake.
 
Sounds like he did what he thought was best in the situation. I'd have to have a lot more details to before I'd try and second guess that decision. I probably wouldn't have known it was against the law to do what those boys were doing when I was their age. I spent most of childhood shooting at birds with a BB gun. Probably even shot at a few ducks.:rolleyes:
 
I personally believe it has a decent chance of being a precursor to the manifestation of more violent tendencies.
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So you believe that game animals do not suffer violent deaths when they die? What do you think happens when something like a bullet from a .223, .243, or .270 hits living flesh? The effect can be pretty dramatic sometimes.

I have yet to kill any animal via lethal injection. Besides, I am not that good at sneaking up on them. :D

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I think its how one gains pleasure from it. Do you enjoy its death? How does it make you feel and which parts do you gain pleasure from?
 
S832 said:
Do you enjoy its death? How does it make you feel and which parts do you gain pleasure from?
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One can only read those questions from Lance's last post, if one is intentionally stirring the pot.

Is this what you are about? Are you simply agitating?

So as not to detract further from the thread, how about PM'ing me your answer?
 
I like what happened! I wish a lot more of our LEO's used discretion and Common sense approach. Unfortunately, Some times they find them selves under the Boot for trying to do so! :confused: :cool:
 
Reminds me of a person with a gun call I had several years ago. It turned out it was two boys (one was 13 and one was 14) with a BB-gun. After figuring out they hadn't been shooting out street lights or similiar malicious activities and finding out they were only a short walk through the woods from their house, I sent them on their way.

A week later, I answering a lot of questions about my use of discretion. :barf:

I was told I should have arrested them and I should have reported them to the school board because kids with guns are a danger to others. :rolleyes:

Then I was ordered to file an arrest warrant application. It all turned out okay because the States Attorney that looked over the warrant application had the commonsense to understand I had probably handled the situation correctly and the application was denied.

I still think I did the right thing and I think thie officer in the duck story did good.
 
back before dirt, i was in the neighborhood with my crossman pump bb gun. dont exactly remember how old i was..prob 9ish...i had shot a robin. i remember the initial 'wahoo' that i hit my target but felt terrible that it was flopping around...

the neighbor who's yard i was in was less than pleased. me and my gun were walked home and they had the big adult talk on the porch while i waited in my bedroom.

my dad quietly explained the deeds of a "hunter" and how i had a responsibility to make a clean kill and that we shoot only to eat or protect...killing for the sake of killing was not what "hunters" did.

my gun was taken for a week and i actually straightened up ( to a point ) after that.

no cops called..the neighbors did the " brothers keeper" thing and i turned out ok...i guess. :)

boys are gonna do stuff like this...im glad the LEO made the call and reacted as he did.
 
Back in my day :rolleyes:

The officer probably would have stuck the barrel into the crotch of a nearby tree, bent it about 90 degrees, then marched the newly de-milled rifle and myself home.

After hearing the story, my father would have tanned my hide so I could not sit for an indeterminate period of time.

Note--in those days "grounding" only applied to aircraft, and "time-out" was only used in football games.

No, I never shot ducks with a pellet gun, but there are certain, ahem, similarities between this story and my life's experience. Enough where very little speculation as to the outcome is required... :D
 
I was told I should have arrested them and I should have reported them to the school board because kids with guns are a danger to others.
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About 20 years ago we had a kid in my high school "kidnap" a friend of his using a BB gun he brought to school and sort of "hijacked" the class. All they did was leave together and go to the arcade. They were never charged with anything. Was it a dumb thing to do? Yes. It was a different world in those days. Nobody had Columbine in their minds. Today they would probably both have felony records and it would probably be justified. In those days people said "Well, kids are dumb. They do dumb things."
 
I sure am glad the DNR officer in michigan that caught me and my buddy toting home several dozen fingerling trout that we shot with bb guns let us off with a stern talkin' to and warning.
While we were aware it wasn't fair chase fishing we saw no harm. We were taking them home as I knew my mom would fry them up for us to have smelt size trout and eggs. We also had no idea they were just released into that stream by DNR. He hauled us home to speak to my mom as I had told him she would cook it if I killed it. She told the guy she would have fixed them up for us just as I said and she even invited him to stay for brunch... He declined stating it might be a bit of a conflict of interest. He insisted we keep the fish as he seen it a waste of them to confiscate them and throw them out.
We never risked shootin' baby trout after that and did follow some game laws a bit closer too.
Brent
 
Kudos to the officer, he has demonstrated the difference between a Law Enforcement Officer and a Peace Officer. I grew up around Peace Officers and have a lot more respect for them than the others.
 
I tend to agree with Gadget. We've had peace officers, constables, sheriffs for hundreds of years. But about the time New York City was being run by Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall somebody got the bright idea that common law wasn't good enough for the common man. So since then we've been on the fast track of militarizing the police and making it easier for them to enforce the Boss's laws.

As for me I'd much rather have Andy of Mayberry than Robocop. ;)
 
I think its how one gains pleasure from it. Do you enjoy its death? How does it make you feel and which parts do you gain pleasure from?
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The point that I was making is simply that hunting is by its very nature a violent sport. If you yourself hunted, or were familiar with firearms, you would know this for a fact. Fishing is a very violent sport too. Heck, the hooks often mutilate and torture the fish, and then the fish dies from a lack of oxygen.

Your notion that the violence that these boys engaged in somehow points to them growing up to be some kind of bad person that is going to break laws and harm other people only goes to show how very little you know about such matters.

It is obvious to me that you have never gone hunting, and I cannot recall any time here that you have even mentioned simply shooting a gun for any sporting purpose or otherwise, much less owning a firearm for some purpose.

You are harshly judging people ( these two boys ) when you have no knowledge of them other than these skimpy facts that were reported in our newspaper's police blotter. You have no idea of what was going on in their minds.

And since you don't hunt, and may not have ever fired a firearm either, you have no first hand experience or knowledge upon which to make an informed decision about this.

In contrast, I bet the vast overwhelming majority of the men here had pellet or BB guns when they were growing up as boys.

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I think the cop did good. Chances are the kids and the parents will have a better respect for law inforcement. They'll see officers more as members of the comunity, and not strictly inforcers.
 
Many, if not most, of us would be justifiably alarmed by kids' shooting tame ducks in a pond. However, I'd join in with those who think the officer acted appropriately. Exercising prosecutorial discretion is just a part of every officer's life, as well as that of prosecuting attorneys. Judicious exercising of prosecutorial discretion isn't "ignoring the law." It's part of the system.

Not being there, I'm not in a position to guess at what the kids' attitudes were, when they were counseled by the officer, or what their mother's reaction was. Hopefully, she put a stop to that nonsense. Maybe the kids had a father, who also took some stern corrective action.

I used to kill ducks when I was a kid, but I used a 12 gauge shotgun, and generally hunted in season and obeyed the limits laws. I guess those dead ducks that I killed really aren't any deader than tame dead ducks...but, you know, shooting the tame ducks sure does "feel" different, doesn't it?
 
On the whole I feel the officer acted appropriately in the situation as presented. After all, it is primarily the responsibility of the parents to raise and discipline their children. Unfortunately, we're caving more and more to societal pressure to allow society at large and the television to raise our children. :( Nothing good is coming of this trend, however.

I'm surprised that the hunter's safety angle was so late in coming. I can understand why the officer didn't make any requirement that the boys attend a formal class but it does surprise me that he didn't at least suggest as much to the parents. Maybe he did and it's just not mentioned?

I got caught doing much the same as an 11yr old. I was awaiting my 13th b-day at which time my parents promised to buy me my first .22 rifle. Still have it to this day! Anyway, after the incident during the spring I was unable to use any BB/pellet gun until I got my hunter's safety card as they felt I was unprepared for the responsibility of gun ownership. Had to wait until the fall of that year to take the class and I though it might kill me. The class and training was well worth it and on my 13th b-day I was rewarded.

I'm a firm believer in the program and I feel that any household with guns and children should consider enrolling them in a gun safety class somewhere around age 12-13. Some are better equipped to go even younger. This will reinforce any training/education imparted by the parents up to that point. Responsible gun ownership and handling are definately our responsibility to pass to our children. I decided a long time ago that in the event I become a parent I will not even provide my children with a BB/pellet gun they can call their own until after the course is taken, passed, and they can demonstrate proper safety and handling procedures.

Byte
 
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This LEO was OK. I have a funny story about my first encounter with a sheriff's deputy. I lived in a rural area. I had a .22 at 12 at it was not uncommon for me to go out hunting on my own. I also had gun safety training, though it wasn't required at the time for youth to hunt, unsupervised, in Minnesota.

Anyway, I'm on my way home along the nearest paved county road, walking the shoulder. There's a creek you have to cross over and sometimes the carp and suckers were in there feeding. This was the case this time, and I stopped to watch. All of a sudden a sheriff's car stopped, backed up and the deputy rolled down his window. He asked me what I was doing. I told him I was just watching the carp in the creek. He told me it was illegal for me to shoot from the road right of way, which is true. I told him I wasn't shooting, I was just watching the carp. He told me he better never catch me shooting from the road. I was getting a little ticked and I said in a stern voice, "I said I wasn't shooting from the road". He asked me why I had a rifle then. I told him I'd been hunting squirrels over in that oak woods over there (I pointed it out). He rolled up his window and squeeled his tires as he took off.

When my dad got home that evening, I told him what happened. He happened to know the county Sheriff personally from their membership in the American Legion. So my dad called up the sheriff at home and told him what happened. Then he laid the funny line on him, "Are we so overflowing with tires in the county departments that we have to have our sheriff's deputies out wearing them down faster?" He said a cordial goodbye and that's the last I ever heard about it. But, it's jerks like that dumb nut deputy that can ruin a kids respect for LEO's, even though I didn't lose mine, except for that one lug nut.
 
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