Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Game Warden Kills 76 Year Old Man

OK, I probably shouldn't ask, but define "someone like me." out of curiosity.

I'm not stating that I think the GW's are OK with coming on private land to do their jobs.
Threatening to shoot one, and expecting a good outcome is not very smart IMHO.
You can get all up in arms about the issue of GW/LEO and your rights all you want. I won't argue that.

One who blindly supports LE , no matter what absurd law is being enforcedand sees the killing of an old man on his own property as necessary to protect law and order.... There are a few of you here.

As opposed to someone who has had good and bad experiences with 2 polar opposite types of LE (During routine CHECKS, no laws broken) and can accurately recognize the difference. And who would also believe that this incident will never be accurately recounted, as the only witness is dead as a hammer... Over some corn. Tragic, but not for the reasons your type think.

It will take a through investigation to find out the actual facts in this case. Until then, I'm reserving judgment, but a game warden has the right to go on private lad to investigate any suspected game law violations.

You threaten a law enforcement officer at your own risk.

And they are always "suspicious" when they want to enter land.

Video of a Texas trooper trying to reason with a 72 year old motorist. I suspect the old timer was senile too for his actions over a belt violation. It appears the trooper tried to reason with the man when lead should've been flying. If the motorist was killed I imagine folks would have said he died for a belt violation.

The agonal breathing from the trooper is tough to listen too.

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=4193273

Trooper:
http://www.odmp.org/officer/15433-trooper-randall-wade-vetter

Lucky for Malvin he wasn't hunting over corn, he would have been shot.

Amazing he didn't get shot for all of that, bad cops there.

There are so many unanswered questions. I have belonged to several hunt clubs in NC & hunted there for many years. In all these years only one club was visited by a warden & he found a hunter had not punched his tags after deer kills. The club was a checking station & the hunter wrote his tag numbers, date of kill, etc. in the log book. He still received citations & lost his temper with the warden. Fortunately, nothing lethal developed. My first question is why would the warden go onto private property(likely a small farm) with almost the certainty of finding only one violator? With all the hunt clubs one would think his time would be better spent. Did someone prompt the warden that the land owner was hunting over corn? In NC feeders are everywhere that deer is hunted. It is very easy to leave one on or even more so have corn still on the ground. Was the old man hunting over corn on purpose & aware that someone ratted him out to the warden & became even more mad. Most wardens are white could the old man have been black? I am not suggesting its an issue, but one of many unanswered questions. Did the old man shoot at the warden? Even if he did why wouldn't the warden ask for back up before shooting to kill? Many unanswered questions, but all seem to point to the warden being over aggressive. I just don't believe the warden just happened to go on this private land for a law breaker with so many bigger fish to fry.

I just knew something bad was gonna happen. I've been saying it for years now. I've always been afraid it was gong to be a game warden--ala Claude Dallas scenario. Now a man has been killed on his own property because a stupid situation escalated beyond control. Sad for everyone involved.

I remeber years ago when I enjoyed my meetings with conservation officers in the bush--especialy if I was on unfamirliar ground--like Wisconsin--or Virginia. I noticed several years ago that something changed and I don't think it was the hunters. Game wardens suddenly started power tripping and running rough shod over civil rights and civility. I know exactly when and why that happened in my own back yard but I hate to see it seems to be a universal phenomnem.

The game wardens of my youth aren't the ones we have today, in general.

Isaac

All I see here says "open fields." They can trespass on private property,other than that,only if they can prove that there are suspicious actions going on. The county sheriff or a state patrolman may, but not GWs.

A very good friend manages a large ranch in Wyoming and he will not allow GWs on the property. Only with a warrant or with the sheriff, but not to "investigate."

I am very well acquainted with one of the GWs there and he has confirmed what my ranch manager friend has told me. I witnessed
this GW being verbally attacked by two men , on natl forest land, but he backed off some and reasoned with them. This had escalated far enough that I had my .45 ready to help the guy but he did a great job. Never even charged them with anything but assured them that if it ever happened again there certainly would be a different ending. They apologized for their actions and left, almost friends.

I think the situation with the GW and the landowner could have been resolved had the GW not wanted to exercise his power. Maybe so; maybe not.

Ivan

Man, I hope not. Them guys would REALLY be old now>

About your age I'm guessing......

So then you believe I support what happened at the Oakland train station as good police work?

Supporting LE is quite different than advocating not jumping to assumption or conclusion which is usually what I advocate. To those predisposed to dislike LE (as some of your posts would indicate) I guess it would seem that by giving them the benefit of the doubt before the facts are in would make me as you described.

As far as all of my experiences with LE going OK, hell, I just don't know what to say, I can't explain that, but never thought some would see that in a negative light. You are wrong however to believe I see no bad cops out there, I just don't have a predisposition to convict without having the facts.

I don't know that this cop isn't a bad cop with an authority trip any more so than you don't know that upon being asked for information this old guy didn't tweak.

You are assuming this was about hunting above a pile of corn? I wonder if it was about providing identification, who knows.

I do find a double standard around here, very rare for me to hear avocation of turning the other cheek, or walking away from trouble when members here believe themselves to be in the right, but almost expect it from another if he is LEO.

In other words, how many advocated turning the other cheek and walking away instead of forcing entry into the Marine Recruitment Center out in Alameda? How many advocated ignoring "Code Pink" and coming back another day and how many thought the cops handled in right when they stood by and allowed the doorway blocked in an effort not to escalate? Seems to me it was against the law to block that doorway, but when the cops let it happen instead of escalating the situation I heard anger.
I thought I heard cheers for those who knocked the peace weenies down & pushed their way in and risked an escalation of violence.


Not saying you are wrong about this warden, I'm saying I don't know who was in the wrong, that is the point I almost always push, you interpret that as blind support..

Might be. My next B'day will be no. 75. Pretty good, huh?

As the saying goes I'd rather be tried by 12 than carried by six. A 76 year old man with a gun is more dangerous than the Heavyweight Champion of the World.

Once a gun is pointed, the Hunting Over Bait charge is a world away from what is happening at the moment.

We don't know who was wrong and who was right, if the GW was defending himself or not. If he doesn't have a record of shooting people, it's likely he was...but we don't know.

It's a damned shame.

In a nutshell. No disagreement here.

Read the comments on the story that was linked. A few things from the comments: Apparently, the old man was deaf as a post; The game warden in question is a noted prick with lots of complaints in the area; and,the game warden had just checked another family member who told him where the old man was and told him that he was practically deaf. In fact, the other family member asked to go down there with the GW when he checked the deceased's license, but because of a bad back, he had to go get into a truck and drive. The game warden wouldn't wait on him.

And only one shot was heard by all parties in the area.

I like it when the GW's pull up to my boat on the lake when i am fishing. This to do their license checks, flotation devise checks, etc etc.

It meant that prior to them pulling up i was catching fish. It never fails that they'll check the wife and i when we're on fish.

Hmmm? Reminds me of my grandma feeding the turkeys when I was a kid. Probably a third of "her" turkeys were the white domestic kind, the rest just wandered in from the hills and joined up of their own accord. After years of feeding all of them, another third or so were hybrids. Now I'm wondering which ones the state owned? She wasn't too particular about which ones she butchered (she didn't use a tree stand or anything--but she did use corn and would just grab one that got close enough when it was turkey dinner time). She was an onery old cuss too, I'm sure she would of told a game warden off as well. Lucky for her she made it to 97 years old at the ranch without ever having to have a showdown with a warden trying to sell her the turkeys that she figured she already owned!