Warden Tales: The Imaginary Spotlighters

Having spent the past four month decompressing from a 29 year career in wildlife law enforcement, my reflections are increasingly of how great of job I had.  I met many interesting people, had numerous experiences that I usually took for granted at the time, and worked with some of the most dedicated men and women I have ever met.  I thought I would use a few posts to share some experiences.

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It is not unusual for a wildlife officer to get called out after hours on a report.  In fact, it is expected.  Most of the calls are predictable: a late night boating accident over the 4th of July holiday; a closed season trout fishing violation in March; or a bear wandering through town in June.  The seasons dictate the reports, though occasionally we get calls that seem a little out of character for the month.

Over the course of my career, I experienced illegal deer kills during every month of the year.  But, the vast majority tended to come in the fall and early winter.  So, it struck me as odd when I received a call from a young girl that someone had killed a deer in her yard on a sweltering August night.  The timing wasn’t the only strange thing about the call.  The girl didn’t have any details of the incident.  When pressed for specifics, she repeated that her daddy had told her to call.  I asked her their address and she could only vaguely describe where the house was located in an isolated area of the county.  I asked to speak to her dad and she said that he was in the yard.  Weird.

I threw on my uniform and started for her house.  I knew roughly where the house was located and realized that the place was a considerable distance from the state maintained road up a long, washed out driveway.  Most night deer hunters shoot from a public road so they can make a quick getaway.  And, I knew that there wasn’t any farming in that area that summer.  Nothing about the call seemed like the “typical” night deer hunting scenario.

The closer I got to the area, the more jittery I felt about the whole situation.  This was years before cell phones and I knew that I would have limited ability to call out on the radio because of poor coverage in that area.  Once I got to the house, I would be own my own.

I drove up the washed out drive and parked in front of the old farm house.  I saw a woman look briefly in my direction through the open front door.  Then she stepped over and pushed the door closed.  At this point the little hairs on the back of my neck were raised and every sound seemed amplified.  I climbed the three cinder block steps to the porch and knocked on the door.  No one answered.  Another round of knocks were met with a child peeking through the window curtains beside the door.  Then a voice called out from beyond the arc of the porch light in the yard.

“Over here.”

I took a couple of tentative steps and replied, “Where are you.”

“I’m over here.”

I swept my flashlight across the yard and saw a man sitting cross legged near a grape trestle.  I took a couple more steps.

“They killed a deer,” he said.  “They put it in a sack and carried it into the woods.”

As he pointed toward the woods, I saw a pistol in his hand.

“What kind of pistol have you got there,” I asked.  I glanced back at the house and saw that the porch light had been switched off.

He held up a pistol in each hand.  “A nine millimeter and a .45.”  He added, “I’m not crazy.”

I was certain that he could read my mind, because those were the exact thoughts racing through my head.

“I’m sure you’re not crazy,” I lied.  “But it would make me more comfortable if you weren’t waving those pistols around.  How ‘bout if you laid them on the ground and slid back a couple of feet?  Then we can talk about the deer that was killed without either of us accidentally getting hurt.”

There was an eerily long moment of silence.  He shocked me by saying, “Okay.”  He added, “But want you to know that I’m not crazy.”

He laid both pistols on the ground and slid back.  I moved up and unloaded both pistols, sticking one in each of my pockets.  I once again fibbed that I didn't want them to get wet laying on the ground.  He then told me how three guys came out of the woods, killed a deer, stuffed it in a feed sack, and then returned to the woods.  I looked around a bit.  There were no tracks in the dew and or any sign of a deer being killed.  I convinced him to follow me back to the house and told him that I would come back during the daylight to investigate further.

This time his wife answered my knocks.  She confirmed that he had "some issues" that had become worse since he went off his medication a few days earlier.  She also pointed out that he had never been violent, but that he was very paranoid and delusional.  She secured the pistols in the house and we made a couple of phone calls to get him some help on the way.

With hindsight being 20/20, I would have done several things differently that night.  I violated virtually every basic officer safety rule - I didn't notify my telecommunicator of my location; I wasn't wearing my body armor; and I found myself in an open yard without any type of cover, facing a man holding two pistols who was concerned about imaginary deer hunters, and who tried (unsuccessfully) to convince me that he wasn't crazy.

But, I was glad I answered the call.  If I accomplished nothing else, I convinced that little girl that she could count on wildlife officers to come to her aid when she called.