People getting ticked off

[GeorgeinSC]

Yes I have been denied due to the land owner seeing just one show of "Diggers" His wife had invited me to come detect their one acre yard. He cleared his throat and I asked him if there was a problem that I could assure him that I would treat his property as well or better than I would my own property. His reply was "I saw that show on television and I do Not allow folks who act like that on my property." I could not convince him that I was not an IDIOT like those two.

 

[Elton]

Since so many school shootings have taken place in the last several years. All schools are going to be watched closely. Even if school is not in session, weekends, summer etc.

Many towns and cities are erecting 12' tall chain link fences around them. Now that to me is a clear sign to stay out.. Not look for a way to breach it..

In my State, and County the property is deeded to the School board district the school is located in.This in fact makes it private property. Not city owned public property...as many insist it is.

So unless you do have permission in a sense you are trespassing. So I guess we are all going to have to accept the fact >>> SOME SCHOOLS WILL BE OFF LIMITS !!. Like it or not..


Just because it is tax funded, and within a city not all properties are open to the public unless they are open for a specific purpose. Say a library..it's for reading , book borrowing etc..Their grass isn't open to metal detecting in general..

 

[dahut]

Since so many school shootings have taken place in the last several years. All schools are going to be watched closely. Even if school is not in session, weekends, summer etc.

Many towns and cities are erecting 12' tall chain link fences around them. Now that to me is a clear sign to stay out.. Not look for a way to breach it..

In my State, and County the property is deeded to the School board district the school is located in.This in fact makes it private property. Not city owned public property...as many insist it is.

So unless you do have permission in a sense you are trespassing. So I guess we are all going to have to accept the fact >>> SOME SCHOOLS WILL BE OFF LIMITS !!. Like it or not..


Just because it is tax funded, and within a city not all properties are open to the public unless they are open for a specific purpose. Say a library..it's for reading , book borrowing etc..Their grass isn't open to metal detecting in general..

I don't disagree. What I take umbrage with is bullheadedness.
When I find that, I start to bristle....

 

[etrachunter]

Only place I really hunt anymore is deep in the woods here in Washington state. You can go in the forest here and dissappear

 

[tarajudy]

This is why I only hunt in the woods river streams and beaches NO MORE SCHOOL YARDS FOR ME OR KIDDY PARKS.
All or most of the school yards are fenced in so there is no access anymore in the summer.
When I was young we use to go the school yard to play baseball and basket ball against the LAW NOW

 

[Ism]

Wow, I am blessed. I hunt the yard at the local school right in front of the groundskeepers. They wave at me when they drive by on their golf cart traversing the grounds.
Have never had a problem at any school near me. Once I was approached by an administrator who asked me if I find any keys to return them to the school lost and found.
Glad he didn't ask the same for the gold and silver jewelry!!

Hope I can maintain the privilege. I mostly go early in the morning on the weekend. Never when others are using the grounds.
I figure I will do it until I get kicked off. However the back of the police car is extreme. Been there in my youth, it's an experience to be sure.

 

[marcomo]

Rod, I'll bet the police were probably responding to someone's call about you and they wanted to make sure you left and didn't come back.

Certain detecting spots, even though perfectly legal to detect at, are best hunted at times when the least people will be out to see you. Like early weekend mornings.

I make it a point to always be polite to police and let them know I respect their authority, but at the same time I know the law enforcement playbook so as a law-abiding citizen they don't make me nervous. As someone else mentioned above, think of dealing with the police as a life experience. And maybe a profitable false arrest lawsuit if by some extremely remote chance the cop actually does arrest you.

I've had multiple encounters with law officers while detecting and they all ended amicably except for one jerk of a cop.

It was a demo site and I had gotten permission and a name from someone working there I talked to.

Jerk cop says its not the worker's property and reads me the riot act blathering on about people being arrested for vandalizing vacant houses. I told him that I obviously wasn't vandalizing homes but that I respected his authority and if he wanted me to leave of course I would.

Runs my license and makes me wait a good 15 minutes while he's on the radio. At this point I'm thinking this is just like the old psychological ploy where the car salesman brings an offer to his manager and they make you wait forever figuring you'll get more and more nervous. He finally gets out and tells me the captain said to let me go with a written warning but if I came back I'd be arrested and thrown in jail. I couldn't help but chuckle and I think that ticked him off.

He says "No, this is serious" I reminded him that I respected his authority and I would leave as I has told him earlier in our conversation. At this point he takes out a pad and starts asking me questions. I answered the first couple questions, but when he asks me where I work I thought this is really none of his business so I told him I'm retired. He looks at me suspiciously and says "aren't you a little young to be retired?" I gave him my best deadpan look and just said "no"

Then he asks me my social security number. I started giving him inverted numbers but then just decided I had enough. I said "You know what, I'm not giving you my social security number to be floating around who knows where and I'm not going to answer any more questions that are none of your business."

He stood there and just glared at me for an extended few seconds without saying anything.

Finally he barks at me to get out saying "I mean it, don't come back or you'll be arrested."

I had hit about 80% of the area at that point, but since the cop was probably technically right that the person who said it was OK didn't really have authority to do so, I chickened out and didn't go back.

 

[GKMan]

Rod, I'll bet the police were probably responding to someone's call about you and they wanted to make sure you left and didn't come back.

Certain detecting spots, even though perfectly legal to detect at, are best hunted at times when the least people will be out to see you. Like early weekend mornings.

I make it a point to always be polite to police and let them know I respect their authority, but at the same time I know the law enforcement playbook so as a law-abiding citizen they don't make me nervous. As someone else mentioned above, think of dealing with the police as a life experience. And maybe a profitable false arrest lawsuit if by some extremely remote chance the cop actually does arrest you.

I've had multiple encounters with law officers while detecting and they all ended amicably except for one jerk of a cop.

It was a demo site and I had gotten permission and a name from someone working there I talked to.

Jerk cop says its not the worker's property and reads me the riot act blathering on about people being arrested for vandalizing vacant houses. I told him that I obviously wasn't vandalizing homes but that I respected his authority and if he wanted me to leave of course I would.

Runs my license and makes me wait a good 15 minutes while he's on the radio. At this point I'm thinking this is just like the old psychological ploy where the car salesman brings an offer to his manager and they make you wait forever figuring you'll get more and more nervous. He finally gets out and tells me the captain said to let me go with a written warning but if I came back I'd be arrested and thrown in jail. I couldn't help but chuckle and I think that ticked him off.

He says "No, this is serious" I reminded him that I respected his authority and I would leave as I has told him earlier in our conversation. At this point he takes out a pad and starts asking me questions. I answered the first couple questions, but when he asks me where I work I thought this is really none of his business so I told him I'm retired. He looks at me suspiciously and says "aren't you a little young to be retired?" I gave him my best deadpan look and just said "no"

Then he asks me my social security number. I started giving him inverted numbers but then just decided I had enough. I said "You know what, I'm not giving you my social security number to be floating around who knows where and I'm not going to answer any more questions that are none of your business."

He stood there and just glared at me for an extended few seconds without saying anything.

Finally he barks at me to get out saying "I mean it, don't come back or you'll be arrested."

I had hit about 80% of the area at that point, but since the cop was probably technically right that the person who said it was OK didn't really have authority to do so, I chickened out and didn't go back.

I think you chose wisely to not revisit that site.....
I got a friend of mine in trouble because I was telling him that you didn't have to answer a cops questions about where you are coming or going (in the context of a traffic stop at least)... As luck would have it days later there was a routine sobriety checkpoint he had to pass through as he was coming back from work about 10:30 at night, he ends up telling the cop what I said, the cop gets all annoyed, my friends wife is in the car with him since she had gone to work with him that evening.. She is getting upset because the cop is getting upset that my friend wouldn't tell him where he was or where he was going, he finally just told the cop to calm down his wife....I have known a lot of cops over the years and for the most part they seem pretty level headed, but it would bug the heck out of me if they were trying to extract information from me that wasn't their business..

 

[Tom_in_CA]

I've read Rod-buster's story, and all the replies/comments to it so far. My thoughts:

There is no shortage of people who use school yards, after hours, right? You know, like jog the track, walk their dog, shoot hoops, etc.... Even when there's fences, there's usually always a propped open gate. And the obligatory "visitor's sign in at the office" type sign, blah blah. But like the "library" analogy: there are uses of the place that won't attract attention, and uses that will attract attention. And let's face it guys: metal detectors DO have ... uh .... "connotations" (that track joggers, and basket-ball don't have). Ie.: that you might be about to leave a mess. Right? YOU know you won't, but that doesn't stop someone eles from drawing that connotation, and griping.

But as others on this thread point out, 99% of the time you can hunt school yards. In other words, occurances such as Rod-buster's are rare. He will certainly not win the battle of semantics over whether or not he was "trespassing" or whether it's "public", blah blah blah .

So my take on this is that it's like the following scenario: Once in awhile you read in the newspaper of someone getting "roughed up" by an over-zealous cop, for a silly minor thing. Example: someone gets pulled over while driving, d/t his tire touched the yellow line. The motorist is yanked out of his car, read the riot act, put in the back of the patrol car. He's ticketed, threatened with jail, fined, etc.... All for his tire touching the yellow line. As you and I read something like that, WE IMMEDIATELY RECOGNIZE IT for being an "exception" by a single rogue cop. We do not fear driving now, nor run to "get permission to drive", etc..... right? SO TOO do I think of such stories as Rod-buster's. Sure it's no fun having to deal with authority. But in our hobby, which has admitted connotions, I'm afraid you sometimes have to get a "tough skin". And to avoid (lower traffic times) those "miss-lookie-lou's", with their cell-phones who might gripe.

You can try the alternative, of getting every last school or city bureacrat to love and sign off on your hobby, but then the downside of that is, that you can elicit "no's", which preclude you from hunting a school yard where it's entirely possible, that no one ever cared less (till your "pressing question" came to them).

As for the threat of tickets, jail, fines, etc...., you will notice that even though occasional stories like Rod-buster's *can* happen, yet .... when it's all said and done, you'll notice you rarely ever hear of anyone actually truly facing "tickets , jail, or fines" for detecting innocuous schools, parks, etc.... (where there's no rule that said "no detecting"). That's not to say that someone can't gripe, or boot you. But to the extent that it truly results in jail, tickets, etc... ? No. If you can find instances of tickets, confiscations, etc... it will be for someone sneaking obvious sensitive monuments, or someone who can't take a warning, etc......

Yes I know this "lay low and avoid lookie lous" advice will not sit well with some folks. If so, you're going to need to stick to private property, or beaches, etc...... But for turf-of-any-sort, let's face it: the man with a detector sticks out like a sore thumb.

 

[dahut]

I've read Rod-buster's story, and all the replies/comments to it so far. My thoughts:

There is no shortage of people who use school yards, after hours, right? You know, like jog the track, walk their dog, shoot hoops, etc.... Even when there's fences, there's usually always a propped open gate. And the obligatory "visitor's sign in at the office" type sign, blah blah. But like the "library" analogy: there are uses of the place that won't attract attention, and uses that will attract attention. And let's face it guys: metal detectors DO have ... uh .... "connotations" (that track joggers, and basket-ball don't have). Ie.: that you might be about to leave a mess. Right? YOU know you won't, but that doesn't stop someone eles from drawing that connotation, and griping.

But as others on this thread point out, 99% of the time you can hunt school yards. In other words, occurances such as Rod-buster's are rare. He will certainly not win the battle of semantics over whether or not he was "trespassing" or whether it's "public", blah blah blah .

So my take on this is that it's like the following scenario: Once in awhile you read in the newspaper of someone getting "roughed up" by an over-zealous cop, for a silly minor thing. Example: someone gets pulled over while driving, d/t his tire touched the yellow line. The motorist is yanked out of his car, read the riot act, put in the back of the patrol car. He's ticketed, threatened with jail, fined, etc.... All for his tire touching the yellow line. As you and I read something like that, WE IMMEDIATELY RECOGNIZE IT for being an "exception" by a single rogue cop. We do not fear driving now, nor run to "get permission to drive", etc..... right? SO TOO do I think of such stories as Rod-buster's. Sure it's no fun having to deal with authority. But in our hobby, which has admitted connotions, I'm afraid you sometimes have to get a "tough skin". And to avoid (lower traffic times) those "miss-lookie-lou's", with their cell-phones who might gripe.

You can try the alternative, of getting every last school or city bureacrat to love and sign off on your hobby, but then the downside of that is, that you can elicit "no's", which preclude you from hunting a school yard where it's entirely possible, that no one ever cared less (till your "pressing question" came to them).

As for the threat of tickets, jail, fines, etc...., you will notice that even though occasional stories like Rod-buster's *can* happen, yet .... when it's all said and done, you'll notice you rarely ever hear of anyone actually truly facing "tickets , jail, or fines" for detecting innocuous schools, parks, etc.... (where there's no rule that said "no detecting"). That's not to say that someone can't gripe, or boot you. But to the extent that it truly results in jail, tickets, etc... ? No. If you can find instances of tickets, confiscations, etc... it will be for someone sneaking obvious sensitive monuments, or someone who can't take a warning, etc......

Yes I know this "lay low and avoid lookie lous" advice will not sit well with some folks. If so, you're going to need to stick to private property, or beaches, etc...... But for turf-of-any-sort, let's face it: the man with a detector sticks out like a sore thumb.

I've recently adopted a shift in my approach based on the notions clarified above: I just go detecting and I don't ask. Parks, schools, tot lots, beaches, green ways... Whatever. If they are generally "public" or for the "public good," I'm going detecting there.

If someone wants to run me off, I smile. I talk to them, but listen more.
I'll show them the utter lack of damage done as a result if my presence. They WILL be shown all the trash I'm removing.
No more hatin' from me.

If I am STILL run off, I have a "plan B."

I reject the idea that I'm a criminal, pirate, or carpet bagger.
That was the old way of thinking and I am not feeding into that stereotype hereafter.
The change starts with me. Ya'll do what you want.

 

[jerseyjim]

I see a lot of negative things happening to our hobby, partly because of the shows and the type of people they attract. Partly because people do not understand why we are out there. I live in New Jersey. As most of you remember or saw on the news we had a really bad storm { SANDY} It did a tremendous amount of damage. The park system in NY took away the rights to metal detect on certain beaches. After the storm nobody was allowed to swim, fish or even go on a lot of the beaches. I can understand that, there were people who lost everything. After time passed the beaches were opened again for fishing and swimming but not for metal detecting. This is why we have to stick together. We have to educate the new comer and let our public officials know we are voters and we love our hobby.They think we are making a lot of money on our finds. I hear this all the time and I am sure a lot of you guy's do to. After the ten million dollars worth of coins were found in California the detectors were flying off the shelves. I have a feeling that a lot of new comers will let their detectors gather dust when they see how much time and work go into this hobby. God bless all and don't forget to write your public officials.

Jim

 

[Steve O]

Jim, are you saying NJ beaches are off limits to detecting, or NY beaches?

 

[tarajudy]

Asked today while hunting on a lake beach where I live WHO GETS THE STUFF YOU FIND??? DO YOU TURN IT OVER TO THE POLICE?? MY REPLY WAS OH OF COAUSE.

 

[dahut]

Asked today while hunting on a lake beach where I live WHO GETS THE STUFF YOU FIND??? DO YOU TURN IT OVER TO THE POLICE?? MY REPLY WAS OH OF COAUSE.

Good answer.

 

[Illinoismic]

I am not a very outgoing person... I tend to stick to out of the way areas and my favorite places to hunt are wooded areas. I find people are less likely to say no if the area is not maintained ( mowed, trimmed, and landscaped) I won't even ask to dig in someone's yard. I don't want the responsibility of doing something the people find offensive and ruining others chances. I don't dig huge holes, I always remove all trash I find even if it's just sitting on the surface, I fill I'm my holes and try not to kill the grass... just my thoughts... A lot of great virgin ground is out there for the picking with the right research and a little luck

 

[Midwest-Th'er]

Born on a mountain & raised in a cave, Dirt Fishin,Drinkin,and well you know, is all I crave!Regardless of rules,regulations,what not etc
If the good Lord Jesus Christ did not want all of us to dig for fame and fortune he would not have blessed us with killer machines that go deep.
Personally I'm going to dig regardless until I'm dead.
But after 32 yrs. of hunting I can honestly say I will not leave any trace behind.
GL & HH everyone!

 

[Kevin B.]

I had an incedent that happened to me in my town, on public property, with permission, the other day. (couple of weeks ago). The city recently purchased an old lot to transform into a parking lot for the city park. As soon as the weather breakes, dozers and track-hoes will descend upon this spot and remove the old trees, and about 5 to 6 inches of topsoil.
After some research, I found this spot, which is about a 1/4 mile from City Hall. The guy who brokers the deal for the city (and talked the owners out of their property so that a parking lot could be built) was there when I first arrived and he knows me and my hobby very well and laughed and said......"detect away!!!! they are about to doze it all anyway". Well, he left. The City Manager (he is appointed and NOT voted in) drove by. He drove on down to City Hall and had one of his underlings drive back up and tell me that "Gary (the City Manager) just drove by and saw you out here detecting and asked me to come ask you to stop and leave."
I told the messenger, in a nice but matter-of-fact way: I have dug about alot of holes in this small area. See if you can find one. He couldn't. He said: "Kevin, i know and have heard that you have a reputation for respecting other's property and I have nothing against it.......so please don't 'shoot the messenger'. I told him that felt absolutely no ill will towards him but that it concerns me that I am a member of teh public and this is ground that is purchased with my tax dollars and I know for a fact that there is no ordinance in my town that dis-allows metal detecting on public property. Anyway, I shook his hand and loaded up my gear and drove away......never to return. I have since heard alot of stuff about our City Manager. Not all of it was positive. But I digress.
I now hunt on private land where I KNOW that I have permission.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

I know the mental image of "getting permission" to detect on public land (where there was no rule or law to forbid it, in the first place) conjurs up images of being able to detect nilly-willy. Ie.: flash your "permission" and they slink away embarassed, for having questioned you, RIGHT ?

But as your story shows (and so many like it), it STILL depends on who wants to gripe. Eg.: someone else comes and accosts you. You cite your permission. They merely get on their phone, call to city hall and say: " But he's tearing the place up!" (which isn't true, of course). Then your permission is promptly revoked. Or even more humorously, you are reprimanded for getting permission under false pretenses (failing to mention "holes" and "dig" and so forth, doh!).

So I just make it simple, and avoid such lookie lous who might gripe, IN THE FIRST PLACE. Detecting at night is so peaceful and serene afterall

 

[ironsight]

Kevin B:
Searching near a city hall with all the bureacrats, usually police dept. and politicians around are all looking for a chance to pound their chests and assert their dictatorial powers..... its an area i would not detect. In your case though you did get a permission and that woulda been enough for me also to start sweeping.

Whats missing is just who is this person that said 'detect away'? Is he a contractor? A realtor? A city employee? A city politician?
Also you don't mention if you actually told that 'messenger' that you got a permission. Was this City manager aware of that permission, its remotely possible that so called messenger acted on his own?

Its a gamble, but seeing you kind of know a lot of people in your town, I think what i would of done is to seek a meeting with that so called city manager especially since there's no ordinance against detecting public property there and ask him face to face why he has a problem. It could backfire and before you know it there would be an ordinance. From your story with the City manager's actions, the ordinance could be in the works anyway.

I gotta say that City manager of yours sounds like a real A-hole.

 

[mudpuppy]

Lets see...in 5yrs of practicing this Sport....I've been tossed off a public snow hill at 5am by a 16yr old kid running the sno-cat.....tossed off a public beach at 3am by a beach patrol cop, tossed off a public park at 10am by a regular cop, and tossed off an abandoned Catholic school by a Priest!

Since then, I have hunted all these places, In fact, I just got back from the snow hill this very am...I figure they just meant on that particular day...I didnt ask specifics...

Oh, the punk kid on the sno-cat? I disregarded him completely and kept hunting, since he was sort of vague, "Sir, the hill doesnt open until 10am"..."OK thank you!" is all I said in reply and kept swinging...I figured I better try to break him of an early bad habit of acting like he owns the place, and bossing around somebody 4 times his age..
Mud