ATV's can be the most wonderful tools, greatest toys, and the biggest thorns in the sides of law enforcement. Over the years, our work with them has gone from ignoring them as much as possible to actively enforcing the laws. In nearly the 25 years spent upstate, I dealt with a lot of them, as a previous post has described. A couple others deserve mention. I was headed down a somewhat remote road one afternoon when I saw an old three-wheeler approaching me. The first thing I saw was that neither the operator nor the passenger was wearing a helmet. I activated all my lights and slowed to block the roadway and keep the machine from getting around me. The closer it got the closer to the shoulder, the closer to the shoulder I drove--and it was not slowing down! Finally the machine left the road, went down a rather gently sloping embankment, crossed the ditch and hit a tree. In what I saw as slow motion, the passenger went one way and the driver another. I had the driver in cuffs before he could get off the ground and the passenger told me she wasn't going to run, so that ended that.
Calling an ambulance was a natural response along with some help from the State Police to take an accident report. By the time all the help arrived, driver and passenger were sitting in the back seat of my patrol car with the driver telling me the whole story. He was only taking the machine for a test ride since he'd just got it running--of course his home was a couple miles up the road, but I guess he needed a long test. He hadn't been trying to avoid me; he had no brakes, so he didn't want to hit me. The ambulance crew checked both my folks out and found nothing major to be wrong with them and they both declined to be transported to the emergency room. The machine had suffered no damage--not that you'd have been able to tell if it had--and so this was neither a personal injury accident nor a property damage accident; therefor no accident report was necessary. However, I did write some paper. I believe that I wrote the operator a total of seven tickets and his passenger one for not wearing a helmet. The machine got towed in by a local tow service so he had to pay the tow bill on that also.
One afternoon I literally "wrote a whole book of tickets" all to one family group. I'd been been working near Warrensburg and was headed over one of the connecting roads to the area of the Great Sacandaga Lake when I came up behind a line of ATV's on the road. They were all going slowly, many of the operators had no helmets and not one of the machines had a license plate visible. Since they were going slowly, I passed them all, pulled across the road and jumped out. I must have given them too much room to stop, because they got turned around and headed back the way they'd come from, hitting a trail too narrow for my truck to travel on. However, since I recognized a couple of them it wasn't hard to figure exactly where they'd come out and I headed there. As I pulled to the spot I figured I'd meet them, down a different trail came three more machines--each with its own violations. I started writing them and while I was doing that the group I'd been waiting for came along. This time, they knew they were busted and didn't try to outrun me again. About the time the last ticket got handed out, down the road came yet another machine, also with a violation or two. A "book" of uniform traffic tickets is a packet of twenty. With this group I had finished one packet and completely exhausted another. That might have been my longest traffic stop. I was there for nearly an hour writing tickets. Needless to say, I left with writer's cramp.
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Game Warden Files--Be Careful What You Say
One thing that drives me nuts is inconsistency, particularly in reference to the folks who talk the talk but don't walk the walk.Few will claim perfection, and my wife, kids, and coworkers would all rat me out if I were to claim perfection in any one area. One thing that's I have worked hard on, though won't claim to have down pat, is my use of language. As a Christian, I believe that my talk is an important part of my walk. It's not something I berate others about; but the standard I hold for myself.
One morning a call came in about two "black panthers" up in a tree. Of course, by the time I arrived they were gone. The homeowner, who I recognized as the operator of a local Christian ministry, came out of his house and immediately began to describe what he'd seen--in very colorful language. After he described what he'd seen he paused and thoughtfully looked at my name tag. You could see the wheels of the mind turning and he asked me why I looked familiar. When I introduced myself and added that I was a deacon in a local church (that supported his ministry), he restated all he'd told me the first time; but he did it in far less colorful language.
He'd seen two very black, cat-like animals up in a small birch tree. Their weight had bent the tree over to the point where it had almost touched the roof of his home. Now that I had some information to go on, it was easy to identify the animals as fishers, a large member of the weasel family that has very cat-like actions and is very much at home in trees. First of all, at the time the official stance was that there were no cougars, mountain lions or panthers in New York, though that stance has been softened a bit since then. Second, the blank panther is a southern species and wouldn't be found this far north. Last, when talking about mountain lions, the operative word is LION. They're big. If there'd been two of them in that tree, the tree would have broken under their weight. It was only about 3 inches in diameter, just about right to support the weight of a couple fisher.
After that explanation, he seemed satisfied that he was in no danger of a mountain lion attack and AGAIN repeated the story he'd told me first in the plain-vanilla terms he'd wished he used the first time.
...and if you're interested, by way of our due process, our church's funding of his ministry was eliminated.
One morning a call came in about two "black panthers" up in a tree. Of course, by the time I arrived they were gone. The homeowner, who I recognized as the operator of a local Christian ministry, came out of his house and immediately began to describe what he'd seen--in very colorful language. After he described what he'd seen he paused and thoughtfully looked at my name tag. You could see the wheels of the mind turning and he asked me why I looked familiar. When I introduced myself and added that I was a deacon in a local church (that supported his ministry), he restated all he'd told me the first time; but he did it in far less colorful language.
He'd seen two very black, cat-like animals up in a small birch tree. Their weight had bent the tree over to the point where it had almost touched the roof of his home. Now that I had some information to go on, it was easy to identify the animals as fishers, a large member of the weasel family that has very cat-like actions and is very much at home in trees. First of all, at the time the official stance was that there were no cougars, mountain lions or panthers in New York, though that stance has been softened a bit since then. Second, the blank panther is a southern species and wouldn't be found this far north. Last, when talking about mountain lions, the operative word is LION. They're big. If there'd been two of them in that tree, the tree would have broken under their weight. It was only about 3 inches in diameter, just about right to support the weight of a couple fisher.
After that explanation, he seemed satisfied that he was in no danger of a mountain lion attack and AGAIN repeated the story he'd told me first in the plain-vanilla terms he'd wished he used the first time.
...and if you're interested, by way of our due process, our church's funding of his ministry was eliminated.
Friday, November 15, 2013
Game Warden Files--More on Loaded Guns
The issue of a loaded gun in or on a vehicle is a twofold issue: There's the matter of fair chase--driving down the road with the gun loaded while looking for a quick shot; and there's the matter of safety--carrying a loaded rifle or shotgun in a car or truck is inherently unsafe.
My very first opening day of the North Zone, I stopped a slow moving car on Hope Falls Road. There was an old Winchester 1894 between the driver and the passenger, the action was closed--usually a good indicator of a loaded gun. I had the driver get out of the car and reached in for the rifle. I opened the action and removed a live round from the chamber, then cycled it and removed a couple more rounds before it appeared empty. I placed the rifle on the floor of my back seat and instructed the hunters meet me at the judge's house a bit later in the morning. Much to my surprise, when I got to the judge's house, I found a couple more rounds in the magazine. The gun had been so poorly maintained that the magazine spring hadn't fed the rounds and I'd been unaware they were even in the gun.The bouncing around in my car dislodged them and I was able to fully empty the rifle.
One very cold Thanksgiving morning, I was working with Cathy Maloney checking the hunters who braved the cold that morning before going home to a turkey dinner and a football game. We came up on two guys sitting in a pickup truck drinking a cup of coffee after a cold early morning watch. The first thing we saw was a rifle--another Model 94 Winchester--in the bed of the truck, action closed and pointing directly at the driver's position of the truck. While Cathy started to interview the hunters I removed the rifle from the truck, and opened the action--not surprisingly, it had a round in the chamber. As I recall, the hunter really didn't understand why we were making such a big deal out of it. I'm sure the judge was able to make him understand.
Later that same morning Cathy and I decided to check "one last spot" before heading home for our own Thanksgiving plans. We found a bunch of hunters coming out of a woods road, some walking, some on ATVs. The looks on the faces was pure guilt. On the back of the ATV was a very small deer, either a doe or a button buck--but either way illegal. While Cathy was dealing with that, I was checking other tags and hunters and got to the operator of the ATV. His gun was in a case strapped on the machine...and it was loaded. Some folks just can't get anything right.
Sportsmen who are unable to walk can get permits to have a loaded gun in or on a vehicle. This allows them to drive off road or down a logging road, load up and take a shot at a deer or bear should one come along. It's a good way to allow some of our aging sportsmen to continue their sport, even when their mobility is impaired. Though it allowed hunting from a vehicle, it did not allow having a loaded gun while the vehicle was moving. Most of them get it right; but some do not.
One permittee rode an ATV, but got a bit sloppy and decided to leave his rifle loaded while going to and from his hunting spot. I happened to run across him one afternoon and it was clear he had a loaded magazine still in his gun. I had a rather extended argument with him about it; and in the end wrote him a ticket for it. I met him in court to offer him a civil compromise--if he was civil--and was pleasantly surprised to get a rather nice apology. When he got home after our encounter he was so mad that he decided he was done hunting for the year. He started to clean his rifle and hit an obstruction in the barrel. Somewhere in his travels, he'd hit a mud hole and some mud had made its way down the bore. He realized that if he'd not been stopped and had fired the gun it might have blown up on him. In an odd way, he was thankful to me for provoking him to clean his gun. It's great to have satisfied customers!
My very first opening day of the North Zone, I stopped a slow moving car on Hope Falls Road. There was an old Winchester 1894 between the driver and the passenger, the action was closed--usually a good indicator of a loaded gun. I had the driver get out of the car and reached in for the rifle. I opened the action and removed a live round from the chamber, then cycled it and removed a couple more rounds before it appeared empty. I placed the rifle on the floor of my back seat and instructed the hunters meet me at the judge's house a bit later in the morning. Much to my surprise, when I got to the judge's house, I found a couple more rounds in the magazine. The gun had been so poorly maintained that the magazine spring hadn't fed the rounds and I'd been unaware they were even in the gun.The bouncing around in my car dislodged them and I was able to fully empty the rifle.
One very cold Thanksgiving morning, I was working with Cathy Maloney checking the hunters who braved the cold that morning before going home to a turkey dinner and a football game. We came up on two guys sitting in a pickup truck drinking a cup of coffee after a cold early morning watch. The first thing we saw was a rifle--another Model 94 Winchester--in the bed of the truck, action closed and pointing directly at the driver's position of the truck. While Cathy started to interview the hunters I removed the rifle from the truck, and opened the action--not surprisingly, it had a round in the chamber. As I recall, the hunter really didn't understand why we were making such a big deal out of it. I'm sure the judge was able to make him understand.
Later that same morning Cathy and I decided to check "one last spot" before heading home for our own Thanksgiving plans. We found a bunch of hunters coming out of a woods road, some walking, some on ATVs. The looks on the faces was pure guilt. On the back of the ATV was a very small deer, either a doe or a button buck--but either way illegal. While Cathy was dealing with that, I was checking other tags and hunters and got to the operator of the ATV. His gun was in a case strapped on the machine...and it was loaded. Some folks just can't get anything right.
Sportsmen who are unable to walk can get permits to have a loaded gun in or on a vehicle. This allows them to drive off road or down a logging road, load up and take a shot at a deer or bear should one come along. It's a good way to allow some of our aging sportsmen to continue their sport, even when their mobility is impaired. Though it allowed hunting from a vehicle, it did not allow having a loaded gun while the vehicle was moving. Most of them get it right; but some do not.
One permittee rode an ATV, but got a bit sloppy and decided to leave his rifle loaded while going to and from his hunting spot. I happened to run across him one afternoon and it was clear he had a loaded magazine still in his gun. I had a rather extended argument with him about it; and in the end wrote him a ticket for it. I met him in court to offer him a civil compromise--if he was civil--and was pleasantly surprised to get a rather nice apology. When he got home after our encounter he was so mad that he decided he was done hunting for the year. He started to clean his rifle and hit an obstruction in the barrel. Somewhere in his travels, he'd hit a mud hole and some mud had made its way down the bore. He realized that if he'd not been stopped and had fired the gun it might have blown up on him. In an odd way, he was thankful to me for provoking him to clean his gun. It's great to have satisfied customers!
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Game Warden Files--Felons With Guns
One of the realities of law is that convicted felons can't own guns unless they meet one of several conditions. Few have met those conditions. Most don't pay attention or just don't care.
The arrests for this came to us by many means. My first one was my first weekend after moving upstate while working a case with Trooper Bruce Gardinier. It was a pretty simple discharging a firearm within 500 feet of a dwelling. While we were talking to the defendant, he asked if the charge was a felony. I told him that it was not, and he said "Good, I don't need any more felonies." We ran his history and sure enough, he had a felony conviction. That was probably the easiest weapon case I ever made.
Another came from lovers' quarrels. I had a call from a guy whose wife had moved out and been living with another man. The jilted husband called to tell me that the new boyfriend was a convicted felon and a deer hunter. The records proved that he was a felon, and I had seen him afield with a firearm not long before, so with the help of the local PD we did a search warrant and knocked on his door early one morning, making an arrest on the girl for marihuana possession in the process.
Another good source of weapon cases was that when we investigated hunting related shooting incidents we often found that one or more person involved had either a felony or other conviction that made it illegal to own a gun. Sometimes it was the shooter, sometimes a witness and occasionally the victim who would get arrested. One event took me into Gloversville to arrest a guy who had been one of the many people in an event in which someone was injured. A check of criminal histories revealed that he was prohibited from owning a gun. Along with Bob Johnson from Gloversville PD, I picked him up, processed him and took him back to his home. We got into a discussion about the issues of the law and he mentioned that his neighbor was a convicted rapist who had done prison time and he was hunting regularly. Bob and I went next door for a chat. Since I'd been doing an investigation regarding some illegal activity and his car did resemble a suspect vehicle, we started talking about where he hunted, what he'd seen and finally what he had been hunting with. When I asked him what guns he was using he showed me a couple guns which I took out of his hands and handed off to Bob; then we cuffed him and walked him out of his house. That was easy.
The capstone of my career involved a felon with a gun; but that story will wait until I've exhausted the other stories.
The arrests for this came to us by many means. My first one was my first weekend after moving upstate while working a case with Trooper Bruce Gardinier. It was a pretty simple discharging a firearm within 500 feet of a dwelling. While we were talking to the defendant, he asked if the charge was a felony. I told him that it was not, and he said "Good, I don't need any more felonies." We ran his history and sure enough, he had a felony conviction. That was probably the easiest weapon case I ever made.
Another came from lovers' quarrels. I had a call from a guy whose wife had moved out and been living with another man. The jilted husband called to tell me that the new boyfriend was a convicted felon and a deer hunter. The records proved that he was a felon, and I had seen him afield with a firearm not long before, so with the help of the local PD we did a search warrant and knocked on his door early one morning, making an arrest on the girl for marihuana possession in the process.
Another good source of weapon cases was that when we investigated hunting related shooting incidents we often found that one or more person involved had either a felony or other conviction that made it illegal to own a gun. Sometimes it was the shooter, sometimes a witness and occasionally the victim who would get arrested. One event took me into Gloversville to arrest a guy who had been one of the many people in an event in which someone was injured. A check of criminal histories revealed that he was prohibited from owning a gun. Along with Bob Johnson from Gloversville PD, I picked him up, processed him and took him back to his home. We got into a discussion about the issues of the law and he mentioned that his neighbor was a convicted rapist who had done prison time and he was hunting regularly. Bob and I went next door for a chat. Since I'd been doing an investigation regarding some illegal activity and his car did resemble a suspect vehicle, we started talking about where he hunted, what he'd seen and finally what he had been hunting with. When I asked him what guns he was using he showed me a couple guns which I took out of his hands and handed off to Bob; then we cuffed him and walked him out of his house. That was easy.
The capstone of my career involved a felon with a gun; but that story will wait until I've exhausted the other stories.
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Game Warden Files--Trust, but Verify
Over the years each officer develops relationships with groups of sportsmen in his area. Some are adversarial, some cat and mouse, and some are pretty friendly and trusting. Sometimes it's a good idea to have another officer take the lead role on encounters in your territory just to keep folks honest.
Mike Trottier and I were checking deer hunters on Tolmantown Road and encountered a long line of guys headed to camp for lunch. Some were afoot and a few were on ATVs. Interestingly, it was the older guys who were walking. When I recognized one of the men, I realized the camp they were from and told Mike that we probably would have no problems with this group. How wrong I was!
We saw a couple of the younger guys--who were on the ATVs--start to act a bit nervous so we checked their rifles. Both were loaded and so were in violation of the law. I was quite surprised and the leader of the group who was the camp owner was devastated. He ran a tight ship in his camp--heavy on safety and obeying the law; the thought that anyone hunting from his camp would commit such an offence just cut him deeply. He would have written the tickets himself had he been allowed to.
One of the offenders was the son of a couple I knew pretty well. His dad was a Sportsmen's Education Instructor, teaching the course that's required to get a hunting license. The other was a young guy I didn't know that well. We wrote them up and I told them I'd see them in court. Mike and I agreed that since the violation was more along the line of a safety violation--they hadn't been road hunting--we would settle them by a process known as Civil Compromise. The compromise is an agreement in court between the state and the offender, admitting that the law had been violated, but had no criminal penalty--merely a civil penalty. Often, the compromise would be a higher penalty than a fine would be; but was payed gladly to avoid having a misdemeanor conviction on record.
On court night, the first young man showed up and greeted me like a puppy that knew he'd been bad: head down, tail between his legs...we all know the look. I offered the civil compromise and he agreed gladly. The other guy showed up a couple minutes later and came strutting across the parking lot. "I hired ...." and named a well respected local criminal attorney. I had the first one settled and out the door before the other one's lawyer arrived.
When the lawyer came, he spoke with his client and then asked to see me privately. I offered the same compromise and he asked if I we could go any lower. NOPE! I would be more than happy to set a trial date. The attorney chuckled and said that he'd had to at least ask, and we settled that one up too...of course this guy had to pay the most expensive lawyer in town for a court appearance. We'll call that an attitude adjustment fee.
Mike Trottier and I were checking deer hunters on Tolmantown Road and encountered a long line of guys headed to camp for lunch. Some were afoot and a few were on ATVs. Interestingly, it was the older guys who were walking. When I recognized one of the men, I realized the camp they were from and told Mike that we probably would have no problems with this group. How wrong I was!
We saw a couple of the younger guys--who were on the ATVs--start to act a bit nervous so we checked their rifles. Both were loaded and so were in violation of the law. I was quite surprised and the leader of the group who was the camp owner was devastated. He ran a tight ship in his camp--heavy on safety and obeying the law; the thought that anyone hunting from his camp would commit such an offence just cut him deeply. He would have written the tickets himself had he been allowed to.
One of the offenders was the son of a couple I knew pretty well. His dad was a Sportsmen's Education Instructor, teaching the course that's required to get a hunting license. The other was a young guy I didn't know that well. We wrote them up and I told them I'd see them in court. Mike and I agreed that since the violation was more along the line of a safety violation--they hadn't been road hunting--we would settle them by a process known as Civil Compromise. The compromise is an agreement in court between the state and the offender, admitting that the law had been violated, but had no criminal penalty--merely a civil penalty. Often, the compromise would be a higher penalty than a fine would be; but was payed gladly to avoid having a misdemeanor conviction on record.
On court night, the first young man showed up and greeted me like a puppy that knew he'd been bad: head down, tail between his legs...we all know the look. I offered the civil compromise and he agreed gladly. The other guy showed up a couple minutes later and came strutting across the parking lot. "I hired ...." and named a well respected local criminal attorney. I had the first one settled and out the door before the other one's lawyer arrived.
When the lawyer came, he spoke with his client and then asked to see me privately. I offered the same compromise and he asked if I we could go any lower. NOPE! I would be more than happy to set a trial date. The attorney chuckled and said that he'd had to at least ask, and we settled that one up too...of course this guy had to pay the most expensive lawyer in town for a court appearance. We'll call that an attitude adjustment fee.
Recurring Thoughts
There are some themes in which my thoughts often run. One beneficial recurring thought is "excellence is the basics mastered." Though the source of that nugget of wisdom eludes me, it has proven itself true to me in such things as karate, in which the stance and stepping has to be mastered to obtain the maximum power; shooting, in which the fundamentals must be hammered home so that the speed and accuracy can develop and in spiritual matters where the basics of salvation must be understood before maturity can come.
For the last several months, I've spent a lot of time in the book of Romans. I've done many of my own personal studies in it; preached from it; used it for various other teaching times and am now teaching a basic Bible Study for some friends using the concepts out of that book. The more I dig into it, the more I realized how little I know and how few of the basics I have truly mastered.
Most recently I've been homing in on the words that get tossed around among Christians, but get used so freely that the meaning might have become lost. So, here's a refresher course.
Grace: The acrostic of God's Riches At Christ's Expense pretty well sums it up. It's a free gift. We can't earn it. God offer's it to all but must be accepted by each one. Every time the Greek word we translate as grace appears in the writings of Paul, it means something good.
Justification: That's really a legal term. It doesn't take away the evil within us; it doesn't change the facts of what we have done--or not done. Justification is that God has now looks at us differently. He sees us in the light of the payment for sin that Christ made on the cross.
Atonement: If we break down atone into at and one, we get an idea of what this is about. Christ's sacrifice was the only thing that could make us at one with God. The relationship had been broken by Adam at the fall, and the only thing that could bring us back was the sacrifice of Jesus.
Propitiation: That's a word that only shows up twice, and only in some translations of the Bible; but's sometimes tossed around in sermons without a good explanation if any explanation at all. It's the offering that changes the disposition of the offended party.The only way I could come to grips with this term is to think of a little boy who has offended his mom. He picks a bouquet of flowers and offers them to her. In spite of the deeds done, Mom's heart is softened. That's propitiation.
Sacrifice: We've talked about it, we'd better define it. As used throughout the Bible, a sacrifice always involved offering the life of an animal and were made to cover the sin of men--though they could not pay the price, the sins were covered. It started in Genesis when God himself provided a covering of animal hides for Adam and Eve. That involved the blood of animals. However, in Hebrews we're told that the blood of bulls and goats which we the common sacrificial animals are not enough. It was only the sacrifice of Jesus Christ--the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
Redemption: That's a marketplace term--to buy back. Mankind was God's creation. We chose to stray and God made the provision to buy us back. It's actually a term from the slave market. God is offering to buy us back from the slavery into which we've sold ourselves. He'll buy us back to be a servant of His. He is certainly the better master. Only thinking in terms of slavery can I begin to understand the mastery and hold that some sins have on some people.
Reconciliation: This is the last I'll deal with here. It's related to atonement in concept in that it restores a broken relationship. Through Christ's death we can be reconciled--have the relationship restored--with God. It then becomes our job to bring that reconciliation to others.
There is a lot more depth to each of these terms and I urge anyone not familiar with them to research and master the terms. Be excellent in using the terms with make up a lot of Christian doctrine.
For the last several months, I've spent a lot of time in the book of Romans. I've done many of my own personal studies in it; preached from it; used it for various other teaching times and am now teaching a basic Bible Study for some friends using the concepts out of that book. The more I dig into it, the more I realized how little I know and how few of the basics I have truly mastered.
Most recently I've been homing in on the words that get tossed around among Christians, but get used so freely that the meaning might have become lost. So, here's a refresher course.
Grace: The acrostic of God's Riches At Christ's Expense pretty well sums it up. It's a free gift. We can't earn it. God offer's it to all but must be accepted by each one. Every time the Greek word we translate as grace appears in the writings of Paul, it means something good.
Justification: That's really a legal term. It doesn't take away the evil within us; it doesn't change the facts of what we have done--or not done. Justification is that God has now looks at us differently. He sees us in the light of the payment for sin that Christ made on the cross.
Atonement: If we break down atone into at and one, we get an idea of what this is about. Christ's sacrifice was the only thing that could make us at one with God. The relationship had been broken by Adam at the fall, and the only thing that could bring us back was the sacrifice of Jesus.
Propitiation: That's a word that only shows up twice, and only in some translations of the Bible; but's sometimes tossed around in sermons without a good explanation if any explanation at all. It's the offering that changes the disposition of the offended party.The only way I could come to grips with this term is to think of a little boy who has offended his mom. He picks a bouquet of flowers and offers them to her. In spite of the deeds done, Mom's heart is softened. That's propitiation.
Sacrifice: We've talked about it, we'd better define it. As used throughout the Bible, a sacrifice always involved offering the life of an animal and were made to cover the sin of men--though they could not pay the price, the sins were covered. It started in Genesis when God himself provided a covering of animal hides for Adam and Eve. That involved the blood of animals. However, in Hebrews we're told that the blood of bulls and goats which we the common sacrificial animals are not enough. It was only the sacrifice of Jesus Christ--the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
Redemption: That's a marketplace term--to buy back. Mankind was God's creation. We chose to stray and God made the provision to buy us back. It's actually a term from the slave market. God is offering to buy us back from the slavery into which we've sold ourselves. He'll buy us back to be a servant of His. He is certainly the better master. Only thinking in terms of slavery can I begin to understand the mastery and hold that some sins have on some people.
Reconciliation: This is the last I'll deal with here. It's related to atonement in concept in that it restores a broken relationship. Through Christ's death we can be reconciled--have the relationship restored--with God. It then becomes our job to bring that reconciliation to others.
There is a lot more depth to each of these terms and I urge anyone not familiar with them to research and master the terms. Be excellent in using the terms with make up a lot of Christian doctrine.
Game Warden Files--ATVs and Kids
Over the years we did a lot of work with ATV enforcement. Most times the problems involved adults who took their tickets and dealt with them. Occasionally, though there were incidents involving kids and they added another level of problems. If a person is under 16 years old, he can't be issued a ticket into local court, so you have to find other ways to deal with the problem.
The first time I had to get creative was a young fellow who was the son of a friend. My friend had an ATV that he used to haul firewood around his property, tow his ice shanty onto the lake and that sort of thing. His son, however found different uses for it. He liked to tear up and down a back road not far from his house and rip up any mud hole he could find. One afternoon as I was going down that back road, all of a sudden an ATV was airborne in front of me! It was coming the other direction on the road and had crested a small hill with enough speed to leave the ground. It was high enough that I could see the belly pan of the machine. I could also see the platter-sized eyeballs of my friend's son's face as he saw that he was headed for the hood of my patrol car.
The driver training I'd had over the years--called EVOC--had taught a maneuver called crash avoidance. Even at the low speed I was travelling, it worked and the ATV landed where my car should have been--but was not. By the time I'd turned around, the ATV was no where in sight; but since the face of the operator was a well known to me, I turned around and went to my friends house. Though we couldn't find his boy, the ATV was in the shed very hot--and covered with fresh mud--obviously just run hard.
I chose to believe that the boy had taken the machine off his dad's land without permission and told my friend to have his boy at Town Court on the next court day. Though I couldn't write the kid a normal ticket and this was not something to make a juvenile delinquent case from, I had a plan. There is a little known and seldom used provision of law that allowed a person under 16 years old to be summoned to Traffic Court. In practical terms, that means that after finishing all other court business the judge adjourns court and convenes traffic court--not something that any of them like to do. The judge that night was and remains a good friend who dispensed good justice from his bench. I gave him the run down on the event and told him that I'd leave the entire matter up to his discretion.
Court ran long that night. Many defendants came before the bench and were dealt with by the judge, along with frequent appearances by attorneys. There were many heavy penalties assessed and payed along with some sentences of jail threatened. The young man and his dad sat quietly in the back taking it all in. Finally, when the last defendant left, the judge adjourned the court, dismissed his clerk and called the young man and his dad forward. After the young man told the story to the judge, the father said he'd "set matters right" and the judge asked me what I thought. I thought that the point had been made--quite soundly. Traffic Court was not convened that night and the young man and his dad went on home. That young man has gone on to have a successful career within a local business. He just had to learn to play within the rules.
Several years later I had an almost identical event on the same road--within a mile of the same spot. This time I got turned around and chased the machine, which pulled over and stopped in a log landing. Thought the story was told a couple different ways--he'd either felt guilty or had run out of gas; we'll never know which--I put the kid in the back of my car and called for his mother to come get him and the machine. I didn't know this family, and there was no longer a judge that I could get to play the traffic court gambit; so I opted to just write the mother a ticket for permitting the unlawful operation. She arrived--not very happy--and when she saw him in the back of my Blazer said "He's safer there than in my car!" Then I gave her the ticket...that really made her day. She pleaded not guilty to the charge and I purposely neglected to file the requested supporting deposition, so the case was dismissed after some time elapsed. I'm sure that young man payed his penalty at home; the mom didn't need to pay one to the court.
The first time I had to get creative was a young fellow who was the son of a friend. My friend had an ATV that he used to haul firewood around his property, tow his ice shanty onto the lake and that sort of thing. His son, however found different uses for it. He liked to tear up and down a back road not far from his house and rip up any mud hole he could find. One afternoon as I was going down that back road, all of a sudden an ATV was airborne in front of me! It was coming the other direction on the road and had crested a small hill with enough speed to leave the ground. It was high enough that I could see the belly pan of the machine. I could also see the platter-sized eyeballs of my friend's son's face as he saw that he was headed for the hood of my patrol car.
The driver training I'd had over the years--called EVOC--had taught a maneuver called crash avoidance. Even at the low speed I was travelling, it worked and the ATV landed where my car should have been--but was not. By the time I'd turned around, the ATV was no where in sight; but since the face of the operator was a well known to me, I turned around and went to my friends house. Though we couldn't find his boy, the ATV was in the shed very hot--and covered with fresh mud--obviously just run hard.
I chose to believe that the boy had taken the machine off his dad's land without permission and told my friend to have his boy at Town Court on the next court day. Though I couldn't write the kid a normal ticket and this was not something to make a juvenile delinquent case from, I had a plan. There is a little known and seldom used provision of law that allowed a person under 16 years old to be summoned to Traffic Court. In practical terms, that means that after finishing all other court business the judge adjourns court and convenes traffic court--not something that any of them like to do. The judge that night was and remains a good friend who dispensed good justice from his bench. I gave him the run down on the event and told him that I'd leave the entire matter up to his discretion.
Court ran long that night. Many defendants came before the bench and were dealt with by the judge, along with frequent appearances by attorneys. There were many heavy penalties assessed and payed along with some sentences of jail threatened. The young man and his dad sat quietly in the back taking it all in. Finally, when the last defendant left, the judge adjourned the court, dismissed his clerk and called the young man and his dad forward. After the young man told the story to the judge, the father said he'd "set matters right" and the judge asked me what I thought. I thought that the point had been made--quite soundly. Traffic Court was not convened that night and the young man and his dad went on home. That young man has gone on to have a successful career within a local business. He just had to learn to play within the rules.
Several years later I had an almost identical event on the same road--within a mile of the same spot. This time I got turned around and chased the machine, which pulled over and stopped in a log landing. Thought the story was told a couple different ways--he'd either felt guilty or had run out of gas; we'll never know which--I put the kid in the back of my car and called for his mother to come get him and the machine. I didn't know this family, and there was no longer a judge that I could get to play the traffic court gambit; so I opted to just write the mother a ticket for permitting the unlawful operation. She arrived--not very happy--and when she saw him in the back of my Blazer said "He's safer there than in my car!" Then I gave her the ticket...that really made her day. She pleaded not guilty to the charge and I purposely neglected to file the requested supporting deposition, so the case was dismissed after some time elapsed. I'm sure that young man payed his penalty at home; the mom didn't need to pay one to the court.
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