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Realtime Content, Tales From the Trails

Caught in the Act

By topgun117   Sat, Dec 05, 2009

I've seen the funny stories of cachers having run ins with the local law, but what to do when the local law is a fellow cacher!

I got into caching in 2006, just before my son was born.  I saw an article about it in the local paper and had never heard of it.  It sounded like good family fun and sure enough, it has been.  At the time, I was in my first rotation as a detective at the local police department.  About a year later I was back on uniformed patrol.

I've introduced several officers to caching and my best caching friend caught on like fire, very rapidly passing me up in finds.  We used to go out on foot patrol, when there was a serious lull in activity of course, and grab the caches in the city limits.  It was great cover, after all, who is going to go up to the police and ask, "What are you looking for?"

After knowing where the caches were, I would always be on the lookout for any fellow cachers, but, since I worked at night, finding them was rare.

On one occasion, there was a cleverly disguised newly posted cache that I had just found a few days before.  I was on patrol and saw a couple near ground zero.  "Could they be?" I wondered.  Then I saw the male make the non-chalant grab of the "container."  Yes!  Finally!

I drove my black and white up near them, put on my rear warning lights and put on my stern "what are you doing?" cop face.  I got out of the patrol car, maintaining eye contact and began walking towards them.  They looked at me and I could see in their eyes they were trying to think of what to say.  In my commanding cop voice, I said, "Excuse me!"  Then, I broke into a smile and very happily said, "Is this a great cache or what!"  The relief on their face was totally worth it. 

It was great to meet the folks.  We spent a good 15 minutes talking about local caches and they even invited me to join them on their next hunt.  Since it was a little busy, I couldn't, but I apologized for scaring them and was happy to meet them. 

Next time your caching and the law walks up, just remember, he could be a cacher too!

Cache Safe

TopGun117

By topgun117

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Comments(1):

  1. Why do we feel like we're doing something illegal when caching?

    This has happened to me twice, once from a police officer who knew what I was up and also liked caching and once from a police officer who had no clue what I was up to. Unless I'm in the woods or on trails hiking around looking for caches, I always feel like someone is watching me and that I'm up to something...

    Tuesday, January 05, 2010 Robert