cops on the playa

gargurl · Post by **gargurl** » Tue Sep 27, 2005 3:01 am

Did anyone experience the same bristling,police presence that I did. ?

Cosworth Magellan · Post by **Cosworth Magellan** » Tue Sep 27, 2005 3:14 am

http://eplaya.burningman.org/viewtopic. ... highlight=

http://eplaya.burningman.org/viewtopic. ... highlight=

http://eplaya.burningman.org/viewtopic. ... highlight=

And on and on and on...

Zona · Post by **Zona** » Tue Sep 27, 2005 12:49 pm

Yes, it was a pain.

HughMungus · Post by **HughMungus** » Tue Sep 27, 2005 3:23 pm

I saw police. I waved and said "Howdy!" many times because I'm happy that they're there and pretty sure they don't want to be.

Chai Guy · Post by **Chai Guy** » Tue Sep 27, 2005 3:50 pm

8 events, not one single LEO interaction.

8 theme camps (40+ people each year), only one LEO interaction, it was because the guy was lighting all of his belongings on fire in the middle of the street after a nervous breakdown and cops let him go!

Chai Guy · Post by **Chai Guy** » Tue Sep 27, 2005 4:23 pm

Unfortunately the 2005 statistics for Burning Man have not been published, but let's compare with 2004 shall we:

Burning Man : 5

Hot August Nights (car event in Reno): 28 (calmest Hot August Nights event ever)

Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, Sturgis South Dakota: 361 (to be fair attendance was 500,000)

Hey, 463 people were arrested at the University of Wyoming in 2003! (either on campus or in residence halls ALL for drug and alcohol violations, and they only have an enrollment of 20,000 students!!!).

http://www.sturgis.com/2kstats.html
http://ope.ed.gov/Security/InstIdCrime.asp?CRITERIA=R
http://204.155.170.159/news/stories/htm ... /77643.php

Ranger Genius · Post by **Ranger Genius** » Tue Sep 27, 2005 11:04 pm

I interacted with LE on 5 occasions during 2005. And every single occurence was a pleasant one. From just chatting with a BLM Ranger who gave me a Junior Ranger badge (highly coveted) to the pair who helped get the whackjob off the man base after he decided (as part of a self-described "bad trip") to jump off of it. They didn't use undue force or abuse their power in any encounter I saw. They even went way out of their way to make sure that the guy who was attacking people in a club (probably on PCP) couldn't hurt himself or anyone else.

geekster · Post by **geekster** » Tue Sep 27, 2005 11:28 pm

I have never had a bad experiance with LE there either. I did see one person have a hard time but they seemed to have been hit with a stupid stick and were giving some cop a bunch of lip even after they were told to settle down and be on their way. I didn't stick around to see how it turned out.

Cosworth Magellan · Post by **Cosworth Magellan** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 7:52 am

Some really weird shit went down where we were camped on Tuesday morning (outer ring betw. 3:00 and 3:30) This must have been at around 7:30 or 8:00 in the morning. I come back to camp, and two BRC rangers are having an argument with some random woman. Something about the rangers driving too fast, the woman being abusive, etc. It went back and forth for a while, then BLM (or somebody with SUVs) shows up. BLM and BRC rangers and this woman stand there for at least 10 minutes having an argument about whether BLM should arrest this woman or the two BRC rangers! (for what, I don't know. ) Didn't get to see how it turned out, unfortunately. It certainly was a weird argument, what little I understood of it.

It was later suggested by one of our neighbors that in his opinion the BRC rangers should have arrested the BLM rangers, which was a... novel idea, to say the laest.

Kinetic IV · Post by **Kinetic IV** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 8:37 am

BRC Rangers don't have arrest authority. (Thankfully so).

Cosworth Magellan · Post by **Cosworth Magellan** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 9:33 am

[quote]BRC Rangers don't have arrest authority. [/quote]

Yes, I'm aware of that, hence my calling it a "novel idea."

safetythird · Post by **safetythird** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 11:35 am

Kinetic IV wrote:BRC Rangers don't have arrest authority. (Thankfully so).

That's not entirely accurate. All US citizens have the right. It's called, strangely enough, Citizen's Arrest and it used quite often by security guards, body guards, and even plain old citizens like us. Certain criteria must apply for it to be a legal arrest.

You CAN arrest a police officer. Effecting that arrest is another thing all together.

Back on topic: I noticed less LEO this year than last. More suspiciously "undercover" acting randoms coming into camp asking about drugs but less uniformed presence.

No bad run ins. In fact they parked outside our bar during the burn when no one was there. I'd like to think they were watching out for our village.

I don't have a problem with their presence when they are acting in a protective fashion. It's when they target victimless crimes, like drug use, to fill their coffers that gets me pissed. They are not protecting the pot smokers from themselves or anyone else. It's like a big pay day when BM rolls around. It's a sickening abuse if you ask me. The cops in Nixon are no better, lined up along side the road like bottom feeding vultures.

S3

Kinetic IV · Post by **Kinetic IV** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 12:05 pm

You and I may have the right to make a citizen's arrest but in today's litigious society that's one right I'll pass on. Chances are I wouldn't know the full circumstances behind what the officer was up to, I'd try to make the arrest and end up looking at the dark walls of a prison cell for a very long time.

On top of that almost every media story I remember reading about citizen's arrests has turned out badly.

I want to support LE and I do, but when their activities turn into "Operation Revenue Enhancement" and public safety suffers due to $$$ tunnel vision I have problems with that too.

Niacin · Post by **Niacin** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 1:13 pm

It's true that some LE agencies have to see BM as a huge pile of cash fines that won't be contested, but really, if all LE wanted was to bank cash, wouldn't they be much, much more zealous about catching people, hassling folk, and so on? As far as my LEO interactions, they've always been calm, polite folk, who use a great amount of discretion.

geekster · Post by **geekster** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 1:59 pm

I figure the average LEO has time to participate in one, maybe two arrests per shift, probably one. The amount of time simply spent doing paperwork probably eats up the rest of the shift. I would also think they would rather write a citation and be on their way than make an arrest and have to haul someone someplace. Such an arrest also probably ties up more than one officer for several hours. So the system is probably self-limiting in a way and they would probably think a situation where they could haul in more than one person at the same time would be a more efficient use of time and resources.

What's all that mean to me? It means that if you are doing something alone such as sparking up next to a LEO, you are probably going to be issued a citation. If you are caught going though someone's camp stealing shit, you are probably going to be arrested. If a group of you is caught providing illegal drugs to others, you are likely to be arrested.

It's the citations that bring in the money. More dollars per hour spent handling the case. Citation issued, money comes in the mail. Much easier than having a trial and much cheaper to the jurisdiction.

Still, in order to justify having all those officers out there, some kind of enforcement activity has to happen. They have to do *something* in order to justify the money they spent on being there to their constituents.

One way to get the number of LEOs reduced is to work though the governments that send them there in the first place. Ask Washoe and Pershing county in open meetings how much money they spent being there, to include deputizing under cover officers that came from out of the area, against what arrests were made. Also point out what crimes in the cummunity were reported when the officers were away at burning man. If you can show that A: the low rate of arrests at burning man don't justify the expense of being there and B: due to the number of crimes in the county, the county would have been better served by having those officers at home where they belong; then you might start to sway public opinion against the counties sending as large a law enforcement presence. If it turns out, however, that they make money on the event because of the citations at the event itself and issued to people going to/from the event plus permit fees and whatever else burning man pays the counties involved, then it is going to be hard to justify getting the number of officers reduced. Also you risk an important backfire. If it isn't cost effective, they could decide to crack down harder to get revenues up rather than reduce the presence.

It is just easier to not be stupid and do illegal things around people you don't know than it is to try to dictate one's expectation of an "anything goes" environment on the event. Just use a little common sense and I don't think people will have anything to worry about. Yeah, a cop could get determined to mess with someone, I suppose, but in all instances I have seen that happen in life and not just at the event, it was where the citizen got confrontational with the officer and attempted to be in control of the situation. The officer is not going to allow that to happen. Remaining in control of the situation is like Law Enforcement 101. You are guaranteed to lose that battle and a cop that does lose control of the situation is going to have a serious career impacting event when they get their next performance review. When interacting with the police, unless you are reporting something or asking for assistance, you are the bottom and the safeword is "I surrender".

The ACLU guidelines someone posted here or on one of the other threads are right on. Shut up, do as you are instructed if it is legal, save your critique of the officer's performance for the hearing.

HughMungus · Post by **HughMungus** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 2:43 pm

safetythird wrote:I don't have a problem with their presence when they are acting in a protective fashion. It's when they target victimless crimes, like drug use, to fill their coffers that gets me pissed. They are not protecting the pot smokers from themselves or anyone else. It's like a big pay day when BM rolls around. It's a sickening abuse if you ask me. The cops in Nixon are no better, lined up along side the road like bottom feeding vultures.

S3

Everybody knows the risks of doing illegal substances and driving at illegal speeds. If you're going to do drugs, just factor into your budget that you might have to pay a ticket. I see this as a MUCH better alternative to how the police could be behaving (imagine random police searches at the gate).

I'm personally GLAD that the police are busting speeders entering and leaving Burning Man because speed kills (and not just you but everyone else on the road, too). If you can't slow down to somewhere below the speed limit then you need to be not driving.

ZaphodBurner · Post by **ZaphodBurner** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 3:13 pm

I've not had problems with the LEOs, but an RV that left our camp owes them bigtime. The police called AAA for them when they lost a fanbelt in the middle of the desert, and when AAA dropped the ball eight frickin' hours later, a different cop called a local tow company. Chatted up the gang, asked how the burn went and left it at that.

I'm POSITIVE it's a good thing they left the K-9 in the truck when they stopped to assist the RV, carrying most of the members of an Oregon rock band, which had a broken fanbelt.

BTW, the RV crew took a great shot of the officer observing a U-Haul driving down the road...with the loading ramp sticking out of the back like a diving board.

In terms of people being busted, I look at it this way: Undercover ops suck, but if you're dumb enough to get popped for toking out in plain goddam view of the police, you deserve it. You have contributed to their justification for being there. If X amount of LEOs were there and couldn't find anybody to bust, there might be fewer of them out there the next year. This benefits responsible users AND the off-playa communities who require LEO services.

-c

cops on the playa

cops on the playa

Why yes