RE: A question for R.S.B.
 

R.S.B Your not the person I thought you was so in a way Iam sorry for some of the harsher things I have said about you. I knew you wasn't the older warden my camp has dealt with in the past that lived at the bottom of Island run (fish hatchery road) I think his name was Milton or something on these lines but he retired a few yrs back and I will admit he was old school and I held alot of respect for him. Hecame to the camp every yr on the first dayof archery/ buck/ and doe season and checked tags and was veryfriendly about it. He used to joke around about this was the only camp he knew that always had deer hanging on the first day of each season that he could check out. For the last3 yrs or so a younger Gentleman and I use this term little has been stopping in regulerly and he is just plain rude and disrespectifull and looks at each persons harvest as a crime waiting to be found. I was under the impression this was you till I spoke with a buddy from camp yesterday and he informed me this wasn't you and reminding mewho you are and I will admit I am sorry for some of the things I have said to you. Youhave been to the camp several times that I can remember and you never really pushed the line and was polite. The younger person I normally run into around CC camp (right/Left mt, Road back by toby creek) has literly checked my licenseand tag while dragginmy deer out of the woods and then made a point of checking it again when he came to our camp later that evening. I do not agree with unreasonable searches but I have never got upset about asking to see my license while I was leaving the woods and never really thought of itas a unjust request but as for 99% of the officers I meet in the feild they do show a ignorance ofrudeness. Milton or whatever his name was was a rare exception inPA he evenwas nice enough to open the gate to the road between right mt and Luaral mt and drive back and haula 309lb bear out for me about 10 yrs ago if you see him tell him I still owe him a beer for that...lol Now as for all the reports you claimI lied about making still very much upsets me becuase I certainly did make each of the reports I posted on here about and I don't really care who believes me or who doesn't. I stand by what I stated before. On a side note my buddy also was up in Lake City this last saterday night spotting for deer. He said he saw 4 big bucks across the road from the Elk farm 1 being a 180+ he said. But I told him about your statement about having tips of people shotting after dark and possible a 4 wheeler involved and he told me that when they was done spotting and was coming back out of EL rancho road and 4 wheeler went screaming past them on the main road and turned down the road across from the church. This being at aprox. 11pm at night.

Trytan

RE: A question for R.S.B.
 

Leo Milford, the old WCO for this district, retired in the summer of 1985.

I was assigned to this district in February of 1986.

What year did you get your bear?

Dick Bodenhorn
WCO, Elk County

RE: A question for R.S.B.
 

The MOST you are taking exception to is nothing more then what the law and the courts allow of all law enforcement officers. We can all do searches of a person or a vehicle for weapons subsequent to an arrest for officer safety. That search is limited to areas that are accessible to the occupants of the vehicle and of course what is on their person.

All officers also have the legal authority, which is upheld by the courts, to take possession of any removable or disposable evidence of a crime when there are exigent circumstances that would result in the evidence being lost or disposed of if required to obtain a warrant. Of course we try to avoid those types of situations because we know it is a possibility that evidence will be suppressed in a suppression hearing if the court rules the exigent circumstances were not sufficient for a warrant-less search.

Game Commission Officers all live by the exact same Constitution and rules all other officers live by. All of the hype about the abuse of power is just that, hype. If Game Commission Officers were violating the public’s Constitutional rights we wouldn’t have the best record of convictions combined with the lowest complaint rate in the state.

Dick Bodenhorn
WCO, Elk County

RE: A question for R.S.B.
 

I remind you of the Don Madl case and the way your agency and especially the Law Enforcement arm of that agency were neglectful in applying the law as it applies to other citizens of the state. As it was, the case never materialized because Madl was never cited for his abuse of the law, and the statute of limitations was permitted to run out, and your colleagues were obviously directly responsible for that travisty.

I certainly respect the uniform you wear, but not necessarily all of the people wearing that uniform.

RE: A question for R.S.B.
 

That can be said for any uniformed organization.

RE: A question for R.S.B.
 

R. s. b. you say don did nothing wrong your boses are liers . how would you know that? would you fill that way about someone else. That said, how does a big plate of 3rd degree taste ,I know it leaves a bad taste in my mouth for a long time.I know every time I see that green uniform I will be forsed fed the nasty 3rd degree .I wouldn't want your job for anything ,dealing with low lifes all the time.thanks for the tread.

RE: A question for R.S.B.
 

You arroused my curiosity, so I did a search for the "conviction rate" and "complaint rate" over on the PGC website. Unfortunately, the only thing I came up with was a 95% conviction rate in a 2004 press release for the year 2003. A search on "complaint rate" came back empty.

Also, a day or so back I was trying to find the PGC's actual "mission statement" on the website and I couldn't find that either.

Perhaps you could provide links to the above items ?

RE: A question for R.S.B.
 

That isn’t what I said at all.

I said the top law enforcement investigators in State Attorney General’s Office conducted an investigation into the allegations. When they were finished with their investigation they elected not to file charges even though, contrary to what some people would have you believe, the statute of limitation had not expired for a Government Official that would have violated an official trust. That statute of limitations extends to either five or seven years, I would have to look at which it is.

As to why they didn’t bring charges I can only guess, since they didn’t report to me with their findings. Had I been the one doing the investigation I would have some direct knowledge of the investigation and their findings, but as it is I don’t have any knowledge of their findings other then what I read in the papers.

If you want to find out why they didn’t file any charges, after they completed their investigation, you could call their office and ask.

If I were guessing though I would suspect their might have been some factual information mixed in with a lot of speculations and rumors.

Dick Bodenhorn
WCO, Elk County

RE: A question for R.S.B.
 

In 2005 Game Commission WCOS and Deputies prosecuted 8,225 charges and issued 9,433 warnings. We were successful with the prosecution on 7902 of those charges for a 96.1% conviction rate with $1,362,555.25 in fines being imposed.

I also have the number of citizen complaints that were filed against Game Commission Officers during 2005. During that time there were a total of nine complaints submitted. Three were still under investigation with no conclusion at the time the information was released. Of the six remaining, only one was sustained with the Officer having acted in appropriately. One didn’t have enough facts to establish one way or the other and in the remaining four it was found that the Officer had been exonerated of any wrong doing.

Now I throw out a challenge to all of you. Find one other law enforcement agency in this state, or for that matter any other state, with as good of record per law enforcement contact where people are actually getting investigated and charged with a crime.

If you can find one be sure to come here and tell us all about it, but I don’t think you will find any with as good a record.

The reason we have so few complaints is because we have a longer and more intense training period then any other law enforcement agency in the state. We have updated legal training, for both WCOs and Deputies every year, which covers changes in legal methods and the most recent court opinions dealing with legal procedures. We have regular and highly structured training for all of our officers, including the deputies and that even includes mandatory verbal communications training.

As for all of the horror stories about the abuse of power, that too is just so much BS or ancient history; we live by the exact same constitutional limitations that every other law enforcement officer in this state lives by. We have no more power then any other law enforcement officer. The only real problem is the one of the public perception that we aren’t real law enforcement officers, but that too is wrong.

In my years as a WCO I have arrested two murders, two fugitives from justice and two armed robbers, all while I was performing my duties of apprehending people violating the game laws. I have drawn my firearm to prevent being shot on several occasions. Conservation Officers deal with the same hardened criminals that all the other agencies deal with just as all law enforcement officers also deal with many good, responsible and none threatening citizens.

I take it all very seriously and do the best I can at both protecting our resources and even our public when that need arises. I also work hard at trying to educate people about good wildlife management principles and the responsibilities of Game Wardens.

Since Conservation Officers do tend to take their responsibilities seriously we also use all of the legal tool and methods available to us to make good arrests based on lawful investigations. That is what the honest Sportsmen of this state pay us to do and what they expect us to do. As the court opinions change and become more restrictive or more relaxed we will adjust to those changes. And, some people will always be grousing around about law enforcement being unfair, but it isn’t unfair because that is what our constitution guaranties and what out courts uphold.

The constitution and the laws combined with the enforcement of those laws and then that combined with the judgment of the courts are the things that keep America civil and harmonious so we have a truly free nation that is reasonably safe to live in.

As for finding things on the Game Commission web site I am sorry I can’t help you much there. I almost never use the site because I can’t find what I am looking for on it either. Most of what I use I have saved in my own computer, have in manuals or I can go into some of the secure in house sites to get.

Dick Bodenhorn
WCO, Elk County[/i]

RE: A question for R.S.B.
 

You just jogged my memory about these suspicionless stops on honest hunters which are the source of much discontent. They are aimed at people who do not have the money to fight them.
A few years ago someone with a few bucks was cited for not identifying himself, fought it and won and you can read it here:

http://www.courts.state.pa.us/opposting/cwealth/out/65cd01_5-24-02.pdf

There are two sections of the law that said the same thing (that you must ID yourself) and since he was charged with only one of them, that's the one that was ruled unconstitutional on its face. Since he was not charged with the second statute the court did not rule on it.
Since the wording of the remaining statute is virtually similar, it will only take one person with a few bucks to achieve the same result on that second statute.
R.S.B., you were not telling the whole story when you said that courts have ruled these laws constitutional.