WHAT STARTED as a standard morning within the deer woods turned out to be the scariest day of my life. It was March 2020, and my pal Billy Phillps and I have been searching one of many suburban properties now we have permission on in northern Virginia.
Our state has an prolonged city antlerless season that ends in late March, and this explicit hunt occurred proper after the state of Virginia introduced the “Stay at Home” order through the early Covid-19 pandemic. That explicit order allowed you to go away residence for a few causes, and searching was one in all them.
We have been searching in a neighborhood of multimillion-dollar properties on three- to five-acre heaps, and the property we have been on that day was a double lot of 10 acres whole. In our world, that’s humongous.
We parked on the finish of an outdated driveway and walked a brief option to our searching spots. We climbed into our timber to arrange about 100 yards from one another, with Billy nearer to the vehicles than my stand. Then, simply as daylight broke, I noticed the lights of a automobile close to the place we parked. I appeared by my binos and noticed that an older Ford Taurus had pulled up. I keep in mind pondering, Oh, that is sort of odd.
I texted Billy. “Can you see the cars?”
“Yeah, I’m looking at them,” he texted again.
Then I noticed Billy’s truck mattress gentle activate.
“He’s in my car,” Billy texted once more. “I’m getting down.”
At this level the solar was totally up and we might clearly see our environment. As Billy descended his tree, I noticed a police officer in full uniform coming down the little hill towards us with an M4 in his palms. I pulled out my telephone to document footage, the sort of video that claims, Look on the uncommon issues we take care of whereas searching within the suburbs.
Then I noticed the cop had his weapon shouldered and was pointing it at Billy. He was screaming at him.
“Get on the ground! Get on the fucking ground!”
What he was saying was regarding, however the pressure within the officer’s voice was worse. Billy was packing up his sticks because the cop approached. If Billy had circled whereas holding the sticks or if he nonetheless had his crossbow in his palms, I don’t even need to take into consideration what may need occurred.
“Where’s your buddy?” the cop began yelling, getting much more aggressive. “Where’s your buddy?”
And I’m like, “Sir, I’m over here.”
“Get out of the fucking tree,” he yelled.
“OK,” I replied, “it’s going to take me a minute.”
“I didn’t ask for feedback. I told you to get here.”
The cop screamed at each of us the entire time it took me to get down. When I walked as much as the cop, he spoke into his radio.
“You can take the guns off them now.”
We have been clearly perplexed, and he defined that he had snipers within the woods with their rifles educated on us.
“What is going on here?” I requested. “What is happening?”
“Shut up,” he informed me. “I’m asking questions here. Hands on your head and turn around.”
I stored persisting with questions, making an attempt to determine why we have been being searched at gunpoint and who this police officer was. The man wouldn’t inform us something and proceeded to pat us down.
“I’m not a regular cop,” was all he stated. “I’m a special cop.”
When the officer requested us what we have been doing at this property, we defined that we’re deer hunters and that we had permission to be right here. I pulled up the signed permission slip from the landowner and confirmed it to him. Then I requested once more what he was doing right here. The officer informed us that they noticed us on a UAV—an unmanned aerial car. He was suggesting he had a army drone 30,000 toes above us, which is totally ridiculous for our county or most any police division.
“This is Fairfax County,” I stated. “What are you talking about?”
His demeanor shifted and he bought much less aggressive—particularly after I requested him why he was going by our autos.
“You had a wire on the floor, and I thought it was a bomb,” he stated to Billy. Billy defined that he works in landscaping, and that he has sprinkler-head elements in his truck.
By now we have been beginning to get nervous, and I seen the officer’s uniform didn’t look fairly proper. There was one thing off about him. We stored asking why he was looking out our automobiles with out trigger, and why he was on non-public property.
Then he simply left.
He didn’t give us his card or a proof, and no different officers confirmed up. After the adrenaline of getting a gun pointed at us wore off, Billy and I ran by what had simply occurred.
I informed Billy that I believed the man have to be impersonating legislation enforcement, as a result of the entire interplay simply didn’t sit proper with me. Billy and I mentor a number of law enforcement officials who’re studying to hunt, and we’re large supporters of police usually. Mind you, this was when Covid lockdowns have been at their peak, and there was mass civil unrest all through the nation. The last item we needed to do was blast the police.
Still, we wanted solutions. We despatched the quick video clip I had recorded to some of our police officer buddies, and one known as me immediately. He defined that it didn’t look proper, and that what occurred shouldn’t be customary police process. He requested the place we have been and made just a few telephone calls to see if he might discover out any particulars for us.
When my buddy known as me again, he was laughing so arduous he might barely converse. The man who had simply ordered us down from our timber at gunpoint was certainly a police officer often called the division’s Tackleberry. (In the Police Academy motion pictures, Tackleberry is a tryhard who’s overzealous in his enforcement.) This explicit police officer had been on desk responsibility and was despatched out on patrol on account of scheduling points attributable to Covid.
My buddy discovered that the officer had gotten circled, thought he was at a park, and that we have been doing one thing unlawful. Billy and I had a gathering with the man’s captain, who apologized profusely. We determined to go away it at that.
Read Next: Deer Hunting Every Day within the Suburbs of Virginia
It was a terrifying and complicated ordeal whereas it was taking place, however now that just a few years have handed, it’s simply one other loopy story from our time searching the D.C. suburbs. Here’s this man who thought he was busting the most important crime ring of all time and as a substitute ended up practically arresting a pair rednecks in camo.
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