Election Eve Panic in the Wrong Place

Posted on November 8, 2004 in Campaign 2004 Folly Watch Geocaching

On the eve of the election, while the real criminals were rigging the election to offset the 55 to 44 pre-election poll that showed Dubya a decided loser, Los Angeles Police panicked at the site of a geocacher looking for a cache at LAX. Here, from http://www.socalgeocachers.com is the story from the geocacher:

November 1 by Otter and Lemur (321 found)

The Los Angeles International Airport Police, in whose custody I just spent the last four hours — much of it handcuffed and in the back of a patrol car or in a holding cell — would like this cache, which was located in a restricted area on a closed road next to the airport proper, archived NOW.

I could give MUCH more detail, but suffice it to say that after finding the cache and strolling off down the closed-off road next to the airport, I was spotted by two uniformed LAPD motorcycle officers, who detained me, then called in the cavalry; at one point I believe there were about ten cars present, all there for me. The FBI eventually showed up as well. None of them had heard of geocaching, although I did eventually get them to go to geocaching.com and read about the hobby; I think the pages they printed off from the site were what eventually got them to realize I wasn’t a terrorist. It was a close thing, though, from what I was able to glean from eavesdropping. I am, frankly, amazed that I’m not under arrest instead of sitting here in my hotel room frantically writing a “should be archived” message.

An airport perimeter the night before a national election is, evidently, a bad place to be found strolling blithely around with a GPSr in hand.

To make a long story short, none of the law enforcement authorities were amused by a geocache located in an area marked “restricted area, no loitering”, right next to the airport. They were astonished and amazed by the sheer number of finds; they photocopied BOTH logbooks. EVERY SINGLE PAGE of both logbooks. They also examined all the travel bugs. Then they did it all over again. They were very, very, very thorough. I was one scared cacher.

Then, when they finally let me go, they had me take the cache, and ALL the bugs, and told me not to let it be found near the airport again. I’m catching a plane home to Vermont in a few hours, so unfortunately that means that all the bugs, even the ones that wanted to visit California or points south or west, are unfortunately going to get a November trip to Vermont.

So, please, so no one else goes looking for this missing cache and gets busted as well, please ARCHIVE THIS ONE NOW.

Thank you.

— Lemur

While I understand the concern, they bagged the wrong guy with the wrong kind of electronics. The terrorists seized control by other means.

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Here’s the story as told by The Daily Breeze.