New definition of sheriffnado!!!

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jason Boggs
  • Start date Start date
Wow...sounds like this guy was a piece of work. Personally, though, if it was me I would just let the whole thing go. I don't agree with what he did (though I think he was probably just freaked out about the storm which resulted in him overreacting), but now that it is said and done, what good is it to make a stink about someone/something who you probably will not have to encounter again anytime soon (unless there happens to be a storm there again)?

I don't agree with that. What the deputy did was wrong and he used his powers to harass people that weren't doing anything wrong. Jason may not encounter him ever again, but other people will - and it's hard telling how many people will be harassed by this guy and to what extent.

The deputy has no right to be working in law enforcement and has no right to harass people like he did.
 
I don't agree with that. What the deputy did was wrong and he used his powers to harass people that weren't doing anything wrong. Jason may not encounter him ever again, but other people will - and it's hard telling how many people will be harassed by this guy and to what extent.

The deputy has no right to be working in law enforcement and has no right to harass people like he did.

I don't agree as well. It was wrong, it was abuse of power, and as I said before: If he did it once, he will do it again so... jketcham, I totally agree with you
 
Wow...sounds like this guy was a piece of work. Personally, though, if it was me I would just let the whole thing go. I don't agree with what he did (though I think he was probably just freaked out about the storm which resulted in him overreacting), but now that it is said and done, what good is it to make a stink about someone/something who you probably will not have to encounter again anytime soon (unless there happens to be a storm there again)?

The problem is Jason will encounter this guy again for sure. That county is in our viewing area and since Jason chases for a local tv station he will be in this area again many times. Alot of storms blow up in that area. I have chased there many times myself. For Jason and I that is a backyard chase. If this was some place in Kansas or Oklahoma we may not chase in again for years then I would drop it but we dont have that luxury.

I do think he was shaken up by the storm and by the pure number of chasers but he is suppose to be a professional trained to handle streeful situations. Problem is I dont think he knew what to do abou the storm. he was worried about chasers?? I can promise we all know alot more about what was going on than he did. He was a bigger danger to himself and to us than the storm was. This is a very isolated road and normally you may only pass a couple cars every 20 miles if that. If he would have left us alone there would have been no issues. We are used to dealing with chaser convergences. he obviously isnt.
 
The problem is Jason will encounter this guy again for sure. That county is in our viewing area and since Jason chases for a local tv station he will be in this area again many times. Alot of storms blow up in that area. I have chased there many times myself. For Jason and I that is a backyard chase. If this was some place in Kansas or Oklahoma we may not chase in again for years then I would drop it but we dont have that luxury.

I do think he was shaken up by the storm and by the pure number of chasers but he is suppose to be a professional trained to handle streeful situations. Problem is I dont think he knew what to do abou the storm. he was worried about chasers?? I can promise we all know alot more about what was going on than he did. He was a bigger danger to himself and to us than the storm was. This is a very isolated road and normally you may only pass a couple cars every 20 miles if that. If he would have left us alone there would have been no issues. We are used to dealing with chaser convergences. he obviously isnt.

Well, since it is likely that you guys will encounter him again (it being your home base and everything and Jason being with the media), I guess I could see maybe letting his colleagues know about his behavior (though if it were me I would still probably just let it go). But putting it on YouTube like some have suggested for thewhole world to see? If it was me, I wouldn't go that far. It might make the news station that Jason works for look like they handled the situation spitefully or something. I dunno...that's just what I think :-)
 
His name was not Barney Fife was it??...did he tug on his gun belt and draw his pop gun on you?? What a freakin bozo. Lots of these bad attitude power-tripping idiots out there. Just avoid being their potential targets...and keeping a very low profile sure helps this. Storm chasers are certainly very easily profiled, especially seeing some of the crazy rigs out there, and the need for speed at times during the heat of the battle.
 
I think this demonstrates how smart it is to think ahead and use our gear to protect ourselves. For ANY traffic stop, just turn on the camera, set it aside, and let it pick up the ambient audio. If there's shenanigans, videotape the car (and its markings) as it drives off. At the very least this might get the county to drop any charges against you if you've been cited and treated very poorly. And as others said, it's doing our part to help keep law enforcement honest.

And yeah, cover up that stupid tally light with electrical tape -- it serves no useful purpose but to put people on their guard.

I'll put out a call for this on our front page.

Tim
 
I remember seeing that sheriff in the same area. I pulled over to the side of the road when I saw him speeding up behind me in the left lane, to avoid any issues.
 
I'm not even sure how to go about reproting this guy. I didn't get his name and I don't know where he lives. I'm actually not even quite sure what county I was in when he stopped me. I think I was in Briscoe, but again, I'm not sure. I thought I was the only one this guy targeted, but from the posts on this thread it really looks like this guy was out to get someone. I agree with Tim that turning the video camera on will help with proving what was said. In my case it didn't help. When he stopped me I had my vid camera rolling. When he came up to my car he said "Get out of that truck!" and he made me go stand next to his vehicle. I guess I will have to get me a little cassette recorder to stick in my pocket when I go out from now on...especially when I'm in that knuckle heads territory.
 
I was right in the middle of this mess and managed to sneek away when he was screaming at three girls (from OU I think). Of course they drove away from him while he was yelling, which made matters worse.

My take on this will probably make some of you unhappy, but what I saw was very different than what I've been reading. Who among you bothered to record the chasers hanging out the window video taping while going 85 MPH down the highway? How many bothered to tape the chasers all the way out the window on the roof
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taping while passing other vehicles? Not to mention parking on the highway, blocking traffic, using laptops while driving and running outrageously blinding lightbars down the road. You say the law enforcement was out of control, I agree but so were many chasers. It was nothing short of lunatic fringe north of Silverton.

Anytime an emergency vehicle comes up on you the rule is pull over because they have the right of way. It does not matter if they are pulling you over or not, that light and siren gives them that right. Law enforcement does not like crowds or what they call mobs. There were just too many chasers breaking too many laws and they came unglued and in response acted irresponsibally themselves. The same thing happened in SW Kansas and eastern Colorado years ago. At one time in the 80's Colorado law enforecment was blocking chasers from the storms. It's ok to protect yourself by taping the incident, but we were a part of a larger group that was mostly out of control.

What can we do in these situations? One thing is to not drive to the anticipated "storm of the day" where everyone else will be. Kansas was not crowded and the torndoes were bigger, consider other options. Believe me I know shi##y deals while chasing, I was screamed at on May 3rd 1999 while taping two tornados, a giant stovepipe and a wedge. I was off the road completely in a field but told to cease immediately and leave the scene, or be arrested. I was also told to drive away from the storm. There was no damage where I was, but that didn't matter.

I personally may take some sort of action against the blinding
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lightbars. There were times I could not see on the way to McLean. We should not be doing that to each other.

Gene Moore
 
Gene, I'll agree with you that the activity out there may have gotten out of control on both sides. Since I first started chasing down here in 97, I've had seen things that have annoyed and angered me...but also give me reasons why I always choose to avoid the crowd as much as possible. Its not that I don't like any of you all...I just prefer avoiding as much of the chaos as possible. Which is why you'll always see me move past convergence or wait for the masses to pass. When I'm ready to go some where or feel like I need to, I don't want to have to wait for a million people to move as well.

That being said...yes, the sheriff was completely off base, but I could see why he went nuts. Should have asked for his name and badge number, but didn't feel like pushing any buttons to really set him off. As for the activities of the chasers. We have to keep in mind, this is really the first major day of the new year. We have a whole new group of people at OU, TTU, etc...and the kids are going to be immature until they get settled in. The hanging out of windows is just stupid, but eventually they'll stop...about the time they get dinged by a nice golfball flying out of a storm. :) As far as the lightbars and full wx station on vehicles...to each their own. If it helps you, more power to you. Light bars really need to be restricted to *local* Skywarn, NWS, and emergency management. They can help raise awareness when you are driving slow, on the side of the road, or its blinding rain...but how many use it for that versus an ego trip?

The key to it all...respect the local law enforcement, don't be stupid and immature, and we should continue to get out of this hobby alive without too many problems.
 
I posted this on WX-CHASE, as it seems a resurgence of the lightbar topic is upon us. I debated about starting another thread, but for now will post in this one.

I feel that some sort of warning light is a good piece of standby equipment for a chase vehicle, and can be of good use for public safety in rare situations. They should be used with extreme judiciousness and only when absolutely neccessary. I have strobes installed on my vehicle, and own a small lightbar that is usually not installed. I've had this equipment since 2003 and have used it maybe once or twice per season while chasing, usually for no more than a minute at a time. Examples include blocking traffic from a flooded roadway at night, alerting traffic of icy bridges, warning traffic of debris or trees across a road, or alerting traffic behind me that I am about to turn onto a pull-off on a narrow road. I have used my lights many times in the presence of city and state police at icy road accident and flooding scenes, and none have raised any issue with me about it. In several cases, I've been *thanked* by law inforcement for doing the above actions until they were able to arrive. But, most of these scenarios are unique and rarely involve tornado chasing.

Reading the laws across the country, it is easy to see that in most states, it's not the lights that are illegal but how they are used. With a few exceptions (California and Illinois are two of them), amber lights are allowed to be used to supplement a car's four-way hazard lights. They don't give any right-of-way, authority or permission to speed or park illegally, just like four-way hazards do not.

The problem I see that is the main 'beef' with everyone, and the source that triggers these discussions, is with running the lights during one's entire 'intercept mode', which I think is a phenomenon mostly derived from movies like 'Twister'. It's like once you're in 'intercept mode', you kick up the action/drama and get excited, turn on the lights and close in on the tornado. Although the intentions here are understandable and harmless, the implications are not. In most states, doing this is illegal - and is, as others have mentioned, a hazard and annoyance to other chasers.
 
I'm not even sure how to go about reproting this guy. I didn't get his name and I don't know where he lives. I'm actually not even quite sure what county I was in when he stopped me. I think I was in Briscoe, but again, I'm not sure. I thought I was the only one this guy targeted, but from the posts on this thread it really looks like this guy was out to get someone. I agree with Tim that turning the video camera on will help with proving what was said. In my case it didn't help. When he stopped me I had my vid camera rolling. When he came up to my car he said "Get out of that truck!" and he made me go stand next to his vehicle. I guess I will have to get me a little cassette recorder to stick in my pocket when I go out from now on...especially when I'm in that knuckle heads territory.

I worked in police communications for a few years, so let me offer a couple of suggestions. This guy sounds like a whack job, so he may not have followed department protocol for a traffic stop. At any rate, I know that there was some mention of road intersections and various stretches of road; use that information to determine which county you were in. Contact the Sheriff’s Office for that county, and tell them that you would like to speak with a supervisor regarding an incident with an deputy that occurred on that date around that time, in that location. There should be no problem using the CAD system to determine which unit went out on a traffic stop in that area, even if there were multiple units, which I doubt there were. Even if he didn’t go out on a traffic stop, it was probably the beat cop for that area.

If you are serious about reporting this guy, try to get approximate times, locations, and accounts of what happened from as many of the affected people as possible; provide contact information. It should be quite easy to figure out who the cop was. Also, if you’re lucky and the sergeant or captain is willing, there may have been a dash cam in the cruiser which ought to back up your account of what occurred.

There’s my $.02, so good luck.
 
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As for the people hanging out of the car, I actually took a picture of that because that was the icing on the cake to a crazy day (that and I couldnt get a clear picture of the tornado at that moment anyways). That was one of the last things i thought I would ever see chasing, so i had to take a picture of it. Earlier that day, I got hit by 2 golfball size stones just standing out side my car, both of which were nice little stingers. Getting hit by one driving down the highway could be near deadly. I dont think your car needs a lightning rod sticking out of it either.
 
A "kibbitz", since I wasn't there, but.... I don't think I read that anyone was ticketed or even that much inconvenienced -- just harassed. That means the deputy kind-of knew he was steaming and didn't want to document it. Given that, a number of letters from different people addressed to the Sheriff only describing the disturbing incident that occured with respect to an unknown deputy should do the trick. As a County bureaucrat, I have high confidence the Sheriff can be counted on to inquire and re-establish County policy with respect to both the offender and all the other deputies in the department. That course of action should result in little or no exposure to retribution against specific individuals and have the desired positive effect IMHO.
 
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