I never would have guessed that from you erecting the blue wall here.

I do admire your devout adherence to the code of an officer never does ANYTHING wrong.

There are a few facts that everyone seems to be missing.

From my reading of all the material:

The rookie officer refused to accept verbal or written proof that Ryan and the other participants had permission to use the property.

The rookie officer had a face to face with the property owner (not the thread starter) and still forbid the activity from continuing.

Ryan states that the paintball players moved back to the "old" field due to the intervention by the rookie officer.
________________________________________

If things occured as they were written in the various posts, the rookie was in the wrong on Saturday for interveining in lawful conduct on private property.  Also, the paintballers were in the wrong for returning to the "old" county property field on Sunday.

It is possible that the police department took this as an act of vandalism in retaliation for yesterday's events.

If the account of events didn't have the property owner coming out to the site I would have to agree with SGB that someone could have made a threat.  However, in the light that the property owner was called and enough time elapsed that he traveled to the property and conversed with the officer it seems that events did not get "heated".  Ryan's agitation seems to have started this morning when the SWAT boyz showed up to terrify children playing a legal sport.

Ryan Reid

[peep]

Jus usin the same rose colored glasses your using.......

[;)]

That damn SGB.....he's just an instigator and all he does is bitch.

[brick][peep]

Ok ... sorry about misquoting on the threatening statement, I was referring to:





Ok ... now we're talking about zoning ordnances.  Since when would a rookie officer, or any police officer be sent to private property on a weekend to deal with a zoning violation.  The party in question would receive written correspondance long before law enforcement would be involved.  Besides it doesn't sound like a "business" was being conducted as the use of the field was free - and I don't believe zoning prevents someone from playing on their own residential, commercial or industrial property.  Ryan (individual selling paintball supplies) was selling no doubt from a vehicle (probably a van) which would be consider an extension of either his formal business storefront or his home if that is where his business is based.

The Rookie seems to have overstepped his bounds on Saturday and the paintballers may have made a bad choice about going to county property on Sunday.  Either way there was no need to call out the SWAT team for a group of children playing.

I rank this right up there with sending 5 officers to a call of "child with a gun" - which turns out to be a child playing with a Wal-Mart purchased dart gun in his own backyard.

Ryan Reid

I don't know where in Florida you live. But Coconut Creek is definitely "soccer mom" territory. NOTHING happens in Coconut Creek but they have a fully trained and equipped SWAT team just waiting for a callout.

These well to do areas with no real crime often need to justify the existence of their special units. As a result they sometimes get rolled out when the situation does not warrant it.

Ok boys and girls the truth has come out if you read everything that has been posted on the other message board.

Crimes committed on the first day:
1. Discharging air gun’s inside city limits.  The owner of the paintball shop has finally fessed up to this fact. It doesn’t matter that they had the landowners permission.

Crimes committed on the second day:
1. Discharging air gun’s inside city limits.  
2. Criminal trespassing.  The kids moved back to their old outlaw field.  They had been kick out of this area before.  So you have a bunch of kids in camo running around with paint guns where they should not be after being warned at least 2 other times.

There was no need for the SWAT team but they where breaking the law.

I am not an anti paintballer.  I have been a hard-core player for more then 10 years now.  I have seen the damage done by kids playing on outlaw fields.  I would not want someone playing on any property I own.  The mess left behind is huge.  And the liability to the landowner can not be overstated.
Just my $.02
NoKarma

Ummm, it's slightly illegal activity, on private property, with the owners permission=JBT intervention.

On the other hand, this seems like a situation that would have been of no harm to anybody if they ignored it.

I wonder what the basis of the no air-gun law was.

I really like th whole entrapment issue that the p-baller outlines.

Everybody, entrapment is the police ENTICING you to do something that you would not usually do.

Unless you are a full time cop or fiefighter-paramedic, assigned to Coconut creek, you probubly have no idea how much really goes on there.

gee why am i not suprised? I swear cops just keep digging thereselves deeper and deeper into shit.

Here is the real deal.

The SWAT has been watching these kids PLAY. They are very concerned that the CHILDREN can display a HIGH level of corridinated tactics. They know that if they layed down thier MP5s and AR15s and picked up paintball guns and went up against these CHILDREN they would get stomped. After all, the kiddies are training more than they are at the same tactics. They also know that if the kiddies decided to REBEL and pick up real guns, there would be hell to pay. The real story my friends, is they(enter oppresive govt entity name here) are wanting to eliminate civilian KNOWLEDGE of combat tactics as well as ban guns from civilian ownership. Guess why? Don't teach the sheep to fight!!!!

BTW, i beleive Phoenix has the same law, NO AIRGUNS FIRED IN CITY LIMITS, but we have 4 paintball INDOOR and airconditioned ranges here. Pretty damn cool too. Like playing R6 in real life, 10 seconds in and I'm toasted.:)

So why hasn't our SWAT team INVADED one yet?


shit..... i got to go to the store, outa tinfoil.

Well I live next door to Coconut Creek, know and sell supplies to several officers on that dept. and own a scanner. I think I got the jist of what goes on. [;)]

Not Quite. The ordinace doesn't outlaw firing a paintballgun unless associated with vandalism, criminal mischief or a public nusance.

The whole story (From FreeRepublic):

You probably already know about half the situation I'm dealing with in the town of Coconut Creek.

The situation between the paintballers who are just plan law abiding kids and adults has spun out of control in the city of Coconut Creek.

I do apologize for my grammer and mis-spellings from previous posts on the EZ board network.

If you can understand from a business owner's stand point I'm pretty upset with the on going crisis the kids and adults are going thru with the Coconut Creek Police Department. After trying my-self to remedy the situation between my customers and with Law-Enforcement officials. I have been finally blocked out from talking with C.C.L.E.O.'s

The Mayor of Coconut Creek Jim Waldman is my only choice.

Let me set the facts strait here first with you freepers. Please give feed back about how to approach this situation correctly with-out flames or ridiculous comments that serve no purpose.

Paintballers -vs- Coconut Creek SRT Enforcement Bureau.

The paintballers today returned to the old property they were bannished from playing on back in the first week of December. Parents called and complained to me that the kids were being chased off by the local police. What can you do Ryan to help the parents asked??? Well here we go "RANT ON"

Since I have relative close ties with a particular L.E.O. in Coconut Creek I asked them what can I do to correct the situation. Coconut Creek Police said find a land owner who will allow you with written permission to play on his property. OK no problem. I find out that my Doctor, Dr. Schmidt who is a local practionair owns 10 acres of property just 1/2 mile west of the old paintball field.

Excellent. The Doctor and I made an agreement that if I cleared out his lot of all the trash and debri we can have full use of his property on the weekends. The dispatch at the police department new about this but failed to notify the road patrol officers. "Great department communication"

A quick call to the Doctor while the police showed up two weeks ago solved this problem very fast. OK, then you think it's all over and OK then right. WRONG

Police change shift December 18th 2003. Oh great new officers to deal with.

After working my self to almost dire fatigue for the past three weeks with these nice kids to have a place to play. The top brass at Coconut Creek City Hall finally get a sniff on what was happening out here. Here is how everything sits today as I write this.

Wow, I notice how my english and grammer improves after ranting so long.

Here is where it stands................

I was granted permission to use private property three weeks ago from a local Doctor who owns the property along a strech of road way in the town of Coconut Creek.

Last year in the first week of December the kids and parents who purchase many paintball products from me where chased off of non posted private property. Just a vacant lot with no I.D. or realty property owner listed. The kids have been playing on this vacant property for the past 5 years since 1997.

December 2002 they are now chased off by local L.E.O.'s with no place to go. Guess who calls me for help. The parents and all the kids. Well being a nice guy that I am, I approached the Doctor I know that owns property up the street about this problem. Two light bulbs turn on and an agreement was made.

While assisting the kids with a new field I wanted to remedy the situation with the police department by contacting the Police Seargent on duty for the weekends on good faith.

Seargent Waymire is the DELTA unit in charge on the weekends. His response to me about the paintballers is if he doesn't get a call. I won't bother them. Apparently it has struck a cord and has bothered the upper brass in Coconut Creek Police Department this week.

I was challenged Saturday morning by Officer Chris Corehurst and Officer Cherry Judd on property I had full written permission to be on. I had the property owner ( the doctor come out and try to remedy the situation with the officers on scene. Well to say the least, no dice. Great, three weeks of hard work with these good kids to promise a paintball field and now two officers just shut the whole operation down in 1 minute.

Apparently from what the officers were challenging was whether or not I had full authority to use the property for what I requested the doctor to use it for. We solved that question until the officers threw a curve ball at us stating the city ordinance about discharging paintball markers with-in city limits. Oh yes I asked. Did you read the rest of the city ordinance at the bottom of the paragraph officer. Enforcement of this ordinance is only allowed in cases of public nuisance or criminal mischief. Neither of which was happening out on the property we have permission to use.

OK you would think the officer knows what the deal is right.
He knows he can't enforce anything and I know I'm with-in my legal rights to play on the property with these kids.

This officer is now becoming irrate with me and calls the Seargent on his MOTOROLA RADIO. Seargent chooses to close everything down and refers me to city hall for questioning.

The Doctor now has this situation out of his hands. All the kids waiting to play patiently on Saturday all had to leave immediatly after just showing up to play on the new field.

So now officer Chris Corehurst knows I have it in for him. Just happens the police decided to show up first thing Saturday morning to harass us with no complaints from anyone in the city. They just knew we were out there because I told the same Seargent two days ago I would be out there with kids playing on the doctors property.

After all the disappointed kids left the property you know where I headed. Directly to the police department to pay a visit to my friendly honest neighborhood police Seargent who wasn't there. I called the department many times Saturday to reach the seargent until I accidently was sent to the dispatch operator.

The operator at dispatch explained the whole situation and it begins with the Chief of Police George Raggio Jr. He does not want us any where in his city playing paintball.

The plot thickens freepers.

The chief of police has ordered all officers to chase all paintballers off all property reguardless if we have permission or not. Now I have the whole story out in front.

Sunday rolls around and I'm at home in bed at 9:30am sleeping. My cell phone rings. I answer the phone. Guess who's calling me. Huh hello Ryan Officer Chris Corehurst asking for Ryan at JRT Outdoor-Outfitters which by the way is my corporation name. Chris asked me if I'm out in the old paintball field. I said no. I'm at home right now. Then ruddly hangs up the phone like he is on a mission. Hmmmmm I said. This guy has my business number which is OK. But calling me at 9:30am Sunday to ask if I'm in the old paintball field. I knew something was up. Sure thing.

All the kids and adults who expected to play on the new paintball field Saturday morning showed up Sunday morning at the old field which hasn't been played on in well over a month due to the police harassment.

I received several phone calls from various people asking me if the old field re-opened. I said not that I know of guys. Then 15 minutes go by at about 9:45am a kid called me on his cell phone to tell me the same officer who challenged me Saturday morning was approaching the field in his squad car blocking off the field entrance so cars couldn't go thru screaming and arguing with folks out in the old paintball field. I said to my-self oh dam this going to be a long day. Apparently I was not in the old paintball field Sunday morning. I don't know exactly what transpired Sunday morning. I wasn't there. Apparently a few paintballers just had it with this particular officers attitude towards them so they in return challenge the officer.

You can fill in the rest from there.

At 10:35 am on my NEXTEL phone I heard someone key into my direct connect service to say there here, there here, there here... I had no idea what the hell was going and heard people running in the background on the radio. One person I spoke with on the phone said the ERT or SRT riot team showed up in full gear ready to restore order after officer Chris Corehurst was challenged by people in the old field. I can't say for sure what exactly happend out there because I wasn't there to see it.

I tried to get in touch with the Seargent on Duty ASAP to find out what was going on. But I couldn't. Dispatch wouldn't put me thru to him. What a dam mess this has become.

So this is where it stands. These paintballers don't have a place to play. These guys don't all have cars and can't travel 2 hours away to play paintball on a licensed regulated field.

Freepers what can I do as a business owner with limited funding to remedy this nightmare these kids are in ???

City council or mayor.

Have each and everyone of the kids and parents storm the next city council meeting.
Also have them write, phone, email and drop on in on city hall to let them know that they are displeased with "their government".
Try to get the local paper and TV stations involved in a positive way.
Start up and incorporate a Coconut Creek Paintball Club.
Call up Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.
Write to Matt Drudge and Worldnet Daily.

How's that for a start.

What he said...

If you can organize them for paintball you can organize them for city hall. Unfortunately, someone will probably have to get arrested before it gets before a judge.

Geez, OLY continues ranting about how the cops everywhere need SWAT teams.  Others claiming that there just has to be something more because the police just [i]never[/i] over-react and do stupid things.

This has the makings of yet another classic I-want-to-be-special-Army-man-with-big-guns-and-tanks cop versus All-cops-are-scum cop haters thread.

This is obviously a political problem involving the Mayor, and the police chief. The officers of course, "are just following orders". Kinda like the 50 odd Houston cops who illegally rounded up people in a parking lot, "just following orders".....

Wow!  And here I thought that having an over zealous and stupid officer putting a gun to my teammate's head was bad.  At least we didn't get a SWAT team.  And this was back before paintball became popular.

Good luck to these players and I hope that the couple of kids who shot their mouths off learned a lesson.

Someone had mentioned about LEOs not being able to play paintball.  I found that to be the case with most new players, period.  I used to play with and against local, SWAT/SRT and state troopers.  We kept kicking the state troopers all over the field, weekend after weekend.  They kept coming though, some right off their shift.  They eventually won a game.

Here is my earlier post

[blue]Ummm, it's slightly illegal activity, on private property, with the owners permission=JBT intervention.[/blue]

[red]On the other hand, this seems like a situation that would have been of no harm to anybody if they ignored it.[/red]

I wonder what the basis of the no air-gun law was.

I really like th whole entrapment issue that the p-baller outlines.

Everybody, entrapment is the police ENTICING you to do something that you would not usually do.
-----------------------------------------------

The part in blue was a corrected statemnet, posted by someone else with slightly different reasoning. IE they were saying no laws were violated etc. When apparently there was a minor "anti-air gun" violation.

The part in red says:  this seems like a situation that would have been of no harm to anybody if they ignored it.

In other words, THEY=POLICE so if they had done nothing no real harm would have occurred.

[red]This has the makings of yet another classic I-want-to-be-special-Army-man-with-big-guns-and-tanks cop versus All-cops-are-scum cop haters thread.[/red]

Yes it does, because I was agreeing that this was totally blown out of proportion. But somehow in your-all-cops-are-bad-lunatic-fringe-I-hate-you-all-TFB-state you can't even comprehend what you read.

Which is why it is tough to post here sometimes, because even when you agree with the cop-haters-can't-understand-what-they-read-crew, they still find something to upset them in how you agreed with them.

If everyone just showed their papers to the officer everything would have been ok.  

Hey, were still in America right?

[b]Email Sent[/b]

Aren't you a fine one to talk of reading comprehension.  I don't hate cops and have never said such a thing.  My only beef with you is your rather antiquated and idiotic belief that Mayberry PD needs armored vehicles and a SWAT team because something [i]might[/i] happen.  You conveniently ignore all of the abuses of police power and weaponry to claim that departments who in reality have no more use for a SWAT team than an infant has for a cigarette lighter can be trusted not to do stupid things to maintain their existence.

In this thread you haven't actually agreed with us.  You lambasted Steyr for thinking that a SWAT team for Conconut Creek might be an overkill.  You just absolutely refuse to accept that militarizing police is not only not really needed, but is a really bad idea for a whole raft of reasons because you are still toeing the blue-wall line that no cop can ever misuse authority or equipment to destroy civil rights or injure or kill people.



The cop haters are pretty bad but the Can't-understand-what-I-read-must-accuse-everybody-who-believes-in-law-enforcement-moderation, I-need-automatic-weapons-because-1%-of-crooks-might-have-a-rifle Rambo, anachronistic, knuckle-dragging cops are a much greater threat to overall security and freedom of America.

Again you are having trouble. Where in this post or recently have I directly ot indirectly addressed Steyr-Aug?

I quoted a Dave1164 post. Added my comment to his.

Then I said that this situation might have been better dealt with by NOT taking ANY type of enforcement action.

I then did a quick and dirty definition of entrapment.

You are perhaps confusing me with AR15fan. I do agree with his statement. Most people are oblivious to waht is going on in their community unless it DIRECTLY effects them. They have no idea on the number of crimes, fire, or ems calls that the local emergency services respond to.

I don't believe he was neccesarily saying that was a justification for SWAT. It was a statement that "quiet" little town is often in the eye of the beholder, and many "beholders" don't really want to see that much.

Maybe you should wake up, and realize Mayberry RFD was a TV show from a far more innocent time.

Look where I say I live, WI. If WI didn't have Milwaukee we would have a laughable low crime rate. Even with Milwaukee we have a startingly low crime rate in WI. Maybe we are trying to replicate Mayberry.

Guess what we still have actual criminals commiting actual crimes. The last time my companies Swat team was called out was 1 week ago. Barricaded, armed subject in a big rig wanted for 44 counts of aggravated sexual assualt of a child. Waht would be your proposal to deal with that? Hmmmm? What would your plan to get THAT guy out of there? Kind words and soothing gestures? Just hope it doesn't happen where you are?  What training do you think police officers should have to work in that situation? Do YOU want to be the guy openeing one of the cab doors to that truck knowing that the furthest away that armed, accussed repeat child molester, can be is 6'?

And as long as we are talking about Mayberry. Look at the rack with about 6 rifles that is next to Andy's desk.

I guess I would like to be in Mayberry and have acces to a RIFLE if I needed it. Since I work in mostly rural areas. Just like Andy.