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From the Rapid City Daily Journal
"GF&P: Armed by necessity
Near dark, on a lonely stretch of road in Lyman County, Dave McCrea faced a situation to raise the hair on the back of any law enforcement officer's neck.
It was the second day of the state pheasant season, and McCrea, a law enforcement coordinator for the South Dakota Game, Fish & Parks Department in Pierre, had just stopped a man for hunting pheasants after legal shooting hours.
That part was simple enough. Then things got complicated.
It turned out the road hunter was half drunk. He had an open can of beer, a collection of empties in his pickup box, as well as drug paraphernalia and almost 2 ounces of marijuana stashed in the cab.
He also had an outstanding warrant on a drug-related charge in Pennington County.
And, along with his shotgun, he had a fully loaded .45-caliber handgun lying next to the driver's seat.
"We contacted him for hunting 12 to 13 minutes late, and then it just snowballed," McCrea said. "That easily could have turned into a very serious situation."
At times like that, McCrea is glad he stands 6-foot-6 and weighs 250 pounds. He is glad he has more than 20 years of field experience and all the training of other certified law enforcement officers.
He is also glad that he has a .40-caliber semi-automatic handgun on his hip, in the horrid event that he meets a situation he can't control any other way.
"You never know what's around the next bend," McCrea said. "I've made methamphetamine arrests, marijuana arrests. I've had hits on people with outstanding warrants who were very bad people. I can tell you situations that only by the grace of God didn't turn really, really bad."
Rangers pack heat
Potentially deadly situations are part of professional life for law enforcement officers. That's why they carry guns and are trained to use them.
The public understands that reality with state troopers, county sheriffs and city police officers, and has for a long time. State conservation officers, however, have operated under a different public perception for many years. They were seen less as law officers and more as park rangers, friendly men in brown outfits who checked fishing licenses and offered tips on pheasant hunting spots.
And it still troubles many people - hunters, anglers, farmers and ranchers - that the people they have known as game wardens now appear to be as formidable and even threatening as any member of a SWAT team.
Intimidation factor
Larry Wilson, a retired rancher and airline employee from Sturgis, said he doesn't understand why conservation officers have to pack so much dangerous hardware.
"It's something about when they've got a sidearm, it's kind of intimidating. And it puts you on the defensive," Wilson said. "It's almost like you're guilty until proven innocent."
Wilson and other GF&P critics argue that the handguns, body armor, night sticks and pepper spray carried by today's conservation officers are examples of a less friendly, more aggressive attitude that permeates the agency. Wilson said that could be a factor in the disintegration of relationships between GF&P personnel and some landowners.
The handguns in particular might escalate emotions, leading to more distrust and resentment, he said.
"You've got to go out there and work with the farmers and ranchers and hunters and whatnot, and show an attitude of concern, instead of this attitude," he said. "What mind frame is a person going to be in when you've got somebody confront you who's wearing a sidearm?"
Necessary protection
McCrea and other GF&P officers argue that the guns aren't meant to intimidate but rather to protect officers who could easily be in danger. Conservation officers usually work alone, far from towns or backup by other law-enforcement officers. And many - most during the hunting season - of the people they encounter are armed.
Some of those people are drunk or using drugs. Some are drug merchants who carry guns for purposes other than sport hunting. A few are people with violent histories and past scrapes with the law.
Emmett Keyser, assistant GF&P Wildlife Division director in Pierre, said that people who expect conservation officers to work in that kind of world without proper protection and training are not being realistic.
"I wish things were like Mayberry RFD. I wish I could send my guys out there and it would just be like Andy Taylor," Keyser said. "But I couldn't, in good conscience, do that. Wildlife law enforcement is a different kind of law enforcement, but the jeopardy is just as great."
Times change
For many years, however, most state conservation officers - then called game wardens - operated without guns strapped to their hips. Not until GF&P issued Smith & Wesson .357-caliber revolvers in 1980 did the agency provide all its officers with standard-issue sidearms.
Before that, the department had a few military-type revolvers available, or some officers bought their own handguns. And even those who had a handgun usually kept it in their glove box instead of wearing it on their belt.
"There was a feeling prior to that that they'd much prefer officers not wear them because of the image," Keyser said. "But 25 or 35 years ago, it was far less likely that there would be an incident requiring an officer to be armed."
Dave Linde agrees with that. He began working for GF&P as a biologist in 1969 and became an assistant regional supervisor in 1965. In that position, he was involved in law enforcement work, as he was to a lesser extent later when he became regional supervisor in Rapid City.
Linde, who retired in 1995, remembers how difficult it was for him to strap on a weapon and wear it in public, even though it was policy and probably made sense.
"I was from the old school, and it didn't feel right. Nobody wore them. In those days, even the old sheriffs - a lot of them - didn't show them," Linde said. "Back then, the big weapon you had was your mouth - that and an old radio that took a few minutes to work."
Linde did have a handgun that he kept in the glove box of his vehicle.
"I can't remember what the heck I had. It was surplus. Maybe a deputy got it for me. I sort of knew how to shoot it," he said. "Things have changed. The world changed around us, I guess. Now, you've got drugs out there. You stumble into something like that, and you could be in trouble."
Modern accessories
Today's conservation officers are trained and prepared for much more than a hunter illegally blasting a hen pheasant or shooting a deer in the neighbor's pasture.
The 56 state conservation officers and their supervisors at the regional and state levels are issued .40-caliber Glock semi-automatic handguns that hold 16 rounds. They carry two 15-round magazines on their black duty belts, along with pepper spray, a collapsible nightstick and handcuffs. They also have a short-barreled pump shotgun in their trucks.
And they wear protective body armor.
In addition, officers are well-educated and trained. All have college degrees, usually in wildlife and fisheries. They go through the 12-week law enforcement academy operated in Pierre by the state Division of Criminal Investigation. They also have a 12-week field-training course through GF&P.
The GF&P training includes techniques on how to deal with the public while writing tickets or checking licenses. McCrea said good public relations skills are vital to a conservation officer. It is something he practices himself and emphasizes to officers across the state.
Killers and gentle giants
McCrea said the vast majority of people he meets on the job are good citizens who don't pose a threat to his safety. But a few are not. That's why top-notch training and equipment are crucial, he said.
"You never know what's around the next turn," McCrea said. "We deal with people who are armed more than any other law enforcement. Fortunately, the vast majority of people would never want to harm one of our officers. But you never know who you're dealing with."
McCrea met one of the worst of those people while working as a conservation officer in Sioux Falls. On two occasions, he checked the same fisherman on a lonesome stretch of the Big Sioux River north of Sioux Falls. The guy's name was Robert Leroy Anderson, and he later would be convicted of murdering two Sioux Falls-area women.
The search for their bodies focused on the same stretch of the Big Sioux where McCrea had checked Anderson, apparently one of the killer's favorite spots.
"He was legal, his license was OK and everything, and he was wearing this big smile, like your best buddy," McCrea said. "But I left there thinking 'there's something seriously wrong with that guy.' It was just a bad feeling."
McCrea and other officers who had checked Anderson over the years presented information on his hangouts during the murder investigations.
Robert Leroy Andersons are rare in South Dakota, of course. But even a simple road stop for a hunting violation carries risk, especially if alcohol or drugs are involved.
In the Lyman County case, the man was big enough that McCrea needed two sets of handcuffs when he placed him under arrest. McCrea said he handled the situation firmly but respectfully, and the man didn't resist.
"He said later, 'First of all, I wouldn't try anything because you're too big, and because you've been too nice to me,'" McCrea said.
The man was charged with hunting after hours, open container, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of marijuana.
He also registered .07 in a breath test administered later by a deputy sheriff. That was just short of the legal limit of .08.
McCrea had to make the open container charge as a citizen, because conservation officers only have open-container enforcement authority on GF&P land. The officers do have full enforcement authority on DUI arrests and drug-related crimes, as well as more serious acts such as murder, robbery, burglary and kidnapping.
The officers often act as backup to other law enforcement in such cases.
Wearing multiple hats
Dave McCrea's twin brother, Don, supervises 14 conservation officers in central South Dakota and handles field law-enforcement duties as well. He said the daily chores of conservation officers are increasingly complicated and dangerous.
"In the last three summers in the Pierre area, while doing game warden stuff, I've made 26 drug arrests, several DUI arrests, in addition to backing up police officers and deputy sheriffs for a variety of offenses," Don McCrea said.
Except for a 1980 vehicle accident that killed conservation officer Ron Brandt on a slippery highway east of Sioux Falls, GF&P has never lost a conservation officer while on duty. Don McCrea said he and other officers work hard to keep it that way. Still they have been assaulted and shot at, he said.
"Society has changed. That's what we have to live with," he said. "We're running into more people who are potentially violent. The alcohol, the drug culture, we're not immune to any of that in the work we do."
McCrea said there is a misconception that conservation officers spend all their time cruising country roads looking to make arrests. Law enforcement is just part of their typical workday, he said. They also help with fish stocking, boating access, habitat development on public lands, walk-in hunting leases with private landowners, wildlife depredation complaints, game and fish surveys and public education work, among many other duties.
Easing tensions
And when time allows, they should spend time chatting with farmers and ranchers, and trying to improve the tattered GF&P-landowner relationships that have become prominent in recent news stories.
Both Don and Dave McCrea have worked as conservation officers. Both say they cherish their relationships with farmers and ranchers. And they lament the fact that busy schedules often means conservation officers don't have much time to build and maintain those relationships.
"The guys really want to do that. But nobody has taken away their other responsibilities so they can," Don McCrea said. "There's only 56 game wardens, spread out across 77,000 square miles of South Dakota. With all they have to do, one of the things that's going to get hurt is their time to spend with landowners. That's an obvious casualty."
Keyser said conservation officers try to build those relationships as time allows. But they also have heavy demands elsewhere, including law enforcement responsibilities that have expanded and grown more dangerous.
People who are approached by a fully armed conservation officer shouldn't feel intimidated, or presume the officer believes they are guilty of something, Keyser said.
"Those of us who hunt and fish in South Dakota think of ourselves as good people. And most of us are," he said. "But a cross section of society hunts and fishes. And some of those are what most people would call a bad person. Our guys have to be ready to deal with that person."
"GF&P: Armed by necessity
Near dark, on a lonely stretch of road in Lyman County, Dave McCrea faced a situation to raise the hair on the back of any law enforcement officer's neck.
It was the second day of the state pheasant season, and McCrea, a law enforcement coordinator for the South Dakota Game, Fish & Parks Department in Pierre, had just stopped a man for hunting pheasants after legal shooting hours.
That part was simple enough. Then things got complicated.
It turned out the road hunter was half drunk. He had an open can of beer, a collection of empties in his pickup box, as well as drug paraphernalia and almost 2 ounces of marijuana stashed in the cab.
He also had an outstanding warrant on a drug-related charge in Pennington County.
And, along with his shotgun, he had a fully loaded .45-caliber handgun lying next to the driver's seat.
"We contacted him for hunting 12 to 13 minutes late, and then it just snowballed," McCrea said. "That easily could have turned into a very serious situation."
At times like that, McCrea is glad he stands 6-foot-6 and weighs 250 pounds. He is glad he has more than 20 years of field experience and all the training of other certified law enforcement officers.
He is also glad that he has a .40-caliber semi-automatic handgun on his hip, in the horrid event that he meets a situation he can't control any other way.
"You never know what's around the next bend," McCrea said. "I've made methamphetamine arrests, marijuana arrests. I've had hits on people with outstanding warrants who were very bad people. I can tell you situations that only by the grace of God didn't turn really, really bad."
Rangers pack heat
Potentially deadly situations are part of professional life for law enforcement officers. That's why they carry guns and are trained to use them.
The public understands that reality with state troopers, county sheriffs and city police officers, and has for a long time. State conservation officers, however, have operated under a different public perception for many years. They were seen less as law officers and more as park rangers, friendly men in brown outfits who checked fishing licenses and offered tips on pheasant hunting spots.
And it still troubles many people - hunters, anglers, farmers and ranchers - that the people they have known as game wardens now appear to be as formidable and even threatening as any member of a SWAT team.
Intimidation factor
Larry Wilson, a retired rancher and airline employee from Sturgis, said he doesn't understand why conservation officers have to pack so much dangerous hardware.
"It's something about when they've got a sidearm, it's kind of intimidating. And it puts you on the defensive," Wilson said. "It's almost like you're guilty until proven innocent."
Wilson and other GF&P critics argue that the handguns, body armor, night sticks and pepper spray carried by today's conservation officers are examples of a less friendly, more aggressive attitude that permeates the agency. Wilson said that could be a factor in the disintegration of relationships between GF&P personnel and some landowners.
The handguns in particular might escalate emotions, leading to more distrust and resentment, he said.
"You've got to go out there and work with the farmers and ranchers and hunters and whatnot, and show an attitude of concern, instead of this attitude," he said. "What mind frame is a person going to be in when you've got somebody confront you who's wearing a sidearm?"
Necessary protection
McCrea and other GF&P officers argue that the guns aren't meant to intimidate but rather to protect officers who could easily be in danger. Conservation officers usually work alone, far from towns or backup by other law-enforcement officers. And many - most during the hunting season - of the people they encounter are armed.
Some of those people are drunk or using drugs. Some are drug merchants who carry guns for purposes other than sport hunting. A few are people with violent histories and past scrapes with the law.
Emmett Keyser, assistant GF&P Wildlife Division director in Pierre, said that people who expect conservation officers to work in that kind of world without proper protection and training are not being realistic.
"I wish things were like Mayberry RFD. I wish I could send my guys out there and it would just be like Andy Taylor," Keyser said. "But I couldn't, in good conscience, do that. Wildlife law enforcement is a different kind of law enforcement, but the jeopardy is just as great."
Times change
For many years, however, most state conservation officers - then called game wardens - operated without guns strapped to their hips. Not until GF&P issued Smith & Wesson .357-caliber revolvers in 1980 did the agency provide all its officers with standard-issue sidearms.
Before that, the department had a few military-type revolvers available, or some officers bought their own handguns. And even those who had a handgun usually kept it in their glove box instead of wearing it on their belt.
"There was a feeling prior to that that they'd much prefer officers not wear them because of the image," Keyser said. "But 25 or 35 years ago, it was far less likely that there would be an incident requiring an officer to be armed."
Dave Linde agrees with that. He began working for GF&P as a biologist in 1969 and became an assistant regional supervisor in 1965. In that position, he was involved in law enforcement work, as he was to a lesser extent later when he became regional supervisor in Rapid City.
Linde, who retired in 1995, remembers how difficult it was for him to strap on a weapon and wear it in public, even though it was policy and probably made sense.
"I was from the old school, and it didn't feel right. Nobody wore them. In those days, even the old sheriffs - a lot of them - didn't show them," Linde said. "Back then, the big weapon you had was your mouth - that and an old radio that took a few minutes to work."
Linde did have a handgun that he kept in the glove box of his vehicle.
"I can't remember what the heck I had. It was surplus. Maybe a deputy got it for me. I sort of knew how to shoot it," he said. "Things have changed. The world changed around us, I guess. Now, you've got drugs out there. You stumble into something like that, and you could be in trouble."
Modern accessories
Today's conservation officers are trained and prepared for much more than a hunter illegally blasting a hen pheasant or shooting a deer in the neighbor's pasture.
The 56 state conservation officers and their supervisors at the regional and state levels are issued .40-caliber Glock semi-automatic handguns that hold 16 rounds. They carry two 15-round magazines on their black duty belts, along with pepper spray, a collapsible nightstick and handcuffs. They also have a short-barreled pump shotgun in their trucks.
And they wear protective body armor.
In addition, officers are well-educated and trained. All have college degrees, usually in wildlife and fisheries. They go through the 12-week law enforcement academy operated in Pierre by the state Division of Criminal Investigation. They also have a 12-week field-training course through GF&P.
The GF&P training includes techniques on how to deal with the public while writing tickets or checking licenses. McCrea said good public relations skills are vital to a conservation officer. It is something he practices himself and emphasizes to officers across the state.
Killers and gentle giants
McCrea said the vast majority of people he meets on the job are good citizens who don't pose a threat to his safety. But a few are not. That's why top-notch training and equipment are crucial, he said.
"You never know what's around the next turn," McCrea said. "We deal with people who are armed more than any other law enforcement. Fortunately, the vast majority of people would never want to harm one of our officers. But you never know who you're dealing with."
McCrea met one of the worst of those people while working as a conservation officer in Sioux Falls. On two occasions, he checked the same fisherman on a lonesome stretch of the Big Sioux River north of Sioux Falls. The guy's name was Robert Leroy Anderson, and he later would be convicted of murdering two Sioux Falls-area women.
The search for their bodies focused on the same stretch of the Big Sioux where McCrea had checked Anderson, apparently one of the killer's favorite spots.
"He was legal, his license was OK and everything, and he was wearing this big smile, like your best buddy," McCrea said. "But I left there thinking 'there's something seriously wrong with that guy.' It was just a bad feeling."
McCrea and other officers who had checked Anderson over the years presented information on his hangouts during the murder investigations.
Robert Leroy Andersons are rare in South Dakota, of course. But even a simple road stop for a hunting violation carries risk, especially if alcohol or drugs are involved.
In the Lyman County case, the man was big enough that McCrea needed two sets of handcuffs when he placed him under arrest. McCrea said he handled the situation firmly but respectfully, and the man didn't resist.
"He said later, 'First of all, I wouldn't try anything because you're too big, and because you've been too nice to me,'" McCrea said.
The man was charged with hunting after hours, open container, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of marijuana.
He also registered .07 in a breath test administered later by a deputy sheriff. That was just short of the legal limit of .08.
McCrea had to make the open container charge as a citizen, because conservation officers only have open-container enforcement authority on GF&P land. The officers do have full enforcement authority on DUI arrests and drug-related crimes, as well as more serious acts such as murder, robbery, burglary and kidnapping.
The officers often act as backup to other law enforcement in such cases.
Wearing multiple hats
Dave McCrea's twin brother, Don, supervises 14 conservation officers in central South Dakota and handles field law-enforcement duties as well. He said the daily chores of conservation officers are increasingly complicated and dangerous.
"In the last three summers in the Pierre area, while doing game warden stuff, I've made 26 drug arrests, several DUI arrests, in addition to backing up police officers and deputy sheriffs for a variety of offenses," Don McCrea said.
Except for a 1980 vehicle accident that killed conservation officer Ron Brandt on a slippery highway east of Sioux Falls, GF&P has never lost a conservation officer while on duty. Don McCrea said he and other officers work hard to keep it that way. Still they have been assaulted and shot at, he said.
"Society has changed. That's what we have to live with," he said. "We're running into more people who are potentially violent. The alcohol, the drug culture, we're not immune to any of that in the work we do."
McCrea said there is a misconception that conservation officers spend all their time cruising country roads looking to make arrests. Law enforcement is just part of their typical workday, he said. They also help with fish stocking, boating access, habitat development on public lands, walk-in hunting leases with private landowners, wildlife depredation complaints, game and fish surveys and public education work, among many other duties.
Easing tensions
And when time allows, they should spend time chatting with farmers and ranchers, and trying to improve the tattered GF&P-landowner relationships that have become prominent in recent news stories.
Both Don and Dave McCrea have worked as conservation officers. Both say they cherish their relationships with farmers and ranchers. And they lament the fact that busy schedules often means conservation officers don't have much time to build and maintain those relationships.
"The guys really want to do that. But nobody has taken away their other responsibilities so they can," Don McCrea said. "There's only 56 game wardens, spread out across 77,000 square miles of South Dakota. With all they have to do, one of the things that's going to get hurt is their time to spend with landowners. That's an obvious casualty."
Keyser said conservation officers try to build those relationships as time allows. But they also have heavy demands elsewhere, including law enforcement responsibilities that have expanded and grown more dangerous.
People who are approached by a fully armed conservation officer shouldn't feel intimidated, or presume the officer believes they are guilty of something, Keyser said.
"Those of us who hunt and fish in South Dakota think of ourselves as good people. And most of us are," he said. "But a cross section of society hunts and fishes. And some of those are what most people would call a bad person. Our guys have to be ready to deal with that person."