The shooting of a State Ranger in Grand County, Utah, last Friday night is a tragedy, but having just left Grand County on Wednesday let me add a bit more depth to the story.
Just the Friday night before I was camped in the Kane Creek Springs area near the San Juan County line and was mildly harassed, by a couple of 'rangers' - jurisdiction as yet unknown. It was at almost exactly ten p.m. and the first of two official vehicles made it a point of stopping on a curve at the main road with his lights pointed directly at me, just as I was exiting (somewhat awkardly, half-dressed and half-awake) to pee.
My first thought was that it was a couple of drunken cowboys out messing with the outdoor folks, sometimes perceived as hippies (and sometimes rightly!). But no, as they left they made the point of driving **very** slowly so that I could see their 'official' insignia.
The very next night, at almost the exact same time, I was returning to camp from the town of Moab when I witnessed a single officer, with a different vehicle insignia, sneaking back up the road from his parked vehicle upon an apparently legal campfire in Moonflower Canyon.
All the more curious to me was my recent experience in nearby Durango, Colorado with a camping ticket of my own - for sleeping in my truck in an unmarked site approximately 5 miles up the wash boarded Junction Creek road. For some reason a few of those 'officers of the court' considered a pro se not guilty plea a physical threat!
More details on that one later, but one aside - perhaps if the DOJ applied an equal standard of justice to the 'campers' on Wall Street as they do to their victims utilizing public lands healthily such concerns, and incidents such as that with Brody Young, would be moot.
