Kicked out of my local park

[Treasure_Hunter]

I have hunted parks many times using the "screwdriver" method, I cut slits and used tiny diggers, had park personal watch me many times and never once told me to stop and was able to dig 5-6" with no problems. I never cut any plugs.

 

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[flgliderpilot]

I have hunted parks many times using the "screwdriver" method, I cut slits and used tiny diggers, had park personal watch me many times and never once told me to stop and was able to dig 5-6" with no problems. I never cut any plugs.

I have been chased out of a park for "digging" with a screwdriver (I was actually just popping coins) at dawn. I was told I was creating soft spots in the ground and someone could twist their ankle. The guy started ranting on and on about it and then insisted he was going to find the maintenance person in charge of maintaining the park and make sure he doesn't let anyone else metal detect the park. Real $$$ hat that guy was.

Now I hunt there late in the evening because he seems to only be there in the mornings doing his exercise routines.

I also use my Lesche instead of a screwdriver, and instead of trying to pop coins, I just open up a slot, grab the coin and press it back down. If no dirt comes out of the ground, it's not a hole in my book. You have to remove dirt to make a hole. I am simply "reaching under the grass".

I do make it a point to hunt only areas which are empty or nearly empty to reduce exposure.

 

[Lucky Eddie]

I think the problem, with detecting publicly owned lands - stems from the fact that 'finding valuable jewellery' is a distinct (if remote) possibility!.

This article probably gives a clue.

Theft by finding? It's in the bag | SBS News

Theft by finding? It's in the bag

What it alludes too - is that by law - its not 'finders keepers' in relation to private property.

Here at least there is a law called "stealing by finding"!

When you FIND valuable property (like personal jewellery items) - your obligated by law to hand them in to local police as lost property. You are given a receipt for the found property you hand in! At the end of a specified period (3 months from memory), you are contacted and eligible to THEN claim the lost property as your own.

All the lost property that's handed in and not claimed after the 3 months period, goes to the police auction.

So when people see detectorists searching parks and beaches etc - SOME folks assume that its being done for "personal gain" (treasure hunting) NOT legally as a recovery of lost property search.

That's why people do stuff like ring Police etc when they see someone detecting a public park. The believe (correctly) that anything on a public park is unlikely to be your own private property your searching for - your searching for something lost by some other citizen and still legally owned by them!.

Property laws USED to be a big thing - you were hung for stealing a horse. Car theft is still serious felony crime!

"Hey look what I found metal detecting the local car park - a '57 Chevy!" - is hardly going to wash as an excuse, when the local Policeman stops you driving a stolen car!

What difference if it's someones prized wedding or engagement ring?

Finding someone else lost property does not make it your personal property. This is why Pawn shops ask "how did you come bye it?" when buying items - they have an obligation to determine it if was legally owned first to be able to buy it under the protections of the pawn brokers act. (The Item goes in the buy room for 3 months and the local police have the right to search the buy room looking for items reported stolen). If the Pawn broker buys something that is reported stolen, and found in the "buy room" they lose it and the money they paid out to buy it!.

I know everyone here likes to post up picks of their latest treasure find... but private property like jewellery - isn't classified as "treasure" for the taking.

Real treasure (shipwreck stiff for e.g.) is legally defined as belonging to the State & its a BIG offense (with biog fine and incarceration) to take or keep it.

I think this is where detecting on public land for someones lost property differs from say finding a gold nugget (mining) a totally different legal construct.

I also think this might be WHY Police will sometimes take the trouble to talk to people, detecting public parks and beaches etc, - coz they know that by finding valaubles and keeping them you are breaking property laws - something they take an oath to upkeep.

They probably don't, fine you - they prefer to take the education approach.

Lets say you find a raw gem stone, and you also find gold nuggets.

You take them to the jeweler and have him fashion a ring out of it by getting the gem faceted & ring cast & then mount the cut polished gem - you did FIND the components of a ring, and by having one made - it becomes your legal property, for which you have a receipt (for the manufacture).

That's different to finding someone else's lost ring and keeping it!

As I understand it the ONLY way you can legally keep such a ring is to hand it in to Police and claim it back after the specified waiting period - at which point you get a receipt for it from the local police and it LEGALLY becomes yours!.

I find myself often pondering this very question, when I see finds of the day posted - where valuable jewellery etc is found and pics posted....

Indeed should the forum even allow such posts unless there's a receipt of ownership from police lost property section?

All good questions.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Lucky Eddie, excellent post. And I loved that link. Yes, has many connotations to our hobby, eh ? Sure that was a "significant sum of money", in that particular link/story. However, truth-be-told, the cut-off line for valuation, is between $100 to $250-ish, depending on which of the 50 states you are in. Born out of "wandering cattle" laws of the 1800's, but yes, every-bit-as-much applies to the things we find . If you want to be downright technical.

And I would add that after the 30 or 90 days, when you get to go back and get un-claimed goods, there can be more head-aches: In CA, for instance (and I think this is true in other states too), if you go to claim the item, you still have to pay the cost that the police incurred, to post a "found" ad in the local paper. And/or "storage fees".

Also I'd be suspicious that they could simply tell you "the item was claimed". And if you attempted to ask "by who?", they would be under no obligation to tell you. Ie.: privacy law issues. So what's to stop the desk clerk from simply picking up the phone on the 29th day, calling his cousin Bob and saying "Hey Bob, want a nice Rolex? Come down to the station and describe such & such watch". Yes I know that sounds dastardly and evil, right ? But think about it: What have YOU lost ? NOTHING. It was never yours to begin with. You only found it. And you turned it in knowing full well it might be claimed.

 

[cudamark]

And I would add that after the 30 or 90 days, when you get to go back and get un-claimed goods, there can be more head-aches: In CA, for instance (and I think this is true in other states too), if you go to claim the item, you still have to pay the cost that the police incurred, to post a "found" ad in the local paper. And/or "storage fees".

Do the police actually post found ads? I've never seen one. Just the ads for THEIR auctions of OTHER peoples goods! So, they can legally convert lost items into money to benefit them, but, we can't? Seems a bit hypocritical to me. Kind of like gambling.......the state can run a lottery, but, you hold a card game or football pool, you're breaking the law. Please.....

 

[RustyGold]

Could one run their own add for the lost item and take full responsibility in its possible return instead of handing it over to the police? Or is that not practical or legal?
Great thread! Intelligent posts.

 

[Lucky Eddie]

It all depends what your local laws state. here your obligated to hand it in!.

I recall about a decade back, my then kids - were down at the local supermarket / shopping mall thing & when walking home along the foot path - they 'found' a ladies hand bag dumped near a fence... sort of in long dry dead grass so not that visible from the road - but to kids eyes, they spotted it and brought it home to us the parents.

We opened it and it had a LARGE sum of Cash in it (~$1800) from memory and credit cards etc!.

Police stations is just down the corner from us about 500 yards... so we walked down the kids and i and they handed it over as found property. The Sgt there said they did good etc! He used the Police computer and the drivers licenses in the ladies purse inside the hand nag top contact the woman owner, who was SO RELIEVED to get it back!.

She is the owner of a shop in the mall and at approaching closing time a youth stole her handbag off the service desk with all the days takings in it and fled out the door with it!.

Someone from the shop gave chase for a long distance but couldn't catch the youth. We guessed that during the chase he must have ditched it into the weeds behind the power/light pole alongside the foot path intending to come back for it later - in case his pursuer or police caught up to him while doing the runner.

Fortunately for her - our kids found it and brought it home & we handed it in - before he got to go back for it!.

$1800 and she never contacted us to say thanks or 'reward the kids in any way' - to strengthen their belief in following the letter of the law, so that it would be "a more valuable lesson" for them... but the fact they did the right thing and the Sgt made a fuss of them and praised them for their honesty etc was enough.

But it shows you what people are like these days.

Yes there probably should be a "value" for "private property" - maybe in some jurisdictions there is!

I can top the kids effort tho - I once handed back over $40k that a bank teller "gave me in error" earlier in the morning!.

I did cash payrolls back in the day for a railways company i worked for. I had a old Gladston leather doctors bag with a 32 browning semi auto in it - which was my protection - to satisfy insurance that it was "an armed payroll".

One week I did all the salaried officers pays (around $6K) and the opposite week I did all the railway workers wages employees (~ $40K odd)

Well this one week - the teller gal had been out all Thursday night at a party, drunk to the gills and smoking dope (and pregnant) (I later heard), and when i went in and handed over the Salaries check for ~ $6K odd she opened the tellers window & slid out a tray full of cash like the wages pay week, i.e. more than $40K. In fact there was so much I was having trouble stuffing it all inside the bag & had to take my gun out of the bag inside the bank and put it in my pocket to make room - which raised a few eyebrows flashing a gun in a bank - with everyone waiting in line behind me to be served - some thought maybe it was a armed robbery in progress... (No one has guns in this country remember).

So I go with the armed policeman back to the police station, make up the pays and have around $40k left over! Alerted the Sgt - showed him my payroll documents for $6K and the stack of dough ~ $40K left over!.

We decided to lock the extra up in it's calico bag in the Police station safe, and deliver the made up cash pay envelopes to all the salaried officers - then went back to the Police station, collected the $40K extra - put it back into the Gladston bag with the gun & tool it back to the bank.

They were around close up time Friday arvo, trying to balance their days books & had worked out they were missing a serious chunk of change.

In those days tellers had to make up any shortfall from their drawer out of their wages.

To say there was a mild panic was an understatement... employees running back 'n forth in the back room - and those calculators with the rolls of paper print out - all clacking and whirring as transactions were all tabulated.

The managers face was beet red... he would have lost his job on the spot if he had been required to ring head office and report a loss this large.

When I opened the bag and showed him the contents and asked if he was "missing something" - he was a mighty relived man...

We worked out what the girl teller had done - was give me all the larger denomination notes...so 50, 20, & 10's, there was 10 notes in a fold and ten folds in a bundle so 100 notes in a bundle.

100 x 50's = $5000 in a bundle.

Well I needed, 1 x 5000 bundle... or a bundle of 100 x $50 notes. When she counted the double digit notes out into the tray she counted the $5000 bundles as $500! so she gave me 10 of them ($50K)

She did the same with the $20's (So $20K instead of $2K)

And same with the 10's (10K instead of 1K).

So I was way over, & that's why all the notes wouldn't fit in the bag! I knew from the opposite weeks wages pay of around 40k that that amount would fit into the leather docs bag without taking the gun out!

I guess she gave me roughly $70 or $80K over what i needed for the small salaried payroll of some $6K... I didn't count it...I didn't have time I had my own payrol and employees to look after...Frioday afternoons are poretty hectic on cash payrolls...

So yeah... I gave the bank back the equivalent of 3 or 4 times my annual salary!.

They'd a worked it out eventually, who they gave it too!.

Bank manage never said thanks even - just took it like it was his all along (which it was) - but he also never rang my boss and said what a greta bloke I was for saving hsi job and bringing all their lost $$$ back to the bank...either!.

Meh...its only money!

 

[Tom_in_CA]

....Do the police actually post found ads? I've never seen one. ....

.

Yes, they do. I've actually seen them. They're in the "public notices" sections of the classified in newspapers, that no one ever reads. You know, buried in with legal notices sections in the back. And they will say something "found property @ such & such date range, in the city of such & such. Come in to describe". And will say nothing of the type object .

In CA, the criteria is this: If the object is worth $100 or more, you must turn it in to the police. If the object is worth $250 or more, the same rule applies. However, with $250 or more, the police run the "found" ad. Hence for objects they deem $249 or less value, you would be able to pick it up at the end of the wait period, with no fees.

It's all right here. Read and weep:

CA Codes (civ:2080-2080.10)

Thus seeing as how you are from San Diego, CA, we know you will be rushing to the police station with each ring you find, right ?

 

[kayakpat]

Wow the lack of knowledge of civic responsibility and how things work are astounding. If I were you , I would go to the person who is responsible for maintaining ,caring, and operating the park and explain what you would like to do and shown how carefully you replace the sod causing minimal to none damage and show respect of the authority of his position. It will be your best option seeing YOU DO NOT personally own the property. You might find that things will go better for you.

 

[cudamark]

And what will you do when they take the easy way out and still say NO, even though there are no specific laws against it? Will you now rat out your fellow detectorists who haven't asked (because they didn't think they needed to) and who have detected that area for years without a problem? Will you just sit, watch, and cheer them on, smug with the knowledge that you're the only one complying with the arbitrary and verbal "NO"?

 

[Tom_in_CA]

I was going to say the same thing Mark Odds are, it was a fluke. Not every "scram" constitutes a new law we must fight, seek clarification on, etc.... Let's face it: Not every last person on earth is going to love our hobby. So just pick lower traffic times, and avoid that one lookie-lou.