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First a bit of background: Ronco Road in southern Polk County is a gravel road branching off of Pedee Creek Road that dead-ends near a small parcel of BLM ground. It accesses several parcels of private land and a pretty large tract of Hancock industrial forest land. The County didn't have the money to maintain the road, and especially a bridge that was failing and weight limited to where loaded log trucks could not cross. The landowners negotiated with the County to allow them to maintian the road and put in a gate to limit vehicle traffic. This allowed Hancock to replace the bridge at its own expense. At this point the road is still a public road, but vehicles are not allowed.
Sunday I was doing a little work with my road grader on land we own in the area, and headed out to Pedee Creek Road to relocate the machine at our operations base. I came around the corner about 100 yards from the gate to find that a group of people had set up using the gate as a shooting bench and shooting at plastic bottles and discarded Jack-O=Lanterns placed on the road in front of me!
Fortunately, they were not shooting at the time I rounded the corner (I think), and it looked like they had just set out a new batch of targets. All of them were at the "firing line" when I first saw them. They may have heard me coming, as the old grader is very noisy.
Among the many safety rules violated were:
No backstop.
Did not know what was beyond their targets.
Shooting from a public road.
Shooting at a public road.
Shooting accross a public road.
The guns I saw were a home-defense pump shotgun, a M1911 .45, and a .22 rifle.
I chewed them out pretty badly. I think they were shocked to see me come around the corner. They said that they thought no one was up the road since the gate was locked. The woman said she was sorry, and I replied that "You would be a lot sorrier if you had killed someone." I told them that what they were doing was criminal Reckless Endangerment.
After thinking about it, I filed a report with the Sheriff about the incident. They felt it should be investigated for Reckless Endangerment. We'll see what happens.
Sunday I was doing a little work with my road grader on land we own in the area, and headed out to Pedee Creek Road to relocate the machine at our operations base. I came around the corner about 100 yards from the gate to find that a group of people had set up using the gate as a shooting bench and shooting at plastic bottles and discarded Jack-O=Lanterns placed on the road in front of me!
Fortunately, they were not shooting at the time I rounded the corner (I think), and it looked like they had just set out a new batch of targets. All of them were at the "firing line" when I first saw them. They may have heard me coming, as the old grader is very noisy.
Among the many safety rules violated were:
No backstop.
Did not know what was beyond their targets.
Shooting from a public road.
Shooting at a public road.
Shooting accross a public road.
The guns I saw were a home-defense pump shotgun, a M1911 .45, and a .22 rifle.
I chewed them out pretty badly. I think they were shocked to see me come around the corner. They said that they thought no one was up the road since the gate was locked. The woman said she was sorry, and I replied that "You would be a lot sorrier if you had killed someone." I told them that what they were doing was criminal Reckless Endangerment.
After thinking about it, I filed a report with the Sheriff about the incident. They felt it should be investigated for Reckless Endangerment. We'll see what happens.