Today - A guest writer!

It's not a "Father-of-five" entry, but... This is too good to not post.

Over the last couple of days, Ed has called me and told me a tale of how he and a neighbor of his caught a poacher hunting in their back yards...

Here is that story. The only "edits" were to change any identifying names or "employers" of Ed's neighbor.

Take it away Ed....

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On 11-19-06 at 5:40 pm, I was sitting at my computer when I heard a gun shot from my back yard. I am an avid hunter and recognized the sound. As I looked out my patio door to see what happened, I noticed a stopped vehicle on Hwy. ** begin to head southbound. Knowing something was not right, I called Good Neighbor **** (who works for the ****** PD) to let him know what happened. **** was not home and I had to leave a message on his answering machine. I then walked out to my garage and grabbed a spot light. As I shone it in the back yard, I saw a doe laying down at the back of my property looking at me. I walked a couple of paces towards her to see if she would stand up. She did not. I backed off and went back into the house to have dinner. I would check on her in about a half hour to see if she was still there. After dinner, I looked for her and noticed she had moved. I walked further into my back yard and found her laying down again about 25' from where she was before. This time I could see a small patch of blood on her belly. As she was still alive, this did not sit well with me. I then called 911 and let them know what happened and had them send an officer out to dispatch the deer. Five minutes later, I noticed lights were on at Good Neighbor ****'s house. I called him to let him know what was going on. He asked me to meet him in the back yard in a few minutes as he was calling the ****** PD to let them know that he would dispatch the deer. As **** and I approached her, she got spooked and ran into the woods. She only ran about 150' then lay back down. We gave her a couple minutes to settle down before we started to look for her. This time we did not try to get as close as we did before. **** had a good, safe head shot and took it (**** keeps his squad car at home with his Remington 870 shot gun).

We noticed a gunshot wound which entered low and just behind the stomach and came out her shoulder, totally destroying it. **** was very upset that someone was 1) hunting inside city limits, 2) hunting after legal shooting hours, and 3) shooting a weapon within 75 yards my house. **** had another officer come out to the house and give me a Deer Possession Permit. **** and I hung the deer up in my garage and we called it a night.

The next morning at 7:00 am, I noticed a guy walking in my back yard following the blood trail from last night! I could not believe what I was seeing. I called Good Neighbor **** and woke him out of a dead sleep. I told him there was a guy walking the blood trail in our back yards. After **** shook the cobwebs out of his head, he had me meet him in the back yard. The guy was still about 40 yards away when **** asked him what he was doing. The guy replied that he had shot a deer last night and was trying to find it. **** asked him to come closer and asked the question again. The guy said "I shot a deer on the other side of the highway last night and I'm trying to find it." **** told him he cannot hunt within city limits and asked him for his I.D. The guy asked **** why he was asking so many questions and that he did not have to answer to him. That's when **** politely informed him that he would have to answer to him and that he was a cop. Not believing what **** told him, the guy insisted upon seeing ****'s I.D. **** told him "I don't have my I.D. on me but we can walk to the other side of my garage and I'll show you my squad car." At that point, one word came to mind...NICE! Then another word came to mind...IDIOT! **** asked him where he was parked. His vehicle was about a 2 blocks away parked on Hwy. **. As we all walked towards the guy's truck, he told **** that he followed the blood trail to a gut pile just under ****'s deer stand. **** looked at him and told him that's not a deer stand, that's a fort my kid built about 10 years ago. Another word came to mind...DUMB ASS! About half way to the guy's vehicle, **** had me call 911 and have them dispatch a squad to their location.

As we were waiting for the squad, the guy still did not believe **** was an officer and continued to challenge him, claiming that **** had not shown him any I.D. **** tells the guy "my neighbor called me at 7 am and woke me up. I didn't have time to grab my I.D. You'll just have to trust me on this and we can sort it all out when the squad arrives." When the squad arrives, **** walks over to the officer and they begin to talk about what happened behind the squad car. As they were talking, the guy walked up to me and asks if I was the landowner. I told him that both **** and I were the landowners out here. The guy then asks me "so he really lives in that house?" I said, "Yes, he really lives in that house." The guy didn't say another word but his non-verbal communication was...PRICELESS!

As **** and the other officer confronted the guy, **** asked the officer to confirm that he was a cop because the guy didn't believe him. The officer looked at the guy and said, "yep, he works for us." The guy told the officer that he never knew what ****'s name was. The officer replied "don't worry, his name will be in my report". "And my report" **** said.

I thought to myself...What drives a man to poach a deer in a cop's back yard???

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I would like to personally thank both Ed and his neighbor for standing up and doing the right thing! Kudos to both of them!

David.