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quote:Originally posted by mr_floppy
This is C&P from http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0502030256feb03,1,4678048.story?coll=chi-newslocal-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true
I just curious of opinions of your perspective on this. Here's the article.
The strange-but-true story of the saw-wielding cop, the angry ironworker and the headless deer
By John Keilman, Tribune staff reporter. Freelance reporter Carolyn Rusin contributed to this report
Published February 3, 2005
In the woods, the rule is simple: You kill a deer, you take it with you--hooves, hide and head. But when it happens along a busy suburban road, things can get messy.
A deer struck by an SUV on Golf Road several weeks ago set off a nasty dispute between a cop with an eye for an impressive crown of antlers and an ironworker with a stubborn belief that the code of the forest holds true on the streets.
Their disagreement over the ethics of harvesting roadkill ended with the ironworker, Michael Cox, 30, of Glenview, angrily heaving the deer's headless carcass onto the doorstep of the Des Plaines Police Department.
Though he was promptly charged with littering and ultimately pleaded guilty, Cox remains unrepentant.
"I have no regrets," he said. "If that's what it took to get my point across that this was wrong, that's what had to be done."
The drama began about 7:30 a.m. Dec. 13, when a Honda Passport driven by a Skokie man slammed into a 10-point buck--a mature male with antlers branching into 10 tips--near Camp Pine Woods Forest Preserve in Des Plaines. A police officer who arrived shot and killed the mortally wounded animal.
Under Illinois law, a driver who strikes a deer is entitled to the carcass, but the Skokie man didn't want it. That made it a case of "first come, first served," said Jill Willis, a conservation police officer with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.
Des Plaines police said an officer back at the station heard about the accident and put in the first claim. After getting a supervisor's permission, the officer drove to the scene in his personal car, bringing a saw so he could remove the deer's head and have it mounted.
But before the officer arrived, Cox, a bear-sized ironworker with a bristling beard, got a call from a friend who had spotted the buck on the roadside.
Cox, a hunter since his youth, went through the recent deer season without a kill. He said he needed the venison because an injury put him on disability. So when he heard about the buck, he hopped in his Chevy Suburban and roared to Golf Road.
After he was told a police officer had already claimed the deer, he said, he backed off--until he learned the cop wanted only the animal's head.
"I was taken aback by that, because being a hunter since I was 12, 13, there's a certain code of ethics between sportsmen," he said. "It's not written down anywhere, it's just how it is. The ethical thing would be to take the animal and use the entire thing, not just cut off the head and leave the rest."
Some hunters agree that that is the preferred protocol for a deer taken in the woods, though many lawfully leave the animal's entrails behind. But Jeff Davis, editor of Whitetails Unlimited magazine in Wisconsin, said the ethics regarding roadkill are muddier.
"Internal organs can be struck. [The carcass] can be so broken up that the meat is a little chancy," he said. "I don't think it's unusual when a deer is struck by a car to leave the rest of the carcass."
Roadkill rage
Cox said the officer made a similar argument, though the animal's trunk did not appear damaged. Cox was offered the meat, but said he turned it down because he was angry about the officer's actions. After the officer dragged the deer's body over a berm to remove the head away from public view, Cox drove off, seething.
That night, after attending a Boy Scout meeting as an assistant scoutmaster, Cox returned to see what happened to the body. Police said they normally notify public works staff about carcasses in the road, but the department has no record of a call that day. When Cox arrived, the headless deer was still there.
Cox loaded the remains into his truck, thinking he would use the carcass as evidence of what he saw as the officer's dishonorable conduct. But he said that when he arrived at the Des Plaines Police Department the next morning, he ran into a wall of indifference.
Incensed, he returned to his truck. Though his first thought was to drop the deer's body on the curb as a sign of his disgust, he decided to make a more dramatic gesture.
He said he dragged the headless body to the front door of the police station and dumped it, telling bewildered onlookers: "There's a cop inside who got the head. He's missing this part of it."
Cox was quickly surrounded by police cars when he tried to drive away and spent the next five hours in a holding cell, he said. Though a disorderly conduct charge was later dropped, Cox paid a $169 fine after pleading guilty to unlawful littering.
Des Plaines police would not identify the officer involved, saying it was a personnel matter, and the officer named by Cox declined to comment Wednesday.
Cops and carcasses
Though Deputy Police Chief Bill Schneider said an internal investigation cleared the officer of wrongdoing, the incident persuaded the department to create a new roadkill policy. Officers can no longer claim a dead animal, in whole or in part, while on duty.
"From a professional standpoint, I don't think officers need to be loading carcasses in their car," said Sgt. Nick Treantafeles. "I mean, dragging carcasses to the side of the road is something we do weekly. But to take it a step further and put it in your personal vehicle or squad car, that's a little different."
While city employees carted away the deer's body--laying it to rest in forest preserve woods behind the Public Works Department--the fate of the head is unclear. People who take roadkill to a taxidermist must get a permit from the Department of Natural Resources, but the agency has no record of that happening in this case.
Soon after the clash, Cox gave his side of the story on a local hunting and fishing Web site but got little sympathy. One posting read: "You wanted the meat, they offered the meat and you didn't take the meat? Why are you so ticked?"
Cox is still convinced he did the right thing. Needy though he was, he said, he would never take venison from a mutilated carcass.
"I'd rather starve than see this cop get away with something that's not right," he said.
What do you all think? I can understand both sides, but I'm tending to stick towards Cox. He very well coulda been after the rack to though.
This is C&P from http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0502030256feb03,1,4678048.story?coll=chi-newslocal-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true
I just curious of opinions of your perspective on this. Here's the article.
The strange-but-true story of the saw-wielding cop, the angry ironworker and the headless deer
By John Keilman, Tribune staff reporter. Freelance reporter Carolyn Rusin contributed to this report
Published February 3, 2005
In the woods, the rule is simple: You kill a deer, you take it with you--hooves, hide and head. But when it happens along a busy suburban road, things can get messy.
A deer struck by an SUV on Golf Road several weeks ago set off a nasty dispute between a cop with an eye for an impressive crown of antlers and an ironworker with a stubborn belief that the code of the forest holds true on the streets.
Their disagreement over the ethics of harvesting roadkill ended with the ironworker, Michael Cox, 30, of Glenview, angrily heaving the deer's headless carcass onto the doorstep of the Des Plaines Police Department.
Though he was promptly charged with littering and ultimately pleaded guilty, Cox remains unrepentant.
"I have no regrets," he said. "If that's what it took to get my point across that this was wrong, that's what had to be done."
The drama began about 7:30 a.m. Dec. 13, when a Honda Passport driven by a Skokie man slammed into a 10-point buck--a mature male with antlers branching into 10 tips--near Camp Pine Woods Forest Preserve in Des Plaines. A police officer who arrived shot and killed the mortally wounded animal.
Under Illinois law, a driver who strikes a deer is entitled to the carcass, but the Skokie man didn't want it. That made it a case of "first come, first served," said Jill Willis, a conservation police officer with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.
Des Plaines police said an officer back at the station heard about the accident and put in the first claim. After getting a supervisor's permission, the officer drove to the scene in his personal car, bringing a saw so he could remove the deer's head and have it mounted.
But before the officer arrived, Cox, a bear-sized ironworker with a bristling beard, got a call from a friend who had spotted the buck on the roadside.
Cox, a hunter since his youth, went through the recent deer season without a kill. He said he needed the venison because an injury put him on disability. So when he heard about the buck, he hopped in his Chevy Suburban and roared to Golf Road.
After he was told a police officer had already claimed the deer, he said, he backed off--until he learned the cop wanted only the animal's head.
"I was taken aback by that, because being a hunter since I was 12, 13, there's a certain code of ethics between sportsmen," he said. "It's not written down anywhere, it's just how it is. The ethical thing would be to take the animal and use the entire thing, not just cut off the head and leave the rest."
Some hunters agree that that is the preferred protocol for a deer taken in the woods, though many lawfully leave the animal's entrails behind. But Jeff Davis, editor of Whitetails Unlimited magazine in Wisconsin, said the ethics regarding roadkill are muddier.
"Internal organs can be struck. [The carcass] can be so broken up that the meat is a little chancy," he said. "I don't think it's unusual when a deer is struck by a car to leave the rest of the carcass."
Roadkill rage
Cox said the officer made a similar argument, though the animal's trunk did not appear damaged. Cox was offered the meat, but said he turned it down because he was angry about the officer's actions. After the officer dragged the deer's body over a berm to remove the head away from public view, Cox drove off, seething.
That night, after attending a Boy Scout meeting as an assistant scoutmaster, Cox returned to see what happened to the body. Police said they normally notify public works staff about carcasses in the road, but the department has no record of a call that day. When Cox arrived, the headless deer was still there.
Cox loaded the remains into his truck, thinking he would use the carcass as evidence of what he saw as the officer's dishonorable conduct. But he said that when he arrived at the Des Plaines Police Department the next morning, he ran into a wall of indifference.
Incensed, he returned to his truck. Though his first thought was to drop the deer's body on the curb as a sign of his disgust, he decided to make a more dramatic gesture.
He said he dragged the headless body to the front door of the police station and dumped it, telling bewildered onlookers: "There's a cop inside who got the head. He's missing this part of it."
Cox was quickly surrounded by police cars when he tried to drive away and spent the next five hours in a holding cell, he said. Though a disorderly conduct charge was later dropped, Cox paid a $169 fine after pleading guilty to unlawful littering.
Des Plaines police would not identify the officer involved, saying it was a personnel matter, and the officer named by Cox declined to comment Wednesday.
Cops and carcasses
Though Deputy Police Chief Bill Schneider said an internal investigation cleared the officer of wrongdoing, the incident persuaded the department to create a new roadkill policy. Officers can no longer claim a dead animal, in whole or in part, while on duty.
"From a professional standpoint, I don't think officers need to be loading carcasses in their car," said Sgt. Nick Treantafeles. "I mean, dragging carcasses to the side of the road is something we do weekly. But to take it a step further and put it in your personal vehicle or squad car, that's a little different."
While city employees carted away the deer's body--laying it to rest in forest preserve woods behind the Public Works Department--the fate of the head is unclear. People who take roadkill to a taxidermist must get a permit from the Department of Natural Resources, but the agency has no record of that happening in this case.
Soon after the clash, Cox gave his side of the story on a local hunting and fishing Web site but got little sympathy. One posting read: "You wanted the meat, they offered the meat and you didn't take the meat? Why are you so ticked?"
Cox is still convinced he did the right thing. Needy though he was, he said, he would never take venison from a mutilated carcass.
"I'd rather starve than see this cop get away with something that's not right," he said.
What do you all think? I can understand both sides, but I'm tending to stick towards Cox. He very well coulda been after the rack to though.
Comments
If I did hit a big buck in my vehicle, and it was all tore up & bruised, and it stunk to high-heaven, I'd take the horns and leave the rest for highway workers.
Now if it was a nice doe or young buck, even if bruised, I'd try to salvage what I could.
Ben
Cub's preseason is less than one month away.
Why do they make it taste so good and put it in them little bitty cans- Dad
At times, days in the field are more than sport, more than adventure. They are nothing less than a gift to the soul.- John L. Moore Buckmaster magazine