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Off-roaders act like thugs with impunity
By Philip M. Klasky / Community ORV Watch
This last President's Birthday holiday weekend, ORV riders engaged in wholesale trespass and destruction of public and private lands throughout the Morongo Basin as residents were left helpless and abandoned by law enforcement. The results, according to our review of the aftermath (check out the photos at our Web site www.orvwatch.com) is both shocking and disheartening.
We warned both the San Bernardino Sheriff's Department and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) ahead of time that the same outlaws, just like years before, would be gathering at specific sites in the Landers, Flamingo Heights, Morongo Valley, Yucca Valley, Joshua Tree and Wonder Valley areas.
From these staging areas, where there is generally a lot of drinking (and who knows what else), noise and dust and riding at all hours of the day and night, these riders rage in convoys and trespass on both private and public land with impunity.
This year the destruction exceeded all others with extensive damage to private property and criminal trespass of clearly signed wilderness areas. You can see purposeful trespass, “donuts” cut into the ground, right next to “no trespassing” and wilderness boundary signs as riders flagrantly defy the law. These scars will last for decades or longer and are the result of a weekend of reckless ORV play.
Those of us who have either confronted these riders, or have called law enforcement on them have been threatened and personally attacked. The Sheriff's Department has told us they don't have the manpower to respond and the BLM ignored our calls, letters and e-mails for help.
To make matters worse, the state ORV division just denied the San Bernardino Sheriff's Department Yucca Valley branch badly needed law enforcement dollars over a political fight between government bureaucracies.
We have identified many of the violators since they own property in the Hi-Desert for the sole purpose of staging on holiday weekends from where they wreak havoc wherever they want. When one of our members complained to the authorities about ORV trespass and harassment, a group of ten thugs on their quads, sand rails and motorcycles drove over to his house and screamed threats at him.
They come back year after year and do whatever they want and after they do their dirty work, they go back home.
Community ORV Watch members have put in thousands of volunteer hours working with law enforcement and elected officials to find constructive solutions to the ORV crisis. We need new elected leadership to turn this situation around and people must exercise their right to vote and speak out.
It is up to residents to start making some big changes and join forces to protect our quality of life.
Perhaps it is time that we engage in direct action to prevent further destruction of our lands.
The BLM has given up on their responsibility to protect public lands in the Hi-Desert. Invaluable historic, cultural and natural resources are being destroyed by illegal ORV activity. The Sheriff's Department needs funds to be able to hunt down and catch the violators. Local realtors advertise to riders that they can purchase cheap desert land and “bring their toys.” Check out the notices, letters and messages on their Web sites and you will see that ORV riders consider our desert community a free-for-all for illegal activity. On this last president's birthday holiday weekend, they were right.
We warned both the San Bernardino Sheriff's Department and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) ahead of time that the same outlaws, just like years before, would be gathering at specific sites in the Landers, Flamingo Heights, Morongo Valley, Yucca Valley, Joshua Tree and Wonder Valley areas.
From these staging areas, where there is generally a lot of drinking (and who knows what else), noise and dust and riding at all hours of the day and night, these riders rage in convoys and trespass on both private and public land with impunity.
This year the destruction exceeded all others with extensive damage to private property and criminal trespass of clearly signed wilderness areas. You can see purposeful trespass, “donuts” cut into the ground, right next to “no trespassing” and wilderness boundary signs as riders flagrantly defy the law. These scars will last for decades or longer and are the result of a weekend of reckless ORV play.
Those of us who have either confronted these riders, or have called law enforcement on them have been threatened and personally attacked. The Sheriff's Department has told us they don't have the manpower to respond and the BLM ignored our calls, letters and e-mails for help.
To make matters worse, the state ORV division just denied the San Bernardino Sheriff's Department Yucca Valley branch badly needed law enforcement dollars over a political fight between government bureaucracies.
We have identified many of the violators since they own property in the Hi-Desert for the sole purpose of staging on holiday weekends from where they wreak havoc wherever they want. When one of our members complained to the authorities about ORV trespass and harassment, a group of ten thugs on their quads, sand rails and motorcycles drove over to his house and screamed threats at him.
They come back year after year and do whatever they want and after they do their dirty work, they go back home.
Community ORV Watch members have put in thousands of volunteer hours working with law enforcement and elected officials to find constructive solutions to the ORV crisis. We need new elected leadership to turn this situation around and people must exercise their right to vote and speak out.
It is up to residents to start making some big changes and join forces to protect our quality of life.
Perhaps it is time that we engage in direct action to prevent further destruction of our lands.
The BLM has given up on their responsibility to protect public lands in the Hi-Desert. Invaluable historic, cultural and natural resources are being destroyed by illegal ORV activity. The Sheriff's Department needs funds to be able to hunt down and catch the violators. Local realtors advertise to riders that they can purchase cheap desert land and “bring their toys.” Check out the notices, letters and messages on their Web sites and you will see that ORV riders consider our desert community a free-for-all for illegal activity. On this last president's birthday holiday weekend, they were right.
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mydoit2002 wrote on Jan 7, 2009 11:46 PM: