They have been doing the crusing around with no lights on for years..... It's there Sobe Bomb and Fire Work's Patrol. I would guess if they keep stopping by your probaly easy to find and even though they allready checked and no your compliant it's an easy entry to there report.

True dat homey. Like I said in another post no passed sold and the LEOs are out of a job and the BLM will be pissed.

good luck with that. Two seasons ago a buddy of ours was in our enclosed circle of mo hos. He is a phx PD officer. He was sitting on a quad infront of his trailer with his daughter on the quad in front of him he was showing her how to do a clutch. They were not even riding. The rolled up on him cited him for no helmet, double riding. Showed his badge got him no were. BLM can SUCK IT!!!!

wave a big flashlight around when they've got their night vision goggles on and see what happens...

I accidentally hit them with a camera flash and got threatened about 4-5 seasons ago

Funny you say that..
My buddy was telling me he see's them up on sand hwy at night over looking Gordons scouting out camps.. I thought he was full of dookey...

GOOD luck with that like I said on prior post they didnt even give our Fireman a break!!! and he was only trying to tale a BLM at the restroom ( by BLM I meant bowel movement LOL)

Here is the answer to my email to the BLM about the compliance check.


Thank you for your inquiry regarding compliance checks performed by local law enforcement and BLM Rangers. These general compliance checks are performed at a higher rate during the winter high-use weekends in an effort to maintain the fragile peace of the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area. I apologize for the number of checks performed on your camp as I agree if there were no issues with your camp, eight compliance checks over the course of two days is unreasonable. I will include your concern in our next briefing which is Thanksgiving. One issue is that two shifts operate independently over the weekend and Rangers change assigned patrol areas so in an effort to familiarize themselves with public land visitors in their assigned patrol area. The Imperial County Sheriff's Office also has a number of Deputies on duty in the area, as well. These factors may contribute to the replication of compliance/public contacts.

Thanks for taking the time to express your concerns, I promise to address this issue to the best of my ability.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Kynan Barrios
Chief Ranger
Bureau of Land Management
El Centro Field Office
760.337.4400

At least you got a reply.

Remember we asked and asked for more enforcement for YEARS. Well, they finally are doing something about it and then some it appears. Plus by the amount of people that were in Glamis, looks like the crowd was about HALF the size as in years past. So they probably scheduled X amount of LEO figuring on the "normal" large crowds and got half as many people. Seems to me that 8 times was a bit much for sure, but think about this, there are people arriving at camps all the time. If they are checking for reg, passes etc and you have them all then, let it be.

As for the guy on the golf cart that got pulled over, your friend was not in compliance with the rules. Doug and I got pulled over on Wash Rd a few years ago with our buggy ON THE TRAILER still for no green sticker. Ranger was cool, no ticket just told us to go buy one. And we did. Eff that noise of getting pulled over because we did not get a 20.00 sticker. And your friend had more "than a few beers" if he blew .082. He was driving in an un licensed/registered OHV, while legally above the limit and got busted. Sucks, but that is the truth.

Report the ones that are out of hand, and as long as you play by the rules you should be fine.

Happy duning!

I hear of somebody getting hasseled at 3am for a non-registerd bike in camp... They did this by banging on doors trying to find out who's bike it was....... After they had the entire camp woken up they ticketed the owner of the bike as well as anybody else they could.....

I am sorry but if there banging on my door at 3 am I am dialing 911 and not comming out until there supervisor is standing there..

You may have been asking for that. But a lot of us have been asking for more effective enforcement for years.

Meaning targeting those who are creating unsafe situations instead of apple picking the easy cites that don't endanger the general public.


In the same weekend having seen officers stop someone for DUI and let them dump the beer out and continue without a cite - but moments later other officers stopping someone for no whip on a truck in the camping area when they were towing a friends broken buggy back and saying "Sorry, zero tolerance you're getting a cite." is not what I consider effective enforcement.


Letting the camp racers blow past multiple times...but citing people for riding double within their own camp.


Going camp to camp repeatedly when campers have given no reason to warrant a contact instead of actually looking for those who are out and around ignoring the rules.


Unfortunately with higher quality more effective enforcement the manpower and equipment demands would be less and the ICSO/BLM would loose the justification for some of their largest sources of funds. As long as the enforcement agencies continue to benefit and grow without actually solving the root problems they have no incentive to actually stop out the real trouble makers - and every incentive to keep writing easy cites that don't improve public safety but which do look good when they write their grants.

Leave the laser home for sure..

Just got back from Gordon's (third base, just before the berm track) No LEO issues what so ever, even though some yahoos in our camp were doing gas bombs Sat night. Not even a pass check besides the one on the washboard road. Maybe they have decided to tone it down a little.

Yea the key seems to be the off weekends. No cops in sight. Just the big weekends. I ready to switch my visits.

I' I'll have to remember that one.

For now I'll just say that after this weekend we're done with holidays in the dunes.

Finally got to see first hand an ICSO officer attempt to create and escalate a situation first hand for no reason other than he could.

Still trying to put the experience into words - but even for someone like me who's known to not have problems expressing his feelings in written word I'm finding it very difficult to sit down and put the event to text. There was an off duty Vegas cop in our camp who I didn't realize at the time but was only about 10' away. Afterwards he commented that it was 100% obvious to him that this kind of thing is coming from the top and that in any agency he's had experience working for or with that kind of behavior would have landed someone in the unemployment line instantly.

I admit I've always believed that the stories of out of control officers were embellished and the exception rather than the rule. But after experiencing first hand an officer attempting to escalate a contact into a situation with no provocation - I am now 100% convinced that the system is broken at the top level and the recent change in leadership has made things worse. The dunes are no longer family friendly and it's entirely thanks to the BLM's law enforcement leadership - or lack thereof.

WHAT HAPPENED?????

Like I said, I'm having a hard time putting the experience into words. Reliving it in my mind brings back the emotions and makes it hard to write the kind of objective report that the event deserves. But I'll give it a try.


First - the good news. No tickets were issued and things did not escalate to the level the officer was attempting to bait. Our camp kept it's collective cool and didn't give him the excuse he was digging for. Unfortunately for the same reason we were unable to get a badge number or name to really follow up like we would have liked to.


Those who know me and have camped with me no doubt know that I an my camp mates enjoy a large warm fire in our camp. It's not at all uncommon for us to bring a separate trailer just for wood even for a two night stay - and this weekend was no exception on that side. Though for the first time in 10 years two things happened that I never thought would happen:

1) people coming back to camp at night ended up in the wrong camp because simply heading to the largest fire didn't work.

2) We had to take firewood home with us.

That being said it's not uncommon for us to have off duty police and firemen in our camp, and in over 10 years there has only been one fire related accident in our camp since we do have respect for fire and are safe about having a large fire. And when you have 30-40 people around the same fire it needs to be big to keep a circle that large sufficiently large. Which also means of course that the vehicles will be back even further and the camp is quite large. We never use any kind of gas or other flammables to start our fires, we consider that cheating. Even if it does sometimes mean spending 20 minutes or more on our knees fanning the coals with a sheet of cardboard to get things to stay lit.



Friday evening shortly after dark our campfire was just getting started. As more and more of camp finished dinner and came out to the fire the circle started getting larger and larger and sure enough a woman was heard to say "It's cold, we need more firewood". As gentlemen who appreciate our women we knew our cue to start warming things up. As wood was being piled on the fire an ICSO SUV came directly into camp at a speed I would not call safe for inside camp even if there weren't small children and dogs around like there were in our camp. The driver (in ICSO uniform) and passenger (In an unidentified uniform, but not BLM or ICSO, it was black and he stayed in the shadows where no one was able to see his insignia.) jumped out and called "Stop putting wood on that fire!"


I was sitting in a camp chair about 5' from where he walked up at the time he shouted this order. The 3 people who had been building the fire dropped the wood they were holding and came over to find out what the problem was and were then standing around the area I was sitting since it was near the officer. They asked what the problem was and the officer replied "Your fire is too big, you put another log on it and you're getting a citation."

Everyone around the fire was pretty much shocked into silence by this as our camp is more versed in the rules and regulation of the ICSO than the average camp and none of us were familiar with any regulation limiting the size of a campfire. I was the first to find my tongue and asked (in what I thought and others have verified was a very respectful tone) "What rule or regulation are we breaking?"

At this point the possibility of a polite, respectful and beneficial contact was tossed out the window by the ICSO officer. Instead of taking this opportunity to have a friendly conversation about safety in an obviously kid and family oriented camp he appeared to make the conscious decision to try and bait us into giving him an excuse...any excuse.

It was kind of like watching a dog or cat faced with a threat. He literally puffed up his chest, turned his internal volume knob to 11, fixed his face in a look of disdain and declared "You want to know what regulation? Ask me one more time and I will personally sit here and write each and every one of you citations that you won't forget for the rest of your life. Not one more log goes on that fire do you understand me!"

Now to put things in perspective I want to point out that not a single person in camp was drunk or even slightly intoxicated. In fact there wasn't even an alcoholic beverage within 20' (or more) of the officer and very likely none even in view. I had had 2 beers before and with dinner about 30 minutes before this confrontation. Knowing this I wondered at this point if maybe I hadn't been as respectful as I thought in my inquiry (though the off duty officer in our camp later confirmed for me that I was indeed polite and not doing anything that should have escalated the situation.)

I will also point out that at this point the fire in question was still quite small. There were 3 or 4 longer logs in a tee-pee over the top of it that were 5-6' long. But the majority of the actual fire was no more than 2'-3' high. Sitting in a chair on one side it was still quite possible to see and even talk to people directly across from the fire. I've had considerably larger fires in camps with everyone from off-duty firemen and officers to enough ASA board of director members to qualify as an official quorum. All of whom I'm sure would verify that while we do have large fires we are quite careful about safety around them and do indeed know "when to say when" in this regard.


I attempted to ask politely one more time what we were doing wrong. The reply was a look of disbelief and the still unnecessarily loud and disdainful "It's just common sense. We've got all these camps around here all of which are full of gas cans, all it would take is one spark from your fire to get into another camp to create a major situation." I started to open my mouth once again and - before I could get a word out he re-puffed and let loose with "You need to keep your mouth closed like your reasonable friends here! The rest of you - wait for the fire to burn down and you can put more wood on it but no higher than it is now."

I later learned that I was not the only who had wanted to point out that not only was our camp well separated from nearby camps, but that no sparks were coming close to reaching the outside edges of where people were sitting around the fire, let alone the edges of our camp.

At this point I felt the officer had made it clear that he would consider anything other than "yes sir" or "no sir" out of anyones mouth as the excuse he seemed to so desperately want to start going through camp with a fine toothed comb. Since we were in a large camp with some people I had just met that day I had to fight the urge to press for a badge or unit number as I felt it would be quite rude to subject the rest of camp to this officers further attention. Had I noticed that the off-duty officer in camp was at the fire, or been in a smaller camp with only myself and close friends I likely would have pushed it. I knew I would probably end up with a cite since my dog was on a 20' lead (in a way that kept her entirely in camp, where she was also wearing a blinking light to make her noticeable to those coming and going from camp.) rather than the legal 6' leash - and while I would have been willing to accept the consequences of that I also figured my fellow campers likely had a number of similar "easy cites" that I didn't want to subject them to.

Apparently deciding he had sufficiently chided us the officer and his partner (who remained silent the entire time, and also appeared somewhat shocked at his partners response) got back into their SUV and pulled out of camp. They did not however leave. Instead they circled our camp several times with just their fog lights on until another unit pulled a small SUV over (for unknown reasons) as it was passing our camp and they joined in. Once that contact was finished at least one unit stayed there pointed towards an opening in our camp with just their fog lights on watching us for the better part of an hour.

No compliance checks were done as part of this contact. Not a single dune pass or vehicle registration was checked. No information about the rules and regulations about the dunes was offered to us to help prevent a future contact. Heck it was my attempt to find out what we were doing wrong that enraged the officer in the first place. Something I thought was the reasonable thing to do if I wanted to avoid a citation.

The mood in our camp for the entire weekend was one of looking over your shoulder for the rest of the weekend. I didn't have another drink the rest of that night for fear that the officer would be back and I would be targeted for opening my mouth previously - and I didn't want to risk facing that with alcohol in my system. Most of the camp retreated to their RV's or tents after that and there was none of the usual friendly fireside camaraderie that is such a large part of the dunes for us.

I'll close with some photos from Saturday night showing the kind of out of control behavior that was going on at the time of this contact on Friday - though the fire on Saturday was larger than the one on Friday that resulted in the contact in question. Fearing a repeat I decided to take pictures ahead of time in case we later needed them as documentation, though thankfully that proved unnecessary:


Amy talking to her brother in our RV with Saturdays fire in the background:


Overview of Saturdays unusually small crowd around our fire:


Closer view of those who were willing to risk a repeat by enjoying Saturdays fire:


Detail of the kind of mayhem taking place on the rear seat that serves as a "desert couch" just a few feet from the "raging inferno":


View from the inner edge of camp on Saturday (note, it was far windier Saturday so the sparks were going much further than on Friday - even so none of them got within 10' of this point in the 10 minutes I stood watching them to verify just how far they were being carried.):

I've felt that way for quite a while, the sneaking around at night, night vision spys, then bust into camp with excessive force is almost meant to draw fire from startled folks.

Damn Jason, that's a hell of a bad story. Glad nobody got cited. I would have been pizzed.

First off, I'm very sorry to hear that this happenend to you or someone in your camp.

Secondly, I'm glad to hear that you're finally seeing how honest your fellow duners have been in posting about incidences like this.

Incredible Story!!

I have never met "jhitesma" but I have read this board long enough to know that I would dune with him any time. I would rather see a citation for camp racers or those who seem to leave with "NO" trash rather than a healthy fire. I've said it before...If they stood at the exit and looked for evidence of people packing out what they packed in, they would no doubt generate revenue... without the use of night vision, without the use of an idling SUV, and without seeking to compensate for low self esteem or other personal issues. In fact, citing the slobs would probably reduce their numbers in the dunes anyway.


I've said this before as well "Remember when Law Enforcement Officers were considered HEROS?" What the Hell happended?



I might suggest that you move your story to a new post to keep in the open, this one is kind of buried in an old thread.

LEOs are heros.


The BLM are Park Rangers, not LEO.

I've never doubted that there have been similar incidents in the past. My issue has always been with the misrepresentation of incidents from BOTH sides.

One thing I want to reiterate is that no citations were issued in this case because the side without a badge did manage to keep our collective heads cool even when the side with the badge didn't. Which is a fairly major difference than so many of the stories we end up hearing. Our camp very easily could have ended up with a ticket book full of citations - a fair number of which would be highly questionable - had that not been the case. We've all heard that version of this kind of story many times.

The off duty officer in camp questioned why more people who go through this and do end up with the other type of story don't contest more of their citations. He gave several examples of things that happened in Vegas which enough people contested citations for that the judges told the cops to cool it and changes were made. When I pointed out if he would have the time and resources to come down from Vegas just to fight a $150 cite that was unjust he had to admit that it would be a very difficult decision whether or not to do the right thing.

Which has left me wondering if what I did really WAS the right thing. In some ways I feel like it wasn't and I should have "Taken one for the team" since I am local and fighting it would not be a large burden for me. Since Friday I've spent an inordinate amount of time wondering how to work constructively to fix this kind of problem. But one person fighting a questionable citation is not enough to make a difference and the privacy and rights of the others in my camp are important things to protect. Having gotten cited for something would have given me a small way to try and fight back - but it probably would not have made a big difference in the long view.

We did try to get at least a unit number or license number off the SUV - but no one was able to make them out since he stayed out of the well lit parts of camp. And I truly do believe that asking for a badge number would have escalated the situation - which is the exact opposite of why I would want a badge number in the first place.

In the interest of being open and honest with my side of the story I'll also point out that if the officer could have been blind and still found reason to issue at least one citation in our camp due to one camp members stereo system which he has confirmed can be heard from over 2 miles away if he chooses to turn it up full volume (though thankfully he's never done that in an occupied camp!) With the "no PA's" law he could easily have been cited if this officer was looking for reasons to start writing cites. Which only baffles me more about his explosive reaction when I asked him what we were doing wrong - if he was looking for an excuse to whip out the ticket book I know he had at least one big obvious one. Yet rather than make his contact productive and educational as we've been promised the BLM/ICSO are trying to do he made the decision to try and escalate the situation. I never even got out of my chair out of fear that it would be seen as an aggressive move due to his attitude. I believe the off-duty officer in camp may have nailed it when he later guessed "You asked a legitimate question he didn't have an answer for and it pissed him off." Which is not the type of reaction I've come to expect from people entrusted with authority in the real world. But is something I was all too familiar with years ago back in middle school.




That was my initial plan...and may yet happen. It wasn't that big of an incident and with no citations there was no paper trail so it doesn't even come down to a "my word vs. the LEO's" but rather just "my word and my campmates word". And the replies I've seen from Keenan Barrios to those who've contacted his office in response to this kind of situation make me question whether any benefit would come from following up through official channels like I've been planning on. Most of the responses seem to boil down to "You were contacted so your word isn't worth much to me." or "Sorry if you don't like the way we're doing our job but we aren't going to change." The phone number being long distance and me not having long distance on my phone doesn't help either.

I'm sure that to the BLM a short contact without any cites like this is "no big deal" and something they'd expect us to "just deal with" in exchange for the "security" they're providing.

Yet the effect is that the entire camp, including the off duty officer, was left feeling victimized by the very people entrusted to keep us from becoming victims. Which is a VERY serious issue that deserves more than the boilerplate blow off responses I've seen from the head of enforcement at the ISDRA this season.

Given that there were several employees of local media outlets in our camp when this happened I would not be surprised if the story gets more coverage than even it's own thread at some point.

I didn't really plan on telling the whole story in this thread either. But I've never been very good at giving "the short version" of something. And repeating my self is a huge pet peeve - starting a new thread feels like digging for attention and that's not what I want. Including the story here felt right since it does fit with the other similar stories shared in this thread.

In the interest of sharing "the full story" I also feel I need to add that some members of our camp did have another contact with enforcement late on Saturday night. I was not involved and only have 3rd hand information at this time. Between the spotty information I have and out of the interest of the privacy of those involved I really can't give any details - but there were citations issued. How justified they were I honestly can't say since I don't even know how many citations were issued or what they were for. Though I will say that the response of 7 LEO vehicles to confront 3 people in camp did seem remarkably out of place given that they were all calm and cooperating with the officers. I would not be surprised to learn that at least some (if not all) of the citations issued on Saturday were legitimate and deserved - even though the response seemed to be way over the top and appeared to be the result of too many officers with too few problems to address.

If those who were involved in the Saturday incident choose to share their story with me and give me permission to share it I will do so. But I expect they will choose to keep the details private and that is their right which I fully respect. I don't want to be accused of only telling part of the "full story" by leaving out the story of Saturday night. But at the same time since I was not directly involved I don't have enough details to share the "full story" about Saturday. Nor is it logical for an event that happened on Saturday to have any bearing on an event that happened Friday night - though I doubt the officers would let that stop them from using whatever it is that happened Saturday from trying to downplay the events of Friday.

Friday night's incident was ICSO - Imperial County Sheriff's Office. NOT BLM - though supposedly at the ISDRA they still report to BLM in regards to law enforcement and Keenan Barrios (BLM head ranger) is still supposed to be the "top of the food chain" for all enforcement.


Again I don't know the full details of Saturday night, but I do know I saw at least one BLM badge when I was woken up by the flashing lights and looked out the window of our RV. Though from my side of the RV there was very little I could see or hear.

I think if I had been in your position, I would have politely asked for his badge number. Requesting that info is not a valid reason to issue citations. With enough witnesses to your politeness, he can't possibly claim you guys were out of control. I would have also gotten someone in camp to take pics of the size of the campfire, for reference.

This is still the USA, not Communist China, and there is no reason to feel intimidated for having a campfire or standing up for your rights.

sounds like a good reason to set your cell phone up to take a movie, hold it at your side as long as no lights come on to show u are using it. then use the cell movie as prof of what happened to some one higher up..

i already have my phone set up so it makes no noise when taking a pic, then if needed i can take a pic from the hip and no one knows. who knows could have made some pics of them with the fog lights on and later be able to get the plate # off of the suv.

Reasonableness was not this officers forte. I know that requesting that info is not a valid reason to issue citations. But then again neither is the question I asked which resulted in him threatening citations.

Everyone around the campfire was in shock, it wasn't until afterwards that people realized that photos or video would have helped. But after that most of the people in the camp were ready to record if he came back.



Agreed, and that's why it has me so upset. I know there's no reason to feel intimidated for having a campfire or exercising our rights - but when the guy with a badge and a gun disagrees it's tough to put a bunch of people you just met along with a lot of good friends on the line with yourself doing it.

what about asking for a supervisor?

Like I said, he made it pretty clear that anything other than a "yes sir" or "no sir" level of response was going to be considered not complying with him and result in looking for excuses to cite things. After he shouted down my questions about what we were doing wrong no one else was willing to risk opening their mouth for much of anything. The looks from my camp mates made it very clear that they didn't want me to keep asking questions - and they were more interested in just getting him out of camp at that point than anything else.

I've been in that same exact situation.. I completely understand why you wouldn't ask..
When you are confronted by an unreasonable individual with a licensee to kill, you can either keep talking and end up face down in the dirt or you can bite your tongue.. It only takes 2 words to go from standing, to eating dirt in these situations..

Sounds like the same cop who threatened to shoot me in Gordons a few years ago.

He made several threats (including shooting me for standing where he asked me to stand, arresting me for taking my DL from his hands when he held it out to me, arresting me for any drugs found in camp, arresting me for lying to him, arresting me for having a (legal) pocket knife etc.)

He was ICSO and came into the camp after seeing some fireworks go off. I was the first contact since I was cooking on my tailgate at the time. Most of the other officers were pretty cool, but he was trying to escalate the situation.

I do recall him calling out on his radio (paraphrased) We have a very unruly camp at XXXX location, approximately 40-50 people, I need cover immediately.

Our camp was full of nice people sitting around the fire, about 25 people in all. He used the "F" word so much with me that it made my effing ears hurt.

After they left I would of called the supervisor while they were sitting in the dark and asked him to come by for a conversation about a to big of camp fire and threats made by Officer Un-Friendly.

After reading the posts from halloween I stored the isco complaint # in my phone for this trip, I also had a copy of the rules on me at all times just in case. The whole weekend seemed to be on the mellow side, the only people that came by were the pass patrol and they were as nice as could be. We have been staying away from the sand in recent years, but after seeing how it has calmed down a bit and the leo's don't seem to be as thick as they have been, we are thinking about coming back to the dunes a little more. my .02

Hows about posting that # again

complaint/coment line 1-760-337-4471

Thx for the number... thats more info to use as ammo firing back at them!

I'm not going to be shy about using it if there are problems

I saw them too. A couple teen aged girls in a Rhino selling passes. Never seen them before. I thought that's a great idea. Drive around selling passes instead of pigs coming around handing out tickets.