capt.bill11 wrote:

On Feb 21, 7:54 am, "Keith" wrote:

New information from a local the
____________________________
As I longtime active boater in Venice I would like to clarify some
issues
regarding water cops. We have at least 3 different water enforcement
organizations, Venice Police, Sarasota County Sheriff, and Florida
Fish and
Wildlife Conservation Commission. The unfortunate enforcement
experiences
some of you have experienced are from Tom Erickson of FFWCC and not
from the
VPD. I have personally discussed with the marine officer of VPD as we
are
working together on a harbor management plan for Venice. The city of
Venice
is looking for ways to improve our relationship with cruisers and make
Venice more of a destination. Unfortunately we do not have any
control over
county or state law enforcement officials.
_______________________________
Let the letter writing begin!


OK, that makes sense. That is who I have always had a problem with. He
was moved out of the Sarasota area because of his crap.

I was running a boat documented in the Cayman Islands and he tried to
tell me it needed to be registered in Florida. He even claimed he was
filing a report with the Dept. of Rev.. Nothing, of course, came of
it.

I can only wonder at the amount of money he wastes in his pay and
other peoples time by pulling this BS.

The best way to take care of rogue cops is to make
sure you have witnesses and file charges on them
that you can make stick. At that point their LEO
career is close to over.

If you cannot do that, you may be able to sue them
personally in State or Federal court for
constitutional violations. Even if you do not
win, their organzation will not like the bad
press, and the time off for depositions and court
apperances. Their wife will not like them having
to hire an attorney to defend themselves, and they
will not like all the added stress and cost of a
lawsuit.

If you cannot do that, you may be able to get
their supervisors attention with a nicely worded
letter from your attorney. Make sure you CC at
least two levels of supervision, and the head of
the organization they work for, and politely
request that they let you know what they are going
to do to handle the situation.

In this case, it seems that a polite letter to the
head of FFWCC, and cc'd to the Governor's office
would be in order.

Don W.