Behind the Badge
Unpredictable Days
District Game Warden Connor Folkers
This past October, a US Forest Service Ranger contacted me in regard to individuals potentially residing in McKenzie County.
He wanted to interview some individuals about abandoned property, driving off-trail and baiting big game on public property.
I told him I knew them and could help locate them.
I met up with the Ranger at the suspects residence and we found evidence that he had been searching for and could help with his case.
Next, we had to locate the individuals and interview them.
We got ahold of the individuals and met them in Williston to ask a few questions.
We had obtained some answers but there were still a number of unanswered questions. We decided to go back to Watford City and interview a few more of the individuals that were close with them.
We completed our second round of interviews and got a little closer to our answers. As we were finishing up, I got a call from an informant who stated they saw some suspicious activity at the residence that we visited earlier in the day.
We returned to the residence and observed some of the physical evidence had been messed with, but it didn’t hurt the case.
The sun started setting so we decided to sit on the residence to wait for some of the individuals to return home.
As we were waiting, I receive a call from a Sheriff’s Deputy requesting assistance in executing an arrest warrant around 8 pm.
The Ranger and I ended up assisting after deciding we could hold off a few more interviews and met up with the Deputy to discuss the plan.
We found out the suspect was on his way to the gas station outside of town. We headed there quickly to locate the vehicle.
We observed the suspect get into his vehicle and attempted a traffic stop in the parking lot. Of course, he sat there for a second debating whether he should run.
He in fact decided to run and the pursuit was on.
The pursuit lasted about 6 miles or so until he decided to go down a two-track road. Luckily, we received some snow in October so he ended up getting stuck after one of the Deputy’s conducted a pit maneuver on the suspect’s vehicle.
The two male occupants in the vehicle quickly gave up and one was taken to jail on his warrant.
As we finished searching the vehicle at 1030 pm, a call from state dispatch came out saying there was a hunter that had gotten lost south of Watford City in the National Grasslands while archery hunting and no one was able to contact him.
We headed back into town to fuel up and grab the side-by-side from the Sheriff’s Office.
We headed out to his last known location and met up with the friend that called it in.
His friend stated he had gone out hunting in the evening and hadn’t come back so he called it in.
A deputy, Forest Service Ranger and I decided we would go out in efforts to search for the missing individual on foot and ATV.
We walked around for a few hours with no luck.
Highway Patrol was also able to assist in searching for the guy using their plane with thermal view to search for a heat signal.
After searching the area with no luck, Highway Patrol’s plane was able to locate a heat signal a few miles in the opposite direction from the campsite.
It was radioed to the ground and the guy was located around 6 am safe but exhausted.
Luckily, I didn’t received a call on the way home, but it was a 20+ hour day filled with adventures.