Hey UER members, this may be of interest to you:

Late last year I got caught outside an old slaughterhouse a 15 minute drive from my house. Story goes like this: urbex'ing really cool slaughter house and about to start snapping photos when a car pulls up. It's a CHP car. Turns out that the owner of the property HAPPENED to be driving by while i was entering and called CHP. I was made to sit in the back of the police car and fill out several forms of paper, was given a notice to appear in court paper, and then was let go (note: I did not give him any information pertaining towards why I was there). A week goes by and another member from the forums who I was text messaging told me to go back to the place and look for anything that I could make a story with to help my case. I found a PoE wide open into the property with no 'No Trespassing' signs around it, took photos of it, and then took photos from a distance away of the PoE into the building. Nowhere in that line of sight was there any No Trespassing signs. Next to the PoE onto the property across the street was a dog park so I took photos of that too.

I collaborated all of the photos together with a story saying my dog had gotten out of the dog park and had taken off into the slaughterhouse. I mailed that to the judge and the courthouse, and two weeks later I got a letter back from the courthouse saying my case had been thrown out due to lack of evidence from the owner and on the CHP's part.

I want to say and believe it was my letter and photos that helped in my case but at the same time the CHP officer seemed to be in a rush and didn't really get much information from me.

Anyway, thought this might be useful information for you guys. In California it's a misdemeanor to trespass willfully (which would make me lose my job and remove any hopes of finding any other well-paying jobs in engineering).

Something to keep in mind, but hopefully never needed.

Good that it turned out fine in the end for you.

So you were planning on just straight up lying to the judge to try and beat the charges? Sounds like a mega ethical plan.

You would lose an engineering job for a misdemeanor? Christ, jaywalking and having an empty beer can in your trunk in a State Park are misdemeanors.

Saying that you lied to the judge in public on the Internet may be used against you if they (or someone around there) just happen to browse this forum.

probably a good idea to make this thread private

Posted by lelandro probably a good idea to make this thread private

Not possible in this forum.

I have nothing to worry about, case is closed now and my county is too poor, too undermanned, and too busy to want to come back hot on such a tiny case.

Yes, from how difficult it is to get work here, and from what my current boss has told me he has not hired anyone at where we work with any sort of criminal record. Jobs are so low and hard to come by here if you have a college degree and have a misdemeanor more than likely you'll not be able to obtain a job to begin with outside of hamburger flipping.

one time we got busted, and my wife, who happens to be an attorney said " well there isn't any no trespassing signs".. and the cop said " you absolutely right", and let us go....



...mind blown

I believe that in Seattle only a felony record would hurt employability. I have to agree to and give info for a criminal background check annually and it only asks about felonies. Of course treatment of misdemeanors may depend on the employer.

Also noticed a sign at an FAA radar tower warning that intrusion would violate federal trespassing law; it might be more severe than state law.

Posted by Mike Dijital one time we got busted, and my wife, who happens to be an attorney said " well there isn't any no trespassing signs".. and the cop said " you absolutely right", and let us go.... ...mind blown

Unless you have no-trespassing signs up on your house, leave some room in your bed (next to your wife, whom I will check for no-trespassing tattoos) for me tomorrow night. High-quality beer in the refrigerator will also be appreciated.

/-/ooligan

Posted by terapr0 So you were planning on just straight up lying to the judge to try and beat the charges? Sounds like a mega ethical plan.

I think every person needs to develop their own code of ethics, so what's ethical for someone else may not be ethical for you.

Is lying unethical? I think we can all think of good examples of (little) white lies. (Open any ethical dilemmas textbook.) In this case, a little massaging of the truth to avoid getting punished for what is, after all, a stupid law, doesn't seem at all unethical to me. It's not a white lie (it's only serving the liar), but it's not a black lie either: it's not hurting anyone.

That's the thing about lying. Weirdly, it goes from being ethical to unethical if you get caught at it. Nobody is ever hurt by a lie, until they find out it's a lie.

I lie a lot, at least by implication, when I'm infiltrating and I bump into employees or security. Usually my default lie is, "Just looking for the bathroom," or "I'm lost, and trying to find my way back out onto the street, can you please help me?" I don't feel too bad about these, because generally they are undisprovable, and nobody's going to be hurt or insulted by discovering I've just lied to their face.

So I try to draw the line at disprovable lies, like, "Yes, I do work here."

This is both self-serving and considerate, I think. I probably hate getting caught in a lie as much or more as others hate being lied to.

But the other day I got carried away. I'm always spinning plausible stories that I can tell people if I'm challenged, and finally one came spilling out by accident. I was opening doors on a fairly busy conference level of a hotel, and found myself in a service corridor where three employees were arranging things on trays on carts. I blurted, "Oh, I'm looking for the stairs." (My inner story at this time, which I was trying to project through body language, was that I was a guest who didn't like elevators and wanted to climb up to his room.) The nearest employee said, "Oh, are you trying to get upstairs or back down to the lobby?" Here is where I should have come clean, but I said automatically, "Upstairs. I don't know if it's possible, maybe I need to just take the elevator ..." Pleasantly she led me to a nearby stairwell, asking on the way what floor I was going to. As I was fully committed now, I said at random, "Seven." "Wow, you're going to climb all the way to the seventh floor!?" I laughed and said, "Yeah, and if I feel good, I might just keep going!" --That was true.

I felt bad afterwards, not so much for lying, but for having drifted into a situation where I could have easily been caught in a lie.

Posted by billgeorge I think every person needs to develop their own code of ethics, so what's ethical for someone else may not be ethical for you.

Agreed. Ethics are entirely decided on a person to person basis. There are quite a few people that feel that everything about this forum is unethical, and that urban exploration is flat out trespassing and nothing more. I feel the law is meant to protect the people. You checking out this abandoned factory with zero ill intent did not harm the property owner, but he took offensive actions towards you based on his ethics in regards to his property. I'm sure if he took the time to try to talk to you personally, law wouldnt have gotten involved. I dont think going into an abandoned structure to take some pictures and feed your curiosity put anyone but maybe yourself in harms way, so I think you did the right thing in the matter.
However, I agree with the iffyness of posting this thread. I'm new to the forum, but have read around about the possible risk of law enforcement joining these forums with the intent of stopping explorers and all that good stuff.