Investigator of hunting complaints charged with illegal hunting

Danbury (CT) News-Times Online ^ | November 13, 2002 | staff

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GREENWICH, Conn. (AP) _ A town police officer responsible for looking into complaints about hunters has been charged with hunting illegally, the Greenwich Time reported Wednesday.

Lt. Richard Cochran, 45, of Greenwich was arrested Sunday, a day on which state law prohibits hunting, authorities of the state Department of Environmental Protection said. The charge dates to the days when blue laws prohibited certain activities on Sundays.

DEP Capt. Eric Nelson said agency officers responded to an anonymous complaint about a person hunting illegally on a Sunday and found Cochran, an avid bowhunter, in an area near Pecksland Road.

Cochran told the Time that he was in the woods Sunday searching for a deer that he had wounded with an arrow on Saturday. He said the deer ran away after he wounded it, and he returned Sunday to try to find and kill the animal.

``I thought I was doing the ethical thing, but I took a chance and got caught,'' Cochran said, adding that he feared he would lose his job as a police officer.

A member of the Greenwich Sportsmen and Landowners Association and the Greenwich Bowhunters Association, Cochran said he hunts every day and often donates game to the homeless.

The charge is punishable by up to 60 days in jail and a fine of up to $200.

Cochran is scheduled to appear Dec. 3 at Stamford Superior Court.

Police officials would not comment on whether Cochran would be penalized by the department.

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The title implies that this is illegal hunting with a gun, not a bow. I can just see all those CT liberals reading just the title and thinking: "We have to outlaw hunting once and for all - it's dangerous!" and those that read the whole article thinking: "We have to outlaw any kind of hunting once and for all - it's corrupt!"

[camle]

sure he ain't a democrat?

[Minnesoootan]

``I thought I was doing the ethical thing, but I took a chance and got caught,'' Cochran said, adding that he feared he would lose his job as a police officer.

Easy,prove you had a blood trail and maybe we'll let you off easy,but if there isn't,well,then you have to pay the price the rest of the people do that get caught hunting the King's land.
Dick Cochran....nah,he didn't get teased in school.