Personally, I don’t see where this man committed a crime. If you watch the video, his “dock” is really a boat house. Apparently, the fisherman drove their boat into the boat house. I don’t blame the owner for being ticked off. It takes a set of nuts to drive your bass boat into somebody’s covered boat slip. From the sound of it, I think the old man thought these guys were trying to steal something, and that’s why he had a gun with him.
bort wrote: “Personally, I don’t see where this man committed a crime. If you watch the video, his “dock” is really a boat house. Apparently, the fisherman drove their boat into the boat house. I don’t blame the owner for being ticked off. It takes a set of nuts to drive your bass boat into somebody’s covered boat slip. From the sound of it, I think the old man thought these guys were trying to steal something, and that’s why he had a gun with him.”
I don’t think this guy owns the water under his boat house. As long as the fishermen do not touch his dock, they’re legal.
We live on a large Corps of Engineers lake. Petty theft from docks is common.
It’s not uncommon for folks to PROPERLY speak with people a little too curious and close to your dock/boat/property.
Can’t brandish/threaten. Just. Dumb.
“...and that’s why he had a gun with him.”
He never raised the gun or took it from his side during the conversation. It was a deterrent from further escalation like it was designed to do. The water under the dock is not the homeowner’s property. If he wishes to keep people off his dock, he needs to post it or fence it. But the fence cannot be built off his property, the dock. He doesn’t own the water.
We had the same situation here in Washington State with the harvesting of oysters. People fenced their beds and the local tribes, being allowed to have a certain percentage of the harvest, broke into the beds toppling fences to get their share and it is perfectly legal as long as the share is correct.
https://nwifc.org/about-us/shellfish/treaty-rights-faq/#gsc.tab=0
And any disputes have to be initiated by the bed owner and if there isn’t a decision, it goes to federal level from the start.
wy69
Yeah, no good reason for them to be there.