By Jim Stanford on February 15, 2007
Trail-riding vigilante: DeBoer, right, with attorney Bob Horn
Game Creek Horseman of the Apocalypse Paul DeBoer escaped jail time and left the courthouse smiling Wednesday, after Judge Tim Day gave him another free pass for a run-in on the trail.
But DeBoer may not be smiling for long. Deputy County Prosecutor Brian Hultman is weighing whether to press charges for a more serious offense.
This time, the self-appointed marshal of trail justice who has railed against mountain bikers and dogs may find himself in deep doo-doo.
For the last six years DeBoer, 66, has turned the public lands of Game Creek Canyon into his own Sleepy Hollow, haunting trail users for not adhering to what he considers proper etiquette.
His usual modus operandi is to block the trail with his horse, growl at startled hikers or bikers and film them with a handheld video camera. People walking dogs have been a particular target of his wrath.
In most instances DeBoer is guilty only of being rude or creepy, but he has been convicted of two criminal offenses: destruction of property for running his stirrups along the car of a trail user in 2002, and reckless endangering for nearly backing over a hiker and her dogs with his truck in 2004.
The latter earned him two years of probation, which he admittedly violated last year by confronting trail users in three separate incidents. Curiously, those violations netted him not jail time or fines but three more months of probation, in a deal worked out by his lawyer and County Attorney Steve Weichman.
But prosecutor Hultman has yet to play his strongest hand: allegations that DeBoer smeared dog shit on a car at the Game Creek trailhead in January 2006. Someone taped a flyer about leash laws on a car at the parking lot, and dog shit had been smeared on the flyer and the car’s door and window. Weichman said in March that fingerprints found on the tape match DeBoer’s.
That allegation, if proven true, not only would be a probation violation but likely a criminal offense.
Because of his continued surveillance of the Game Creek trail, DeBoer has rode a fine line on running afoul of the law.
He was in court Wednesday for a hearing on more alleged probation violations, stemming from three run-ins last summer and fall. The Jackson Hole Daily’s Amanda Miller has a good summary of the proceedings, during which Judge Day ruled on behalf of DeBoer in one incident and put off a decision on the other two incidents.
Noting that DeBoer has earned no small degree of notoriety, Day warned that he would not sacrifice the defendant’s rights “on the altar of public opinion.”
One has to wonder whether Day has gone too far. These were probation violations, for which the standard of proof is relatively low. The headstrong horseman has been warned repeatedly, yet he persists in pushing the limits of what the court will tolerate.
Cyclist Mark Brinstadt testified that he met DeBoer on the trail in September. DeBoer, who has a barn at the mouth of Game Creek Canyon, was riding in the same direction as Brinstadt with a group of horses. Brinstadt said when he announced his attention to pass, slowly and politely, DeBoer turned his horse around and said, in a threatening tone:
“I don’t think so.”
Brinstadt had to get off his bike and leave the trail to go around DeBoer, who was filming him. “You are unbelievable,” he shouted at DeBoer.
The second incident was similar. Laurie Bush testified that she and a friend were walking down the trail with their dogs in July when they came upon DeBoer. The horseman blocked their path but did not respond when they called out, she said. Instead he filmed them silently.
DeBoer denied meeting Brinstadt and said he moved out of the way when he saw Bush coming. He showed the judge a videotape he had made of the incidents.
In spliced segments, the tape showed mountain bikers heading down the trail, none of which could be identified as Brinstadt. The video was shot from off the trail, with a time stamp indicating the same hour the confrontation with Brinstadt was alleged to have taken place.
The footage of Bush showed her party a considerable distance away, and DeBoer well off the trail. Defense attorney Bob Horn argued that DeBoer was only guilty of giving Bush the “evil eye.”
With sharp cross-examination, Hultman pointed out that the tape was edited by DeBoer, was not raw footage of the days’ events, and likely showed only the segments that bolstered DeBoer’s case. DeBoer could have shot the mountain bike footage on any day and set the time stamp on his camera accordingly, Hultman argued. Besides, not all of the interaction may have been captured on film.
Still, Judge Day bought it.
Although he set a hearing for 9 a.m. Feb. 27 to review the other two alleged probation violations, Day is unlikely to be swayed by the Bush incident. The third allegation is that DeBoer broke the “violate no law” provision of his probation when he nearly sideswiped three cyclists on the Game Creek Road in July. Defense attorney Horn has been trying to have that allegation dismissed, through skillful legal maneuvering.
If DeBoer continues to elude punishment, will he be emboldened? Will we find logs mysteriously laid across the trail to injure speeding mountain bikers, as happened back around 2001?
DeBoer has his admirers in the community who regard him as an outlaw standing up to the yuppie influx.
But one day he may block the path of a short-tempered trail walker packing heat.
Either way, it spells more trouble for the community.
Will DeBoer continue to get away with it?
In his words:
I don’t think so.
Posted under hiking, horses, mountain biking, national forest, paul deboer, pets, trails
