Has death of Pa. game officer reduced job’s risks?

Gettysburg Times

GETTYSBURG, Pa.

Adams County Wildlife Conservation Officer David Grove was gunned down a year ago, after making a stop for suspected deer poaching.

The 31-year-old officer had seen spotlighting, heard gunshots in Freedom Township around 10 p.m., and then pulled two men in a pickup truck over.

Within minutes the lawman lay dead, shot multiple times during a “ferocious exchange of gunfire.” Christopher Lynn Johnson, 27, was charged with Grove’s murder and could face the death penalty.

Grove has been remembered as a finely trained officer. The Pennsylvania Game Commission’s initial review did not find any major deficiencies in training, equipment, policy or actions by Grove.

Those close to the job that mixes guns, back roads, outlaws, darkness, desperation, often alcohol, and authority say it’s a miracle that for nearly 100 years, from 1915 to Nov. 11, 2010, no officer had been killed in the line of duty.

Grove’s brethren believe it will happen again.

The commission trains and employs 100 WCOs, and hundreds of others in roles charged with protecting the commonwealth’s wild resources.

In the year since Grove’s death, what has the commission done to the make the job safer or more productive for its officers?

The commission’s Use of Force Incident Review Committee has put its administrative investigation on hold until the criminal work and prosecution is complete.

“No significant changes have been implemented other than focusing pre-planned, in-service training on some skill areas, such as vehicle stops,” said Rich Palmer, director of the commission’s Bureau of Wildlife Protection.

Since Grove’s death, the commission has been training its officers in vehicle-stop procedures and techniques.

“It was excellent training. I’ve got to hand it to the agency,” said WCO Frank Dooley of Wayne County, who conducted the training. “They saw the need for this in the wake of the Grove tragedy.”

For security reasons, officials are hesitant to discuss specifics of the training.

Dooley, with 34 years as a conservation officer, also is president of the Conservation Police Officers Lodge 114 of the Fraternal Order of Police. He represents full-time officers of the state Game and Fish & Boat commissions, doing arbitrations and grievances.

In another move, since Grove’s death, officers’ vehicles are being labeled with “Law Enforcement” decals to make them look more official and to change the perception that wildlife conservation officers are not law enforcement.

“Our image needs to change, and I’m not sure we’ve done enough,” Dooley said. “After the [Grove] funeral, some of the management said, ‘We’re seeing conservation officers from all over the country, and their vehicles are highly marked. That’s the way it should be.’ It’s gonna take about a year to get all of them.”