Here is the entire news article as it appeared on May 12, 2003, including a typo, which is indicative of a small town newspaper and community mindset. After I read through this thread topic, I had several questions. I wanted more information, so I did some research, including accessing this article.Originally Posted by Fergus Falls Daily Journal
In an effort to get an overall picture of the community, and the lay of the land; I gathered information from the Chamber of Commerce, and then also figured I use Terafly, another wonderfull investigative tool I received by reading through a variety of forums.
To my dismay I had problems with it (Terafly), and will address those problems, but in the meantime I got a good idea of the lay of the land of this community by just researching the towns Chamber of Commerce listings, and by viewing some of the homes listed with Century 21, amongst other things.
My conclusions, are that this is a very small tight knit community, and especially the area referred to in the article. This puts in perspective the reaction of the father, although by no means justifies his dislodging a firearm, even if just into the air, however this is not unusual behavior in this type of setting, and under the circumstances. If you have ever lived in a rural area you know what I say is true.
Put in perspective however, and being a protective father, I can somewhat understand his reaction. Remember he thought his daughter was being stalked, and wanted to send a strong & clear message that couln't be ignored by the man perceived as a danger to his daughter.
Yelling at the suspected stalker I'll call 911, would not be much of a deterrent, whereas firing a shot certainly gives a pretty undeniable message. I could not view the actual location without spending much more time than I want to at this gesture. I can well imagine that the location is quite unpopulated, due to my prior reasearch. For one thing, a town with only two funeral homes is quite small.
The reaction of law enforcement also seems to concur that no laws were actually broken, and that it was simply referred to as an incident.
For me it puts everything into a different light when I consider all the various details involved. I believe that this insurance company investigator was unprofessional, sloppy, and unprepared by not doing his homework in the first place.
Haste makes Waste. I venture a guess that this individual was not, or is not a member of IPIU either. We can here at IPIU can go into this profession with our eyes wide open, and are given every available tool to learn how to investigate before the actual surveillance, and to cover all our bases.
That angry father may have done that investigator a bigger favor than one might think. We must always think 5 steps ahead before we act, as being discovered puts the entire profession into an unfavorable light, and can put an investigator and or agency out of business.
In this information age, with everything available at our fingertips through the internet, there really is no excuse to not be thorough. Do your homework, ahead of time and be careful out there.