A man was riding his dirt bike on Cactus Jack Avenue in Twentynine Palms Sunday (March 7) and as he found himself near private property, an unknown suspect brandished a shotgun and fired at him from about 50 feet away. The shots hit the rider’s pants and bike, but the rider was not injured.
As the weather warms up, Morongo Basin residents will see an increase in off-highway vehicles and when it comes to OHV enforcement, things can get a little tricky.
The Sheriff’s captain of the Morongo Basin Sheriff’s Station, and the chief of police for Yucca Valley and Twentynine Palms, was the guest on the Up Close Show last month (February 26) and reporter Cassidy Taylor says Captain Luke Niles addressed OHV enforcement during the show…
“Illegal OHV riding predominantly in and of itself is an infraction, it’s maybe a misdemeanor, if it’s an unlicensed vehicle or something like that. Those types of crimes require us to contact the individual, at the moment the incidents incurring in order to take any law enforcement action, or another person, it would be responsible for a citizen’s arrest.”
Illegal riding does affect the quality of life here in the Morongo Basin, but enforcing regulations can be a challenge given that the type of crime and disturbance is mostly minor. To combat illegal OHV riding, the Sheriff’s department instead does targeted enforcement. When they get multiple complaints from the same area, they will build a premise history and target the area with more severe enforcement. With the exception of those who are riding illegally just to be a nuisance, most of the enforcement is education.
“We contact the majority of people that just read the map wrong and they’re in a wrong area or they thought they could do something, we educate them and that problem goes away.”
Locations of designated OHV routes and use restrictions, visit the Bureau of Land Management’s website at BLM.gov.
