State police operations, FBI, helicopters, National Parks???

Okay, any brave soul want to take a crack at this?

Does anyone know what happens if a group of three armed fugitives and some unarmed others were to end up fleeing on foot through a National Forest within 50 miles of the Canadian border? The FBI is theoretically after this group in the larger sense but in the past couple of hours someone tipped off the State Police (think Montana) to the location of a rural compound where the outlaws were hanging out. Whether or not the State Police would normally act on this or just pass it on to the FBI, I need someone in the hierarchy who is way too power drunk to decide to go after them immediately without waiting for reinforcements. But the outlaws are warned. They try to flee in vehicles but get trapped in small Forest Service tracks and finally flee into the National Forest on foot. They end up with about a two-hour lead by confusing the police with some remote-controlled explosions.

So, my scenario is that the State Police are searching this National Forest for the fugitives with a helicopter, just one at first, then later maybe a couple more, if that is realistic. The fewer the better though really. My plot requires the fugitives to get away.

First, would the State Police ever be allowed to be doing this on federal land? Should I scratch this idea and have someone else involved instead? I can't really do a massive FBI hunt. It would take too long to get it going in such a remote area and, if it was going fast enough, it would probably be too effective and my fugitives wouldn't get away.

Second, if they are searching with a helicopter and they don't know what the fugitives look like (the famous leaders of the gang aren't among the group fleeing on foot) they are going to have a problem because there are all kinds of hikers out there (this is August) and they can't tell the fugitives form innocent hikers. Is it reasonable to say that they have loudspeakers and go around blaring at groups of hikers to leave the National Forest because a police investigation is going on?

How good is the infrared technology, if you're thinking of a State Police helicopter that has been summoned at very short notice? Have they got it at all? How much detail of an individual person can they see with it? At what distance can they tell people from large game?

Would such a helicopter have guns? I'm assuming not. That's military, right?

Any ideas or bits of information most welcome. Thanks.

Arie

Okay, thanks.

BUT I've hiked national forests quite a bit. You are on trails and you meet other hikers, sometimes several times a day. Depends on the season and the popularity of the spot, but the police can't be sure a group of people are the fugitives, even if they are roughly in the right area, so I am thinking they come in low, where a group of people can hear them. (No, I wasn't thinking they'd just blare their loudspeakers out into the wilderness.) They would be talking to specific groups of hikers, they encountered. Part of the point of this, in my thinking, would be that they don't actually know if any of the recognizable outlaws are with the fugitives. They're coming in for a closer look with binoculars. And they are hoping they could tell by the reactions of the fugitives.

Also, the forest is big but not the area the fugitives could cover with their little lead time. They are pretty much stuck in a canyon. The police can work this out. Then, they get to the head of the canyon and climb out because if they stay in there the police are eventually going to have enough reinforcements to get them. When they climb onto the high dry ridge. That is when a helicopter can see them best and that's about the time when the cops have figured out where they've gone. So, it is reasonable that the helicopter might spot them, just unlikely they would be sure they had their guys.

One reason the cops want to clear the area is that they think they can see by the reactions of the fugitives to this instruction that they aren't hikers. The other reason is that they know that hikers have vehicles to go to, generally. The fugitives no longer do. And if they can clear the area, they can bring in reinforcements and not be so worried that some hiker is going to get shot.

Now, "fugitives hiding in the forest". A lot of the forest here is very sparse and dry, bad place to hide for a couple miles. And my biggest question is about what sort of infrared technology the State Police would have. If they have that it doesn't really matter if the forest is thick. I've read that once they get a lock on a particular individual with infrared technology, they can just follow them wherever. But I don't know how much they can see to try to ID an individual with that technology.

Anybody know about this infrared stuff?

Okay, now, here's the really interesting issue. EVEN IF the State Police with their helicopter thought they had IDed the fugitives. What could they do exactly? They could land I suppose and come after them on foot but that doesn't seem like something they'd try. The fugitives are armed and how many cops are going to be in the helicopter?

Would they shoot at them, if they are considered "armed and immediately dangerous"? Is a helicopter of that type equipped to shoot? I would think that would only be for military helicopters.

Oh, and, of course, could the fugitives do any damage to the helicopter coming in low over them with a couple of Uzis, if they decided to give away their location by shooting at it?

Many thanks!

Haha. One can write from a place other than where one grew up. I'm from the Northwest. I haven't hiked that specific canyon but definitely have been in the area.

It is west of Glacier = Kootenai National Forest. A look on GoogleEarth makes it very clear that the ridges are very sparse. You can see down to the ground under the trees even with the satellite images and those are clearly from summer. Any time but summer there is snow there.

How could Western Montana not be dry? There is some heavier cover in canyons. If that messes up the infrared technology all the better.

As for talking at someone through a loudspeaker from a helicopter, give me a break. Are you saying every movie where the cops did that was wrong? I can think of half a dozen such scenes of the top of my head. But I've heard that even more common movie tricks than that are stupid, so you could be right. Still this is on top of a ridge. It is easy to get close. They could probably land if they wanted to. Not many trees. The fugitives actually don't run away, precisely because, as I said, they are counting on being indistinguishable from hikers and don't want to act scared.

Okay, anyone wanna take a stab at what the State Police in their helicopter are going to do if they think they know that they have spotted the fugitives? I can't really describe what they've done without a huge long explanation, but think very extreme. The cops will stop at nothing to get them, although they would prefer them alive in order to get info on the bigger fish. It isn't so much what they've done even as what they think they are likely to do if they get away. That's why I'm thinking in terms of guns, but I'm not sure how that technically works with a police helicopter.

Good. I don't want the fugitives caught but I do want them pretty worried about the helicopter showing up. I want the shooting at the fugitives to be only theoretical danger they are worried about. Under the extreme circumstances of the story it is reasonable that if it is possible to shoot from a helicopter, this is something they would have to worry about. It is very unlikely (haven't planned entire sequence but I don't foresee it) that they would try to shoot at the helicopter but I wanted to know what they would be thinking in terms of how effective their weapons would be.

As for the helicopter sound system, I'm going for realism but not to extreme. They get to have a sound system. I definitely want them to come up close to this group (not knowing but definitely suspecting that they are the fugitives) and say something over the sound system. This is the key issue of the plot and character development. I'm just not real sure what they would say. Maybe they tell them they are suspected and had better show that they aren't armed. Something like that?

Okay, maybe they just come in for a real close look and then fly away. Regular hikers would be a bit freaked out by this but that's how it goes. Are you sure they woudn't say something, if they decided they were probably just hikers?

(I'm telling you, sometimes the authorities in the rural northwest can do some weird stuff. For instance, last summer, we had a situation where a rescue helicopter came into a small mountain lake and landed in a sand parking lot right by where little kids were swimming in the water. There was huge backwash with sand, mud and sticks flying all over the place and big waves in the water. An off-duty firefighter (my source on this) had to jump in to get a kid who was drowning. Her husband got trapped in the water with another small child between the dock and a boat could barely keep the boat from crushing him and the kid against the dock with the waves. Definitely endangering bystanders in general. The helicopter was responding to a cell phone call about a drowning on the other side of the lake but the swimmers in that area didn't know there was any crisis. Come to think of it, they had a sound system and the main thing my firefighter friend was upset about was that they didn't use it to warn people to get out of the water before they landed right there, so maybe there is a thing about using such a system.)

Maybe in my more fictional scenario they would use the sound system to warn supposed hikers that there are dangerous armed fugitives around and that they should "consider" returning to their vehicles? I was once camping by a roadway and a cop woke us up at night and told us we had probably better move because there was a fugitive around. It wasn't an order, just friendly advice.

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Okay, thanks. Yes, I see the problem.

I think whether or not they do a felony stop probably depends on if they can enforce it (i.e. do they point guns at them and tell them to put their hands up or on the ground or something and then either try to land while maintaining that or lower a couple of cops out of the helicopter to go secure them.) Either of those attempts would fail miserably with these fugitives, who would either run for better cover while the helicopter landed or shoot anyone being lowered out of the helicopter regardless of the risk of being shot back. The best bet the cops would have would be to get a visual on any groups they thought might be the fugitives and try to keep tabs on them until reinforcements could arrive, either by land or in the form of more helicopters. I'll see if I can get anything more specific.

Thanks again, I was mainly checking to see if there were any major details I had overlooked or major technological revolutions, since I was a conflict reporter in the 2000-2003 era.

ironmikezero, thanks a lot. This is a good start.

Okay, say the FBI is after a group that they consider to be terrorism related. They know particularly about one individual who is supposed to be in charge. He has been around for quite awhile and has been very hard to get information on. They have a name, which he is known by but obviously isn't his real name. They have some images of him, either bad photos or sketches but these don't seem to match. each other very well. They know he has a small group of co-conspirators who actually know him well and if they can apprehend one of that group they'll finally have something to go on. The State Police, not the FBI, get a tip off from a reliable source about a rural compound in Montana, tucked right up into the Kootenai National Forest (there bits of private property around the edges) saying that is one of bases. They know he is likely to find out very quickly that they have the information (say he has people in the system who pass information to him or they suspect he does), so they want to act immediately. They send out several vehicles and a helicopter to try to at least besiege the compound.

But the outlaw guy does learn of the tip-off, isn't at the compound and warns his associates to get out. They flee and set up explosives to blow the place up. They try to drive out (on little dirt Forest Services roads) but soon can hear the approach of police and the helicopter. They (think 3 armed people and a couple more unarmed) realize that they can't drive out because both access roads have police on them. They don't think they can fight their way out or don't want to, so they turn and drive further into the forest. They park at the end of a road in a canyon, where their license plates (license plates show the registration as belonging to someone unknown in Missoula) have no permit to park but hidden from the air.

They then start running up the canyon. They have a little time because the police go toward the compound. Explosions go off as they approach. They check it out and then start searching the area. They don't know if the fugitives got out entirely before they blocked the roads, left on foot from the compound or what. They search and within say an hour or two they find the vehicles. They suspect them because they are parked illegally. They theorize that the fugitives might have gone up that canyon and the local guys can tell they would be trapped into a five mile canyon (too steep and exposed to climb out on the sides). They fly to the end, where the fugitives would come up a steep ridge (there is sort of a trail). They see three hikers headed down into the canyon. They come in close, look... (These are inreality just hikers). They fly on up over the ridge. They see a group of seven strung out in a sparse barren area (several miles of open ridge top with only a few scraggly trees you can't hide under that has to be crossed). They come in close, try to get faces but can't see much. They've got hats with brims (like most hikers), backpacks, a couple of them shield their eyes from the sun. They wave and act friendly.

These are in fact the fugitives but I'm figuring the police can't figure this out. They have physical descriptions of two people in the group plus some very grainy security camera footage but they don't know that those two are with this group and can't see faces much anyway. They highly suspect these could be the fugitives. They are in about the right spot. The other group was too small and headed the wrong way. They can't see weapons but they believe these guys generally are armed with foldable Uzis and hand guns. The group is very mixed in terms of race, which they expect from what they know of the fugitives. But even if they knew they were the fugitives, they probably couldn't stop them right now. The police on the ground are slower, so the helicopter is mainly trying to get visual contact with groups that could be the fugitives and then keep tabs on them and lead ground forces to them.

So, my original question was would the police in the helicopter say anything to people they thought might be the fugitives but theoretically could be hikers? They might want to lull the fugitives into a false sense of security by making them believe the police are totally convinced by their act of friendly hikerness. That's what I was thinking. If they were just going to keep tabs on them, they wouldn't want them to know exactly that and they can't be sure, so I'm assuming the helicopter will fly away but stay in the area and return to track where the group is going. They will eventually have more trouble because the group will go down into trees. Then, it will get dark. Infrared technology might work then. Real hikers won't be moving at that point. These guys stop and use emergency blankets (that reflect heat and a partial rock outcrop to hide). I'm hoping that means the police have little luck in the dark but have a general idea of the area where they think the fugitives have gone. (The police suspect and are correct in this thinking because it is really obvious for several reasons that the group is headed for the Canadian border.)

Okay, my POV and focus is on the fugitives, not the police. I don't know the whole financing of the police and all that. I know it is good to know all background but that's not gonna happen. I am saying this is a top priority for the FBI. Whatever finances there are can be available. It depends on how long it takes to muster those, go through channels, physically get them to the area, etc... The more realistic I can get on what would happen on the police/FBI end, the more realistic I can make the experience of the fugitives.

Many many thanks.

Arie

They did. But they didn't get caught or leave much physical evidence. That is why they don't know who they are. They broke into a government installation, shot guards, absconded with some really important stuff which they could use to do further destructive things, and they are planning to do much the same in the future. (I'm not telling you who the "good guys" are. It doesn't matter. The good guys are not always the cops and visa versa.)

The reason for the pursuit is a plot issue. I can handle that. It doesn't even particularly matter if it would be legal. This is a somewhat alternative reality story and legal could change. But I need to figure out what is TECHNICALLY possible because this isn't science fiction. Any advice on that is most welcome.

Yup, that is about what I thought would happen. Again, the reason I think I can work it so the fugitives escape is primarily because the authorities have very little physical evidence to work with. They could discover them by a search of their persons but not by a simple face to face meeting. So, the authorities are going to have to search every hiker they come across. They will have to travel in large groups because these guys are going to be able to wipe out a group of a couple of agents pretty easily, although the noise will tend to narrow the search. And again, as you say, this area is huge. The border is virtually non-existent physically and they can't line up agents across the whole effected 100 miles of it. But, yes, as they get closer to the border that's going to be an issue.

Any details on the K9 tracking teams? I'll google it but anything specific about how they do things would be very interesting.

As for wildlife, I have an awesome incident to use that rally happened to my family.

Umm... Yeah, and anyone know about the legalities of searching every hiker they come across? I can't see this going over real well in the rural west, terrorism or no terrorism.