Recently, I caught two adults on our construction site after it was closed and locked for the day.  Each of the gates were locked, and there are signs posted that read “No Trespassing, violators will be prosecuted “.  So there was no reason for them to be on the site, and I believed that they had gotten into the building.  There was nothing in their vehicle, and nothing in their hands, so they hadn’t stolen anything yet.  I yelled at them to get off the site and I said that I was calling the police.  I got their vehicle license plate number.

I dialed 911 because I wanted the police to stop these people to get their IDs, and to question them about what they were doing.  The police dispatcher at first was saying that there was nothing that could be done if they had already left the site.  I started to explain about the “No Trespassing” signs being posted, the site having a fence around it, the gates being locked, then the police dispatcher agreed to have an officer respond.  I gave the vehicle description and the license plate number.

As the minutes passed, I became more and more discouraged that the police were not taking this seriously.  After about six minutes had passed, I thought there was no longer any chance that they were going to spot that vehicle, it was long gone by now.  The police officer arrived after about eight minutes.

I explained to the police officer what had happened.  I showed the police officer where the car had been parked, and showed him that it was real close to the “No Trespassing” signs.  I explained that in the recent past there had been some tools that went missing and some vandalism.  The police officer took it seriously, and was able to identify the driver from the license plate number.

I sent a text message to construction company supervisor describing what happened, with Watford City PD case number.  I was hoping that construction company would not take the attitude with me, “To quit being an asshole and causing problems.”  Supervisor responded wanting to know who they were.  I responded with officer name and number, you will have to ask him.

The following day, site owner wanted to press criminal charges.  Site owner was taking incident more seriously than me.  Others explained to me, the likelihood of these two people planning to strip the building of copper electrical wire and copper plumbing, which I had not yet thought of myself.

Overall, the Watford City Police did a good job, they took this seriously, they found out who it was.

Also, watch out, the Watford City Police will get you for speeding and for DUI, they try hard on this too.

Update & Current Information:. In the four months since I wrote this blog post, I have had to call the Watford City Police back out to our construction site several more times.  The Watford Police response time has been pretty quick, and they have taken the incidents seriously.  Most of the time, we have seen and stopped people who don’t belong on our construction site before they have been able to take anything.  Most of the time, the calls to the Watford Police are just to give a description of the individuals and their vehicles to the police so that they can be on the look out for them at the other construction sites in town.