Yellowstone Park Rangers Use "Gestapo" Tactics to Harrass Seniors on Tour Bus

"Gestapo" is their word, not mine.

Vaillancourt was one of thousands of people who found themselves in a national park as the federal government shutdown went into effect on Oct. 1. For many hours her tour group, which included senior citizen visitors from Japan, Australia, Canada and the United States, were locked in a Yellowstone National Park hotel under armed guard.

The tourists were treated harshly by armed park employees, she said, so much so that some of the foreign tourists with limited English skills thought they were under arrest.

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The bus stopped along a road when a large herd of bison passed nearby, and seniors filed out to take photos. Almost immediately, an armed ranger came by and ordered them to get back in, saying they couldn’t “recreate.” The tour guide, who had paid a $300 fee the day before to bring the group into the park, argued that the seniors weren’t “recreating,” just taking photos.

“She responded and said, ‘Sir, you are recreating,’ and her tone became very aggressive,” Vaillancourt said.

The seniors quickly filed back onboard and the bus went to the Old Faithful Inn, the park’s premier lodge located adjacent to the park’s most famous site, Old Faithful geyser. That was as close as they could get to the famous site — barricades were erected around Old Faithful, and the seniors were locked inside the hotel, where armed rangers stayed at the door.

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The bus trip made headlines in Livingston, where the local newspaper Livingston Enterprise interviewed the tour guide, Gordon Hodgson, who accused the park service of “Gestapo tactics.”

“The national parks belong to the people,” he told the Enterprise. “This isn’t right.”

Via Breitbart.

Note that they were not permitted "to recreate." To be physically present, yes. But to recreate? No.

There is no difference between the two things as far as cost in money to the government.

The only difference is that the government and its petty minions wishes to actively harm and harass its citizens.

There must be a purge of the Park service when this is all done. Fire most of them, reduce it to a skeleton force. They're bad apples. They seem to imagine they own the national legacy, and can shut it down in service of the Party of Government.

There must be a price paid for such a fascist notion.

posted by Ace at 12:40 PM

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