Two Men Arrested After Setting Booby Traps Along Popular Hiking Trail

[Dakota Valkyrie]

Christensen / Rutkowski

The two men who police say set two booby traps near a popular trail in Provo Canyon told authorities their intended targets were animals, not people.

"We don’t buy that," Utah County Sheriff’s Sgt. Spencer Cannon said. "It’s a shelter near a trail. It’s built by people, used by people, and [the booby traps] were placed in entrances used by people."

Authorities say Benjamin Steven Rutkowski, 19, of Orem, and Kai Matthew Christensen, 21, of Provo, admitted that they placed two booby traps around a man-made shelter near Big Springs trailhead. A Forest Service officer was patrolling the area on April 16 when he noticed a trip wire near the fort-like shelter. He investigated and found the wire led to a device consisting of a large rock and sharpened sticks, held together by rope.

Nearby, a second trap was found. It appeared to be set so it would trip a person and possibly cause him or her to fall forward on sharpened sticks that had been placed in the ground.

"Any reasonable person would look at where they put the devices and recognize a human is the most likely victim of those," Cannon said. "We don’t believe for a second [they were targeting wildlife.]"

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/53...laced.html.csp

“In the daylight [hikers] might not have thought anything of it until they had been injured by the devices,” said Sgt. Spencer Cannon.

The devices were designed to trip when a person entered The Fort. One of the traps would have released a spiked ball and another would have caused a person to fall onto sharpened sticks pointing up from the ground.
[...]

Deputies said there was not any indication that these two were trying to protect anything or hide anything. It appears to have been for fun.

http://fox13now.com/2012/04/21/two-m...-hiking-trail/

[Darsa]

For... fun. Wow. Sounds like Provo Canyon needs a skateboard park or something. Apparently the young people have nothing better to do than stretch the hell out of their earlobs and booby-trap things for fun. And it kinda pisses me off that they tried to claim "it was for animals". How does that make it any better?!!? It's still sick and twisted

[newstarshipsmell]

I'd give these guys a pass if they'd thought to hook up loudspeakers and play Zelda's Secret Discovery Sound when the traps are triggered.

[Chinchillazilla]

We had a guy around here setting traps in public parks a few months ago. Killed at least two people's dogs, and then he refused to tell the cops where the rest of the 30+ traps were. I thought that was pretty terrible, but man, this is a whole new level of psychotic.

I'd give these guys a pass if they'd thought to hook up loudspeakers and play Zelda's Secret Discovery Sound when the traps are triggered.

I chuckled.

[Bohring]

Am I alone in thinking this still wouldn't be ok if it were for animals? Damn. Look at that nasty contraption.

[Killroy]

SOUTH FORK CANYON, UT – Two men have been arrested after admitting to setting some potentially lethal booby traps along a popular hiking trail.
The traps were discovered on April 16th*by U.S. Forest Officer*James Schoeffler while investigating reports of suspicious activity along Big Springs Trail. He had been checking out a popular,*makeshift dead-wood shelter when he found the first trap.
“As he investigated the shelter he noticed what appeared to be a trip wire near the ground at an entrance. Upon further investigation he discovered that the trip wire led to a booby trap device which was made with a large rock, sticks sharpened at both ends, and was held together with rope,” said a*statement issued by the Utah County Sheriff’s Office.
If the wire had been tripped, the boulder was designed to swing at head height. Schoeffler, using his experience as a*a bomb disposal technician, decided to check around for more traps.
“Typically, anywhere I’ve been, if there’s one, there’s two, if there’s three, there’s four,” Schoeffler said.
He was correct in his assumptions. He would find a second trap that consisted of a wire meant to trip a passerby, causing them to fall into a pit of sharpened stakes.…

This article is from The Dreamin' Demon, the Internet's self-appointed buzzkill.


"Read the full Front Page article..."

[Dakota Valkyrie]

A bit of "human interest" back story:

The trip wires rigged to potentially deadly booby traps in a popular Utah recreation area were so slender they were practically invisible to the average eye. But James Schoeffler's eyes are not average.

During his tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, it was Schoeffler's job to find such trip wires and dismantle the explosive devices to which they were attached. He never expected to find himself doing the same job in a forest in Utah.

Authorities are lauding Schoeffler as a hero after he spotted trip wires to a pair of deadly traps just off Big Springs Trail in Provo Canyon.

The traps looked like something out of a Hollywood horror film. One was designed to send a 20-pound, spiked boulder swinging into the head or chest of an unsuspecting victim. The other would impale its victim onto a bed of sharpened wooden stakes.

"I've seen devices all over the world, but I never thought I'd see one in rural Utah," Schoeffler told the Los Angeles Times.
[...]

A child's birthday party was being celebrated on the day that Schoeffler discovered the traps. He said he'd prefer not to imagine what might have happened had a child -- or a hiker, or mountain biker -- happened along before he did.

Schoeffler, 33, was in the Army with three tours to his service, two in Kosovo and one in Iraq. After retiring, he joined the Air Force Reserve, which took him to Afghanistan in 2010.

During those tours, Schoeffler worked as an explosives ordnance disposal technician. "Did you see the movie 'Hurt Locker'? That's the best way to describe it," he said.

He's been a law enforcement officer with the U.S. Forest Service since 2008. Schoeffler, whose father is retired from the Forest Service, says the job suits him well. "You get to be outside all day -- and be a police officer. It combines the best of both jobs."
[..]

He said his military training served him well in this case. He recalled that in Afghanistan, he would routinely have to ferret out trip wires the width of sewing string in a field of wheat. Compared with that, the trip wire in Utah was easy to spot.
[...]

Schoeffler rejected any "hero" talk. "Absolutely not. I was just doing my job."

He said he believes the real story is the dogged determination that Utah County Sheriff's Sgt. Wayne Keith brought to the case. "He is a tenacious, tenacious investigator," Schoeffler said, adding that Keith used social media to track down the suspects and then gained a confession from them.

For the record, Schoeffler found the Oscar-winning movie "The Hurt Locker" unrealistic, saying the characters were too cavalier and got too much enjoyment out of blowing things up. The point is to dismantle a device before it explodes, he said.

In Schoeffler's world, explosions equal failure.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/n...,1513158.story