Video posted to YouTube shows California police harassing a bow fisherman with a GoPro camera mounted on his head after neighbors hundreds of yards away dialed 911.
Connor J. Shular, a youtuber with a channel about bow fishing, was minding his own business when an officer named Romo approached him and asked him to drop his bow and arrow.
“How’s it going?” Connor asks Romo.
“Good, can you put that down for me please?”
“Oh . . . yeah,” he replies.
“What are you doing out here today?”
“I’m just bowfishing.”
“Is that a thing?”
“Yeah,” Shular laughs.
“I got concerned calls for passersby saying there is a suspicious man with a crossbow shooting at stuff,” officer Romo says as he walks up to a bloody carp flopping on the ground.
“Holy shit, that’s actually a thing,” he says as he notices the fish.
“How do you aim? I mean obviously I know how you aim, but how do you actually see where fish are?”
“Well, I just walk real slow. And if there’s dirt clouds in the water popping up, it’s because they’re in there doing this. And I just wait until I see them coming up, and then I shoot them . . . either that, or they’ll just be hiding under the weeds and just pop out and I’ll take a shot.”
The friendly conversation didn’t last too long before Romo asks Shular for his ID.
Shular gives the officer his identification.
Officer Romo explains that if he doesn’t have any warrant or anything, he’ll be free to go.
“You’re not on parole or anything like that?” he asks Shular.
Three officers can be seen approaching the scene in the background.
“Bowfishing,” officer Romo points to the ground at the fish.
“It’s legit,” he says smiling.
The officers look to the ground.
“Yeah, he was pulling that out as I walked up,” he says pointing at the fish flopping on the ground near the female officer.
“Oh! Something is moving!” she jumps.
The arriving officers also seem interested in how bowfishing actually works and ask for a demonstration.
Connor gives a brief demo and explains legally you can only shoot carp or sucker fish before the officers leave.
“Alright, well, we’ll get out of your hair,” one officer says before leaving.
“I knew sooner or later; I knew the cops would be called on me,” Shular narrates.
“There’s a lot of houses out here and people get a afraid or whatever seeing someone out here with a bow and they don’t know what’s going on.”
“I’m glad my GoPro was recording, and I was reeling up a fish as he came by,” Shular says, thanking the officers for giving him content for his bowfishing channel.
And then he goes fishing again and shoots an even bigger carp, which can be seen in the video of the entire encounter above.