Shawn Wagner

I would like to thank those of you who took the time out of your busy lives to actually read the 14 page judgment. Understand that this is 14 pages summarizing a 1,400 page trial transcript. So, obviously there are many more facts to the case than could possibly be presented in the ruling. However, the Judge heard all the facts when he rendered his decision. Many of you have raised very good points regarding laws, intent, who can have a tag, who “killed” the elk, etc. Most of those points were raised by one side or the other during the two day trial and the Judge heard all the arguments. It appears that many of you think this case is about the elk hunt. It is not. This case is solely about the Department violating the Arizona Whistleblower law and taking reprisal against me because I brought violations of policy and statute to its attention. If any of your rights were violated, I hope you would fight for them, too. Many of you seem to be convinced that myself and the others involved in the elk hunt committed some kind of violation. I will be the first to say that everyone is entitled to their opinion of whether or not the actions we took on the elk hunt were proper based on the facts they have. However, after reviewing all the facts, the Judge in Superior Court ruled that the actions taken were legal and justified. And he ruled that the actions taken by the Department were not. We asked the Department to issue us a citation if they felt we had done something wrong. We were prepared to be treated like anyone else. We would have gone to court like any of you and had a judge hear the case. The Department refused to issue us a citation and instead violated policy and state laws in conducting its investigation of us. None of you would have tolerated that, I’m certain. Some of you call this a “cover up”. We were telling our supervisor and other officers during the entire incident, who all agreed in how we were resolving the unplanned circumstances. No one was covering anything. I have told lots of people in the public about this. Contrary to some posts, we all did get disciplined. In fact, our pay lost, and litigation costs far exceeded any fines we would have gotten if we were convicted on a citation. Some of you have raised the issue of how you would have been treated. I would have never written a citation in this situation. In fact, I have had almost this same situation in the past and helped pack out the meat and get the animal to the rightful owner. I can only hope you are always treated with respect, common sense and reasonableness with a consideration for whether or not you were trying to do something illegal or not, when contacted by our officers. So, Mr. Owens, please write your letters. That is your right. I agree the Governor and the Attorney General should know what all occurred in this matter. Thank you for caring enough about hunting to have an opinion. But if you (or anyone else) would like, you can contact me to get actual facts to make sure what you write is accurate. My personal cell phone is (928) 699-1745. This is my only post. -Shawn