Border Patrol?

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Hey all. I'm not really sure where to ask this question, and its not frequency related. I wanted to take advantage of your law enforcement minds out there.

Friday night after bar close I went with a female friend down to the Harrison Township boat launch site...the same site where the Macomb Sheriff has an outpost. The boat launch park is pretty big, and not that well lit in areas. We went to leave the park, and on the way out, parked in the shadows, was a Chevy Silverado with a partial cap on the back and the cab dimly lit. It was tough to tell, but it looked like the lighting was from a monitor on or near the dash. Also, there was a scissors type lift erected in the bed of the truck, with what looked like a camera on top of it. I should also note that the truck was facing the water.

I recall seeing a special on the Discovery Channel a few months back dealing with the problem that the Border Patrol is having with people crossing the Mexican border and entering Texas. During said special, they showed a Dodge Ram pickup with a similar setup to what I think I saw.

So, did I see a Border Patrol agent, or is there something else going on? Pretty cool setup.
 

iMONITOR

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Tough to tell. It was parked in the shadows, and I almost didn't even notice it, except for the reflection of the Chevy bowtie on the front grill. I would say it was black.


Sounds like it may have belonged to the Macomb County Sheriff. The Border Patrol vehicles are usually white, with a green stripe.
 

bigbluemsp

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Could have been a DNR Pick Up.

They are running all black vehicles now.

BP doesn't have any Pick Ups in the area they only run Chargers, Crown Vics and Tahoes.
 

KB8QDM

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What the OP is describing sounds an awful lot like an unmarked USBP surveillance truck. I've never seen one in MI, but have in Arizona.

The USBP station in Douglas, AZ (southeaster corner of the state)had 3-4 unmarked trucks with a telescoping tower in the bed similar to what's found on TV remote trucks, with a camera located on the top, both video and infrared, and a monitor in the cab. My former in-laws live near the station there(about six miles north of the border), and let the BP set up on their ranch, including these mobile cameras. Of course, some of the agents were willing to let their hosts see some of their equipment.

What one would be doing on Lake St Clair is anybody's guess. The usual illegal immigration routes are up in the river.
 

bigbluemsp

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What the OP is describing sounds an awful lot like an unmarked USBP surveillance truck. I've never seen one in MI, but have in Arizona.

The USBP station in Douglas, AZ (southeaster corner of the state)had 3-4 unmarked trucks with a telescoping tower in the bed similar to what's found on TV remote trucks, with a camera located on the top, both video and infrared, and a monitor in the cab. My former in-laws live near the station there(about six miles north of the border), and let the BP set up on their ranch, including these mobile cameras. Of course, some of the agents were willing to let their hosts see some of their equipment.

What one would be doing on Lake St Clair is anybody's guess. The usual illegal immigration routes are up in the river.

Yep places like Algonac, Marine City, St. Clair and Marysville always have illegals and drugs crossing in rowboats in the middle of the night.
 

seamusg

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Yep places like Algonac, Marine City, St. Clair and Marysville always have illegals and drugs crossing in rowboats in the middle of the night.
They cross in the train tunnels. The Clinton River and Metro Beach would be good with all the weekend traffic. The DNR site would be a good place to watch both.
 
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The USBP station in Douglas, AZ (southeaster corner of the state)had 3-4 unmarked trucks with a telescoping tower in the bed similar to what's found on TV remote trucks, with a camera located on the top, both video and infrared, and a monitor in the cab.
This sounds exactly like what I saw, aside from the tower description.

Getting a bit off topic here: I used to work in Detroit area radio, and have operated tower trucks (ours was called a Marti shot). Those particular type of towers are tubes of staggered diameters with seals on the ends. An air compressor is powered on, and the air fills the tubes, pushing them up in the air to form the tower that you are talking about. On our radio vehicle, the tower was only like 30 feet tall. The TV broadcast trucks are of similar design, except their masts go much higher, and some of the trucks with the taller masts have hydrulic jacks that fold down under the rear end to stabilize the truck and mast in the wind.

Back on topic: It was definitely a scissors type lift....and exactly like what I saw on the Discovery channel show about the Border Patrol. I know that the lake is an easy access point, especially at night, but I didn't think it was high security enough to have one of those trucks out there. Obviously, from what I'm reading, I was wrong.
 
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