The lead CO was senior to the guy who was interviewing me and it seemed like the operation was his show. The other guys were from another district but were there that day as backup. I suppose it makes sense that two guys would want some backup when approaching a group of eight of us in the middle of nowhere.
I'm glad that I posted this story now after all this time because it has generated some interesting discussion. It's very interesting to hear some of the perspective from our retired LEO's.
Terry - I agree with you about the fact that the majority of CO's are decent, reasonable people. But as we all know there are jerks in any profession and Natural Resources Law Enforcement has their fair share too. A few of the guys that I went to school with... man... I really hope they never ended up on the job. On the other hand, there were quite a few that would have been perfect for it.
Personally, I'd rather not run into them in the field, but I think we can all agree that it's nice when we read about a case where some truly bad apples have been pinched.