Sand Dune Rowdies Face Crackdown

After Thanksgiving, Tom Sharkey knew something had to be done to tame the crowds of off-roaders who descend on the Imperial County dunes every holiday weekend to play in California’s giant sandbox.

Over four frantic days, Sharkey and his medical team responded to a stabbing, a fatal shooting, an attack on a ranger and dozens of crashes that left two dead and more than 200 injured.

“We’re trained for an off-highway vehicle park, and we were doing things a major trauma center in a city would do,” said Sharkey, assistant manager at the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area east of San Diego. “We weren’t ready for that.”

In response to last month’s chaos, the federal Bureau of Land Management is treating the New Year’s weekend at the dunes like a major forest fire. Authorities set up a 24-hour incident command center, turned a campground into a communications headquarters and brought in several agencies, including the California Highway Patrol and the U.S. Forest Service.

To carry out Operation Imperial Dunes, the bureau also tripled the number of law enforcement officers to nearly 100 and assigned them to patrol areas within the 150,000 acres of sand.

Their job is straightforward: protect both the public and the officers and look for troublemakers.

“The message they need is that they’re not going to get away with this,” said Hugh Dougher, a National Park Service ranger and one of two incident commanders for the weekend. “When they do something wrong, they’re going to be thrown in jail. This is not the place they can come to escape the moors of society.”

Many visitors applauded the increased law enforcement presence. The only critics were some of the younger crowd, who say they come here to escape the restraints of city life.

“I think they need to crack down. This is not the family atmosphere we are trying to instill. There is a bad group in any element,” said Rick Wright, a member of the American Sand Assn. who has been coming to the dunes since 1966.

About 50,000 people had converged on the dunes by Sunday. Crowds reached nearly 200,000 during Thanksgiving weekend.

“Thanksgiving really caught everybody by surprise,” said Jim Burns, a chief with the Imperial County Sheriff’s Department. “Now we’re out there with a large enough force to handle any problems that occur.”

By Sunday evening, officers had arrested seven people, most on suspicion of drunk driving. More than 200 people had been cited for speeding, riding in the back of pickup trucks and failing to wear helmets or attach flags to their sand-mobiles.

There had been about 40 injuries, mostly broken bones and cuts from collisions in the sand. There were, however, a few major injuries, several fights, a bottle-throwing incident and a hit-and-run accident. There was also a report that a 16-year-old boy was beaten by three youths, authorities said.

Dune Buggy Brought Popularity

The Imperial County dunes in Glamis stretch nearly 40 miles from the Chocolate Mountains toward the Mexico border, earning the designation as the largest dune formation in California. Once a training ground for World War II military crews, the vast sand hills became a popular spot for recreational riders in the 1950s with the creation of the dune buggy.

Now, from October to May, off-roaders make pilgrimages to the city in the sand, where they zoom around the rolling dunes in every imaginable vehicle: Baja Bugs, motorcycles, ATVs, desert race trucks and converted boats. They fly over whoop-de-dos (bumps) and avoid witches’ eyes (holes).

The off-roaders take breaks at what’s commonly known as Vendor’s Alley, where they can buy parts for their buggies or try on T-shirts with slogans: Who’s Your Dune Daddy? Got Sand? And of course, for the kids: Dunes R Us.

“It’s a world of its own,” said Stephen Razo of the land bureau’s external affairs office. “The people in this world . . . cherish this activity as much as they cherish their own freedom.”

Mark Allen, 35, a dunes regular for three decades, described the lure of the sand: “It’s like being on the craziest ride at Magic Mountain, but all the time. It’s the rush of the car going around the bowls, tearing the top off the mountain.”

Allen drives from Orange County to the dunes as many as 18 times a year, often bringing his 8-year-old daughter, Breanna, and her own purple-and-white mini-mobile. Allen said the off-roading families aren’t to blame for the dunes getting out of hand.

“It’s all those kids and their Ranger trucks who come out here and party all night,” he said. “Most of them don’t have the experience driving on the streets, then they come out here and think they’re Robby Gordon.”

Law enforcement officers agreed. They attribute the majority of the problems to a small group of rowdy men in their 20s, who bring alcohol and drugs instead of all-terrain vehicles. That, mixed with the mob mentality, leads to robberies, assaults and vandalism, they say.

Every day, visitors congregate at two hot spots in the sand: the Drags and Comp Hill. At the Sand Drags, thousands of people form two lines and watch a disorganized procession of timed races by motorists that often end in crashes and fights. Paramedics dash hurt drivers to the nearest hospital in Brawley, 25 miles away, and some severely injured drivers are flown to hospitals.

Then, as soon as the sun sets, the roaring engines ride to a giant bowl with a steep incline known as Competition Hill. The 1-square-mile bowl fills with as many as 1,000 cars, surrounded by the haze of magnesium campfires, sand dust and car exhaust. Fireworks light up the sky as daredevils line up in rows and race up and down the hill.

Rowdiness at the Bowl

Officers say they go down to Comp Hill only if they have to--and then with a group of 10 or 12 at a time. They’ve seen how the alcohol and adrenaline turn the scene into a Mardi Gras party scene, complete with fights, gangs and topless girls. Instead, officers try to control the scene by checking--and sometimes arresting--riders as they enter the bowl.

Off-roaders say there wouldn’t be so many problems if they had more space in the sand to roam. In response to a lawsuit by a Tucson-based environmental group, the land bureau banned vehicles last year from nearly 50,000 acres to protect Peirson’s milk vetch, an endangered plant that grows only in the Imperial Valley desert. The environmentalists now want the bureau to limit the number of visitors.

Wright called the closures ridiculous. “It’s just another tactic by liberals to take away the simple pleasures we have as off-roaders,” said Wright, 47, who runs a parts and repair shop at the dunes during holiday weekends. “This land is no good for anybody but us.”

Standing on top of a sandhill, Don Schneidmiller said he decided to bring his two children from Arizona to play in the sand when he heard about the increased police presence for New Year’s Eve. “It’s night and day,” said Schneidmiller, who is a police officer.

But Schneidmiller said there are not enough officers to handle the rowdy teenagers who invade the dunes on holidays. “It’s like asking somebody to stop Niagara Falls with a cork,” he said.

The Imperial County Board of Supervisors passed a resolution this month deeming law enforcement in the recreation area inadequate and requesting state assistance. When that plea for money failed, the Bureau of Land Management decided to fund the increased security out of its California budget. This long weekend was expected to cost $340,000.

Not everybody was receptive to the change. Cory Robert Baker, a machinist from the San Diego area, said there are too many officers and they are targeting the wrong people.

The 20-year-old said he comes out to Glamis eight times a year not for the dunes but for “the chicks, the beer and the food.” Aaron Barrack, 21, summed it up: “It’s the world’s biggest party with no rules.”

That’s exactly the problem, said the emergency medical technician Sharkey. The dunes are seen as the “last vestige of the American West,” and some visitors just don’t use common sense.

Felicia Probert, incident commander and chief ranger for the land bureau, said this weekend is a test run for Operation Imperial Dunes. If it works well, it will become a model for other holidays. But for now, officers are crossing their fingers and hoping that it works.