the one guy who linked the munincipal code gave the right answer, you should thank him.
I remember when I was little, lived near marquette school, I was shooting my red ryder in the backyard after school, neither parent was home, I must have been 11. this was a big house with a comparatively large back yard and fence enclsoure. cops let themselves into the fenced enclosure and came around edge of house quiet like when I was later playing basketball by myself. I had already squared my rifle away inside. cops came asked me if there was " a man with a rifle" in the backyard. I'm like huh? No but I was shooting my bb gun. They're like "mind if we see it?" I'm like yeah, sure! I kind of like the idea of showing them my bb gun. Took them inside in my innocence and then my mom shows up and SHE IS PISSED.
She immediately ordered them out of the house. & called her lawyer ( my dad, LOL) who read them the riot act over the phone. As a ten year old, I was so embarassed, at my own foolishness for inviting cops into the home; and for the castigation my mother unleashed on the cops for entering her home with only the permission of an eleven year old-- which I thought seemed harsh at the time and I was afraid I would get into even more trouble. Yet, In retrospect it was one of the finest examples of "home defense" and "civil liberties" I ever witnessed and years later when I read works about how to exercise one's own fourth amendment rights I could always look back on my mother's example.
not that it was a bad entry-- they could have well argued they had probable cause and were given permission by the ten year old-- and these were decent cops just responding to a call and making out a routine report, they didnt cuff me or haul me off to juve or act stupidly-- but my mother was righteously enraged to find police in her home without her own permission and no warrant and she let them have it in a way that only a citizen absolutely well versed and secure and confident in her rights could have done.
The cops went out to the backyard whence they came retreating from my mother's acidic words and finished their report there and apologized. I got a long lecture too plus a short one from my dad who told me it was against muni code so just dont do it again. I dont think he realized it was against code. I sure didnt and didnt know that until the coppers said so. From my parents I had permission to shoot at the squirrels with the little red ryder and in my childlike mind I wasnt doing anything wrong.
In retrospect the cops should have just asked me when my parents would be home and came back later. Entering the home on a ten year old's report was a little heavy handed back in that day. But we lived in a big house one the edge of neighbhorhood turning dark with crime and they may have been acting "with an abudance of caution." Who knows. I'm glad in retrospect I had the rifle put away already, that's for sure.
yesterday was Mother's day and I hope some of y'all enjoy that story. I am fortunate.
