'Gestapo Tactics' Trap Americans At Yellowstone

‘They looked like Hulk Hogans, armed. They told us you can’t go outside’

WND

Senior citizens say authorities used “gestapo tactics,” locking them inside Yellowstone National Park under “armed guard” during the Obama administration’s government shutdown – and officials even refused to allow them to stop for bathroom breaks during the two-and-a-half hour drive out of the park.

A guide leading a tour group caught inside Yellowstone when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid rejected compromise efforts from the U.S. House on a funding plan and the parts of the federal government closed down a week ago said the National Park Service used “Gestapo tactics” on the visitors.

Gordon Hodgson spoke in a telephone interview with the Livinston, Mont., Enterprise about the 41 tourists he took into the nation’s first national park, in the northwest corner of Wyoming, on a trip scheduled before the shutdown.

Park officials told him they were allowed to stay their scheduled two nights at the historic Old Faithful Inn, but they could not do anything, Hodgson said.

Even so, he said he took the group out for a drive in the park and he pulled over to let passengers take photos of the park’s native bison.

A ranger showed up immediately.

“She told me you need to return to your hotel and stay there,” Hodgson told the Enterprise. “This is just Gestapo tactics. We paid a lot to get in. All these people wanted to do was take some pictures.”

He said the group then was threatened with trespassing charges.

“The national parks belong to the people,” he said. “This isn’t right.”

Park spokesman Al Nash defended the actions in an interview with the Enterprise.

“We don’t have staff on duty to deal with any ordinary operational issues,” he said. When the park is closed, everything is closed, he said.

“All we could do was eat dinner in the dining room. It was like a ghost town,” Hodgson said.

One member of the group, Pat Vaillancourt, of Newburyport, Mass., told her local newspaper, the Newburyport News, that even while they were allowed to stay in the Old Faithful area, they were watched.

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Reposted with permission.