The typical law enforcement party line is that if a hiker stumbles onto an illegal pot growing operation in a national or state park, that the hiker could get killed.
Has this actually ever happened in the u.s.?
While I’m sure the potential for violence and death may be there, I think it is overblown, and I not sure a “civilian” killing has ever happened, due to an inadvertent discovery.
I’m texting a former NPS Ranger as we speak. It may take a while to get an answer though, because she works in a medical lab in a basement and doesn’t get cell reception.
It’s documented that Mexican gangs are (with their own personnel) running some on the US pot growing operations in remote sections of the south-west and north-east. Given that these folks kill their competitors like flies I don’t think they would value the lives of nosy hikers all that much.
Yes, that’s the thought, and it makes sense that this would be true. But… Has it really happened? Where? And how often does it happen?
I think it’s less of an event then I’m being led to believe. I guess I’m supposed to think this happens “all the time”, which makes me think something like 10-50 murders of this type a year (this is my total wag).
The reality might be that it has never happened, or maybe a couple have happened…I just don’t know.
Marijuana fields are notorious for being booby trapped with explosives, fishhooks, spring guns, spikes, etc. To discourage trespassers and punish law enforcement attempting to seize the plants. A quick Google search gives a 1994 news story about three hikers killed by booby traps after stumbling onto a pot field. Can’t link to it on my cell phone, but it’s easy enough to find.
It is an issue for law enforcement, there’s no question about that. An NPS Ranger is more likely to be killed in the line of duty than any other federal LEO. And the main reason that’s true is because of illegal activity at the parks which border Mexico, Such as Big Bend NP.
When my sister’s ex-husband worked at Hawaii Volcanos NP, people would approach him and offer him large sums of money to tell them where the pot fields were. He said that when you’re a measly GS-6, that amount of money is pretty tempting. He said he came close to caving more than once.
I’m confused. Why would an NPS Ranger not be immediately reporting pot fields to the local authorities? Why would this be information he holds secretly?
When you’re an NPS Ranger and you have knowledge of marijuana cultivation on federal public land, you are the local authorities. Law enforcement may know where a field is but not move on it immediately, for example they may run surveillance for several weeks to bust the growers returning to tend the plants.
Remote? I live int he SF Bay area, and one of these is found pretty much every year within a few miles of my house. The Santa Cruz mountains are prime growing areas.
Exactly. It took three years to get all the rolling meth labs out of Yosemite, even when law enforcement knew they were there. You may recall a disastrous (from a PR standpoint) incident that occurred about 20 years ago in which some LA County Sheriff’s Deputies executing a search warrant on a suspected pot farmer shot and killed an affluent rancher in the Santa Monica Mountains named Donald Scott. My BIL was there when it happened, serving as a representative of the Park Service; he was one of the principle investigators of the case. There are weeks of planning that usually go into something as seemingly mundane as busting a pot grower. There’s generally a substantial amount of interagency communication—one of the key issues that has to be decided on beforehand is when everybody is going to get together to do it, and which agency is going to be the prosecuting agency, among numerous other decisions.
We had something like that happen nearby. It was a field of poppies rather than a pot farm… but similar circumstances.
And then there’s this shooting of two who stumbled onto a pot growing operation in Colorado. Not killed, but seriously injured:
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/foothills/man-gets-48-years-for-execution-style-shooting-of-two-house-cleaners-who-stumbled-upon-pot-grow
“people would approach him and offer him large sums of money to tell them where the pot fields were”
That’s a new method to me. Ask the cops where to get dope. huh. Never really occurred to me.
Once, while doing fieldwork in college, my advisor and I stumbled upon a marijuana plant taller than I am (I’m 6’1"). It was staked, fertilized, and all the nearby saplings were removed so it could get maximum sunlight. After gawking at it for about 30 seconds, we came to the conclusion that it would be a lot safer to get the hell outta there. FAST.
A lot of people think of park rangers and forest rangers as tour guides. People forget that they are law-enforcement agents.
Some of them are tour guides. The term ‘Ranger’ refers to any salaried employee of the NPS. If you’re not in Maintenance, you’re a Ranger. This is the only agency of the DOI in which this is true. To differentiate a Ranger who possesses a law enforcement commission from one who doesn’t, you need to specifically refer to him or her as a ‘commissioned Ranger,’ or say that he or she works for Visitor Protection.
The people who solicited information from my sister’s ex-husband knew full well that he was an LEO. You don’t just walk up to somebody who plunges toilets for a living and offer him a bag full of money to give you sensitive information concerning illegal activity.
However, you’re right in the fact that some people have absolutely no concept whatsoever that some employees of the NPS are commissioned LEOs. People have pulled up to Rangers involved in felony car stops, rolled down their windows, and asked for directions.
Drug growers are paranoid about rip-offs. Obviously, stealing someone else’s crop is much less labour intensive than growing it yourself. Accordingly, growers often employ crop-sitters to guard the site. These are not the most reliable of people, nor are they armed with steady judgment. I’ve prosecuted killing cases where crop-sitters shot people looking to steal the crop, but from the crop-sitters perspective, they had no way of knowing if the raiders were genuine raiders or lost hikers. Not as though they can ask before they open fire.
This is exactly why those who think pot prices will go down with legalization are wrong. They think the pressure of illegality being removed will lower prices, but any pot grower is far less worried about the law, than about those trying to steal a crop.
That happens with all law enforcement.
I should think that if anyone could grow it, illegal activity would decline.
Ever hear of Prohibition? Al Capone, rum runners and all that? After re-legalization of alcohol, prices went down, as did associated violence.
I’m surprised that’s even debatable. The real debate has always been on the moral/health side of the equation, rather than the economic side.