Marijuana probe a big boo-boo for cops

[EC]

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-sun22.html


September 22, 2005

BEL AIRE, Kan. -- The police thought they'd found marijuana plants growing in a former mayor's backyard. They took pictures, got a search warrant and went back for a closer look.

They found sunflowers.

Harold and Carolyn Smith had grown the plants from seeds given to them by their son, a wildlife biologist.

Kansas is known as the Sunflower State -- which made the error even more baffling, the Smiths' attorney said.

Are these cops just dumb or did they want to find something...

[Alpharetta]

1. Oh that flag looks satanic to me

or maybe islamic. Either way, that plant looks suspicious and probably pagan.

[MADem]

2. Was that former mayor a democrat???

Man, what idiots!! And the STATE FLOWER, too!!!

Time to sue, IMHO. They just will not back off unless and until they get slapped, hard. This police state nonsense is getting absurd...

[damntexdem]

6. And look at that steamboat on the flag --

what's it doing chasing those buffalo?

And notice the inscription in Latin. Ad astra per aspera. To the stars through difficulties? Just what stars are they talking about, moviestars? Well, you know how THEY use drugs!

[henslee]

3. In 92, Don Scott, millionare Malibu rancher was killed by L.A. County

sherriff's in a pre-dawn raid looking for marijuana that was not there. It was a land grab attempt gone bad. Here are the details/link....http://www.fear.org/scott15.html

Forfeiture Squads Kill California Millionaire

by Brenda Grantland, Esq.

On October 2, 1992, a "task force" composed of L.A. County sheriff's deputies, DEA agents and U.S. Park Service officers executed a search warrant -- crossing Los Angeles County lines into Ventura County (without notifying Ventura County police) -- on California millionaire Don Scott's estate.

The search warrant was based on information from an informant that marijuana was growing on Scott's 250 acre estate, a piece of land coveted by the government. DEA agents planned to use this to seize Scott's estate, which federal officials had earlier tried to buy to incorporate into its scenic corridor in the Santa Monica Mountains. "But Scott would never negotiate with government officials, whom he distrusted," according to the Los Angeles Times.

The task force arrived at Scott's estate before 9 a.m.. They crashed through the door and pushed Scott's wife, Frances Plante, through the kitchen into the living room. She screamed "Don't shoot me! Don't kill me!", apparently awakening her husband, who came downstairs brandishing a gun over his head. According to Plante, the officers told him to lower the gun, and, as he lowered his arm, they shot him to death. They left him lying in a pool of blood on the floor as they searched the premises, finding no trace of marijuana anywhere on the estate.

When Scott's wife ran to the body, they "hustled her out of the house." Recorded phone conversations show that while the dead or dying millionaire lay in a pool of his own blood, police used the phone to make calls, and answered a call from one of Scott's neighbors, telling the neighbor Scott was "busy." Several weeks before the raid -- according to Malibu Surfside News reporter Anne Soble, (who covered this story in extensive and probing detail) -- a game warden and a California Coastal Commission employee paid a visit to the Scotts, bringing with them a six-pack of beer. During the visit, they asked for a tour of the Chumash Indian trails on the property, which the Scotts refused because of rattlesnakes. Scott's widow, Frances Plante, believes the visit was connected to the investigation leading to the raid -- particularly since U.S. Park Service agents -- who had an obvious interest in obtaining the property -- participated in the raid. Part of the allure of the estate is its repute as an archaeological site of the Chumash Indians -- a fact not missed by the forfeiture squads, who seized old maps and other historical documents relating to the property, during the fatal October 2 raid, according to Scott's wife, Frances Plante.

[AX10]

5. another reminder as to why I don't support the "war on drugs"....

....or the FOP.

[Southpaw Bookworm]

4. Similar case in WV

About 15 years ago. Town cops (in Osage or some other place near Mo-town) bust down the door and arrest some elderly woman because she had "marijuana" growing under a hydroponic system in her trailer. They had copies of her receipts for the gro-lights, had been peeking through the windows, the whole nine yards. The marijuana turned out to be . . .



TOMATOES!


:rofl: