From Cannabis Culture online http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/2096.html

TWO MARIJUANA ACTIVISTS KILLED BY POLICE

by Pete Brady (04 Sept, 2001)

Tom Crosslin and Rolland Rohm shot to death during Rainbow Farm seige.

Two prominent Michigan marijuana activists were shot dead Labor Day
weekend, during a police siege of the activists' "Rainbow Farm" compound in
Vandalia, Michigan.

Tom Crosslin, a 47-year-old events promoter who hosted pro-marijuana
concerts and rallies on his rural Southern Michigan land, was shot dead by
federal and state police on Monday. Rolland Rohm, 28, was shot Tuesday
morning. Agencies involved in the fatal siege include the Cass County
Sheriff's Department, Michigan State Police and the Federal Bureau of
Investigation.

Crosslin, Rohm and their allies have been sponsoring counterculture events,
including two High Times "WHEE" festivals, for several years. Entertainers
like Merle Haggard and The Birds graced the stage at Rainbow Farms
happenings, which were also known for their freewheeling recreational
activities, such as the famous "nude hippie mountain mud slide."

Police and other anti-drug minions had spent years trying to shut down
Rainbow Farms using techniques similar to those used against Oregon pot
events promoter Bill Conde, New York events organizer Rob Uncle Sam, and
Washington landowner-activist Gideon Israel. Crosslin had bitterly
complained about police roadblocks, undercover officers, and other
harassment, which he believed were being used to keep people away from his
popular counterculture resort.

In May, police stormed Crosslin's 34-acre property and arrested him in
connection with alleged marijuana use and cultivation, as well as
possession of firearms. Crosslin and his attorneys insisted that the
arrests were a politically motivated attempt to shut down pro-marijuana
activities that were generally peaceful and posed no threat to the community.

Authorities responded by investigating Crosslin's accounting records and by
court-ordering him to abstain from holding any more marijuana-related
events on his land. They also initiated asset forfeiture proceedings, which
Crosslin described to friends as "the government trying to steal my
property because they don't like my political views."

Crosslin was out on $150,000 bond, facing 15 years in prison and the loss
of his property when he allegedly defied the court order and held a pot
event at Rainbow Farms in August.

Just before Labor Day weekend, officials told Crosslin his bond was going
to be revoked. Crosslin responded by setting fire to many of the buildings
on his property, and by allegedly shooting at media aircraft and police
aircraft that flew over his home as the situation became an armed siege.

As Labor Day weekend commenced, squadrons of FBI agents and foot soldiers
surrounded the farm. Although police reports about Crosslin's death were
not delivered in a timely manner and contain puzzling omissions, current
reports indicate that an FBI agent killed Crosslin Monday afternoon when
Crosslin and another activist discovered the agent on Rainbow Farms
property. Police allege that Crosslin pointed a gun at the agent before he
was shot.

The siege continued because Rohm and other Crosslin associates refused to
surrender. Police say Rohm was shot early Tuesday because he too pointed a
gun at an officer. Friends of Crosslin and Rohm who were camped near the
Farm in a support encampment disputed police reports, saying that the dead
pair were legally walking on their own property when they were shot in cold
blood by police.

Crosslin was widely respected in the North American marijuana movement and
even among his conservative non-pot smoking neighbors in Southern Michigan.
He had a 20 year history of civil rights activism. He bought and restored a
historic brick house built in 1807 that had been used by anti-slavery
"Underground Railroad" activists during the 1800's, intending to use the
house as an educational "bed and breakfast." He donated thousands of
dollars to local charities, and worked hard to keep hard drugs, sexual
harassment, and violence out of his popular events, which sometimes drew as
many as 20,000 visitors.

Cannabis movement videographer and potographer Chadman, whose digital
photos and movies have been widely distributed in cannabis media and
mainstream media, told Cannabis Culture that he had been to a dozen events
at Rainbow Farm in the last two years.

"Tom was a dedicated, caring guy," Chadman reported. "He wasn't a militia
guy or a gun nut, but he did believe in the Constitution and in freedom,
and he felt that if other people have a right to put on events where
thousands of people get drunk, shoot guns, tie cattle in ropes and
otherwise act crazy, that he had a right to provide a campground and
entertainment for our non-violent marijuana culture. He hated the marijuana
laws, and felt that people being busted for pot and the harassment of his
events was a sign that America has become a police state."

According to Chadman, Crosslin's resolve hardened after his arrest in May.

"He felt that the government was trying to destroy his beliefs and his
marijuana family," Chadman explained. "He told people that he was beginning
to think that he had to take this all the way, that he couldn't go on
allowing the government to attack him and his friends relentlessly without
good cause, that he had to 'go out in a blaze.' He felt that the government
was trying to kill him. I don't advocate the use of weapons or violence as
a way of legalizing marijuana, but Tom was pushed to this. He wasn't a
violent man or a wacko. I'm very sorry that he's gone and that the other
guy has been killed as well. Tom was a serious advocate for marijuana. I
had great times at his events. They were well-organized and real fun. It's
so sad. I guess Tom just couldn't take it any more. He decided to go out
fighting. He's another casualty of this stupid drug war."

From The Week Online with DRCNet
http://www.drcnet.org/wol/202.html#rainbowfarm

MICHIGAN DRUG WARRIORS DRIVE MARIJUANA ACTIVISTS TO THE BRINK, THEN GUN
THEM DOWN: STANDOFF ENDS WITH TWO DEAD AT RAINBOW FARM

Grover T. (Tom) Crosslin lived for the cause of marijuana
legalization. Early this week he died for it. Crosslin, 46, the owner
and operator of Rainbow Farm, an alternative campground and concert
site in Newberg Township outside of Vandalia, Michigan
(http://www.rainbowfarmcamp.com/), was shot and killed on his
property by an FBI agent Monday afternoon.

His long-time partner, Rolland Rohm, was shot and killed by Michigan
State Police on the property early Tuesday morning. The shootings
ended a stand-off that began last Friday afternoon, but the fallout
from the killings is only beginning.

Throughout the Labor Day weekend, according to law enforcement
accounts, Crosslin and Rohm systematically burned down the ten
structures on their beloved farm, shot at and hit a news helicopter
filming the fires, shot at and missed a police surveillance plane,
sprayed the woods bordering the 34-acre property with gunfire to keep
police at bay, and separately confronted law officers with raised
weapons, only to be shot dead.

[In the rural Midwest, the marijuana culture sometimes intersects with
an angry populism inscrutable to progressives on both coasts.

Here, where Waco and Ruby Ridge echo still and where militia men mix
with less militant redneck potheads and even more mellow country
hippies, conspiracy theories are already springing up around the killings.

Everything from the size of the alleged bullet holes in the news
chopper ("too big") to the alleged shooting at aircraft itself ("too
convenient" -- it allowed the FBI in), to the actual details of the
killings has already been challenged in the movement's electronic media.

But while the official version of events provided by state, local, and
federal officials remains unverified, it also remains so far
uncontradicted.]

As the four-day stand-off progressed, while negotiations between
Crosslin and Cass County Sheriff Joseph Underwood sputtered and
ultimately failed, Rainbow Farm supporters gathered nearby by the
dozens to mount a vigil and demand justice and a peaceful resolution
of the siege. "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible demand
violent revolution," read one sign at the roadside.

Beginning in 1996, Crosslin had sponsored pro-marijuana rallies under
a variety of names at Rainbow Farm. While he was a visible and
outspoken proponent of reforming the marijuana laws, the rallies
caused few legal problems until this year. But things began to unravel
in May when local law enforcement authorities, using the traffic death
of a youth who had attended the festival as a pretext, swept down on
the compound, arresting Crosslin and Rohm, among others, and charging
them with a variety of marijuana and firearms violations. Though
police emphasized the traffic death (which occurred the day after the
youth was at the campground) in justifying the bust at the time, they
later revealed that it came as the result of a two-year-long
investigation of Crosslin's activities at the farm.

By mid-summer, the pressure on Crosslin and Rohm was
mounting.

Crosslin faced 20 years in prison on the marijuana and weapons
charges, was out of jail on a $150,000 bail bond, and the state was
moving to seize Rainbow Farm under civil asset forfeiture proceedings.
A local judge had issued an injunction barring Crosslin from holding
any further marijuana-related gatherings at the campground. And in a
move that must have elevated the pair's situation from intolerable to
unbearable, Michigan child welfare authorities had taken Rohm's
12-year-old son and placed him in foster care after the May raid.

In mid-August, Crosslin defied the injunction, holding a small rally
at the campground. Police observing the property reported they had
seen Crosslin and Rohm smoking marijuana.

Cass County Prosecutor Scott Teter then moved to have Crosslin's bail
revoked, which in all probability meant that last Friday, when the
bail revocation hearing was scheduled, would have been his last taste
of freedom for years to come.

Crosslin didn't show up for the hearing.

As county officials were preparing a warrant for his arrest, they
received reports of fires at the farm's address on state highway M-60,
13 miles west of Three Rivers. Crosslin and Rohm, apparently deciding
that all was lost, had begun torching buildings. Police, claiming they
had received an anonymous tip that the fires were an ambush, stayed on
the perimeter, but built up their forces to include a SWAT team
complete with an armored personnel carrier.

By Monday, they were joined by FBI agents, who gained jurisdiction
because of the alleged firing at aircraft, a federal crime, and by
Monday afternoon, Crosslin was dead, shot by two of three FBI agents
in an observation post at his property line. Crosslin, armed and
wearing camouflage, according to law enforcement accounts, and
accompanied by 18-year-old Brandon Peoples, refused FBI orders to
surrender his weapon, instead pointed his rifle at them, and was shot
and killed.

Peoples, who had snuck past police lines onto the property, suffered
minor injuries, was questioned by the FBI and released. Under
instructions from the FBI, he has not spoken publicly about the shooting.

Rohm died early the next morning at the hands of Michigan State
Police, who, according to their own account, had moved in to accept
his surrender. Police said Rohm had agreed to surrender if he could
first meet with his son, but shortly before the agreed upon hour
another fire broke out and Rohm emerged from the burning building,
armed and in camouflage. He refused to surrender his weapon, police
said, instead pointing it at them. He was then shot and killed.

While the reactions of friends and supporters of Crosslin, Rohm, and
Rainbow farm fluctuate from shock to anger to despair to bewilderment
and back, prominent members of the marijuana reform movement who share
those sentiments are also having to do a cold political calculus.

The marijuana movement nationally is seeing record levels of support,
and Michigan is itself in the midst of petition drive to put a
marijuana legalization initiative on the ballot next year. Crosslin,
in fact, had long supported that effort.

Whether the Rainbow Farm killings will hurt or help the movement is
the question facing the politicos.

While some organizations queasy about the possible political fallout
have declined to comment on the shootings, National Organization for
the Reform of Marijuana Laws (http://www.norml.org) executive director
Keith Stroup talked to DRCNet about the politics of the incident.

"If the goal is to get the public to react with outrage to police use
of force, the facts are not perfect here," he said. "But remember,
this started out as indictment for marijuana.

With these laws, you invite this kind of situation that ends up as a
violent encounter.

These were two men who were ordinarily quite peaceable and
peace-loving, not violent and crazy, but they were driven to behave in
a hostile and irrational manner. If the authorities had not done all
that they did to these men, they would not have reacted the way they
did. I'm not certain I wouldn't do the same thing in similar
circumstances," he said.

"But one does not have to entirely defend the actions of these two men
to indict the police in this case," Stroup argued. "That they killed
Crosslin was a tragedy, but when they came back a few hours later and
shot Rohm, that was just inconceivable. Don't tell me the police had
no tools in their arsenal but lethal force.

If they find a bear rummaging in the trash, they go out and
anesthetize it. You'd think humans deserved at least the same
treatment. I hope there will be a grand jury to investigate these
killings," said Stroup, "I hope there will be indictments."

There is no word yet from local authorities on a grand jury -- the
role of Cass County Prosecutor Scott Teter as a key target of any
investigation makes a local grand jury problematic -- but the US
Justice Department has announced that it will investigate the shootings.

"This is dangerous territory politically," said Stroup, referring to
the possible impact of the killings on the prospects for Michigan's
ongoing marijuana legalization initiative campaign, the Personal
Responsibility Amendment (http://www.mi4norml.org). "Our folks in
Michigan feel a terrible sense of loss, but they are trying to figure
out how to respond without getting into the middle of a battle that is
tangential to their main goal. The association of this violence with
marijuana could make it more difficult for the PRA to gain support,
even though it obviously remains the correct position," Stroup said.
"But after the second killing, it is no longer possible to remain silent.

We cannot in good conscience sit by and be silent while they execute
marijuana offenders."

Saginaw attorney Greg Schmid is the man behind the PRA. "I knew these
guys," he told DRCNet. "I've been out there, I've spoken there a few
times. Like every other campground where there were rock concerts and
the like, people smoked pot. But they used to laugh about it. Tim was
a super nice guy," said Schmid. "Those guys did a lot of community
service work, handing out toys and Easter eggs and things like that.
But by last Friday, those guys had had enough.

They had had their kid taken and put in foster care."

Morel "Moses" Yonkers describes himself as a long-time friend of
Crosslin and Rohm despite having what he called a "falling-out" with
Crosslin last year. "I started working with Tom doing housing
renovations in Elkhart," he told DRCNet. "He was always talking about
wanting to buy a big, beautiful, peaceful place.

Then he got a chance to buy Rainbow Farm and he took it. I spent eight
years living on the farm with Tom and Rollie. Tom loved his freedom
and wanted to help make everyone else free, too," said Yonkers. For
Yonkers, the bust earlier this year and the subsequent persecution of
Crosslin by local authorities only amplified Crosslin's mistrust of
the government. "He really believed in liberty, and he watched the
government hard because of Waco and Ruby Ridge," said Yonkers. But it
was the loss of Rohm's child that really tore at the couple, he said.
"Rollie was at my camp just a few weeks ago crying about the kid,"
Yonkers said.

In one of his last communications, delivered through his lawyer during
the siege, Doreen Leo, Crosslin emphatically confirmed Yonkers and
Schmid's assessment of his motivation. "The right-wing prosecutor
(Teter) and his rubber stamp (Cass County) Judge (Michael E.) Dodge
have stolen our child and they are who we hold responsible. They no
longer serve the people, they only serve themselves. They must resign.

Admit publicly what they have done to our family," Leo
read.

While Schmid mourns the loss of an ally, he is also wary of the
political impact on the marijuana legalization initiative. "There are
a lot of people who are very angry about this," he told DRCNet, "and
that may help us get the signatures we need. But it may also excite
enough interest to beat us in a general election.

We are in the damage control mode right now."

While the field marshals wage their wars of position, Crosslin's and
Rohm's friends mourn and remember.

Moses Yonkers' spirits lifted audibly as he recalled with pride --
that Crosslin shared, he said -- that High Times had named the farm
"the 14th best place in the world to get stoned." "Tom believed in our
right to smoke," said Yonkers. To that end, Crosslin helped finance
his years on the hemp festival circuit. "We created the Hemp Center --
at first, it was basically just to hand out Rainbow Farm fliers -- but
Tom paid for my travel and expenses while I went to about every hemp
festival in America for five years," Yonkers told DRCNet.

Crosslin's generosity wasn't limited to the movement, according to
Yonkers. "Hell, I remember one year when the mayor came to us on
Christmas Eve saying there weren't enough toys for the town's kids.
Tom jumped up and charged $2,000 worth of presents on his Sears card.
He wasn't sure he could pay for it, but that didn't stop him. That's
the kind of guy he was."

Yonkers and others took issue with law enforcement depictions of the
farm's festivals as dens of depravity. "Those were beautiful events,"
he said. "I was there for Hemp Aid 2000, there were 5,000 people
around the campfires and peace was breaking out everywhere. We had
security people, but they didn't have much to do except direct
traffic, and maybe chase away the occasional tank of nitrous.

Yeah, people smoked pot -- these were pot rallies, you know. We spent
five or six years trying to change the marijuana laws, working with
Greg Schmid and the PRA."

Richard Lake of Escanaba, Michigan, also attended events at Rainbow
Farm. "I knew Tom from the hemp fests and saw him at the Ann Arbor
Hash Bashes. He talked there," Lake told DRCNet. Lake, who helps
operate the Media Awareness Project's (http://www.mapinc.org) drug
news archive, said lurid press accounts of goings-on at Rainbow Farm
taken from law enforcement sources were overdone. "I saw their efforts
to throw out people who were dealing drugs," said Lake. "They could
have found as much drug dealing at any rock concert or on any college
campus.

Are they closing down the college campuses?"

Other Crosslin supporters expressed their sentiments with
signs.

Brothers Darren and Lloyd Daniels, who live less than a mile down the
road from Rainbow Farm, put the blame squarely on Cass County
Prosecutor Scott Teter. "How does it feel to have innocent blood on
your hands, Teter?" asked a sign they placed in their yard. The
brothers told the local newspaper, the Herald-Palladium, that the
prosecution of Crosslin and Rohm typified Cass County's intolerance.
"I've got friends here getting busted with seeds and stems," Lloyd
said.

"The police should have realized that sending in FBI agents to spy on
the property was a provocation," said Lake. "Why? There was a series
of mistakes on both sides, I guess.

When it became clear to Tom that there was no escape, I'm not
surprised they burned the place down rather than give it to the
government. I wish the two of them had just gone to Canada. It's sad
and scary and a lot of people are angry and upset."

As for protests or other actions, Yonkers said no plans were firm yet.
"Right now, we're planning funerals," he said.

(Funeral services for Tim Crosslin will be held Saturday at 11:00am at
Walley Mills Zimmerman Funeral Home, 700 E. Jackson Blvd., Elkhart,
Indiana. Rohm's body is undergoing a second autopsy at the request of
his family; his funeral arrangements have not yet been announced.)

From Forfeiture Endangers American Rights http://www.fear.org/ekomp1.html

DRUG WAR WACO ON FBI CHIEF MUELLER'S FIRST DAY IN OFFICE FORFEITURE
STAND-OFF ENDS IN TWO DEATHS

by Ellen Komp, anti-Drug War activist, 09/05/01

Grover T. (Tom) Crosslin lived for the cause of marijuana legalization.
Early this week he died for it. Crosslin, 46, the owner and operator of
Rainbow Farm, an alternative campground and concert site in Newberg
Township outside of Vandalia, Michigan
(http://www.rainbowfarmcampground.com), was shot and killed on his property
by an FBI agent Monday afternoon. His long-time partner, Rolland Rohm, was
shot and killed by Michigan State Police on the property early Tuesday
morning. The shootings ended a stand-off that began last Friday afternoon,
but the fallout from the killings is only beginning.

Throughout the Labor Day weekend, according to law enforcement accounts,
Crosslin and Rohm systematically burned down the ten structures on their
beloved farm, shot at and hit a news helicopter filming the fires, shot at
and missed a police surveillance plane, sprayed the woods bordering the
34-acre property with gunfire to keep police at bay, and separately
confronted law officers with raised weapons, only to be shot dead.

Rohm's stepfather, John Livermore, said he and Rohm's mother drove all
night from Tennessee to try to help police negotiate, but were never
allowed to speak to Rohm, who Livermore said has a learning disability.
Livermore said he believes Rohm left the house because he thought police
were going to allow him to see his 12-year-old son, Robert. The boy had
been taken from the campground and put into foster care by the Family
Independence Agency after the drug arrests in May, according to Crosslin's
attorney Dori Leo.

Early Tuesday, Rohm had said he would surrender at 7 a.m. if his son were
brought to see him, Cass County Sheriff Joseph Underwood, Jr. said. The
sheriff said police were in the process of granting the request when
shortly after 6 a.m., a fire was reported at the compound. Rohm was then
seen leaving the residence with a long gun and walking into the yard,
Underwood said. That's when the confrontation with police took place.

Buzz Daily, 44, a Cass County farmer, said Crosslin and Rohm were known for
their generosity. At Christmas, he said, they would drive their pickup
truck into Vandalia and distribute gifts throughout the town of about 350
residents. They also would buy food and clothes for people staying at the
campground, he said.

Daily also lashed out at police, saying he could not imagine Crosslin or
Rohm brandishing a weapon. "I'm surprised that with all the money (police)
put into this, they didn't have any non-lethal means of resolving this,"
said Daily, who said he'd known the pair for about five years and attended
several HempAid festivals at the campground.

Daily and others said they weren't sure what would happen to Rainbow Farm.
But he urged those who support forfeiture reform or marijuana legalization
to come to the funerals for Crosslin and Rohm. Funeral arrangements had not
been determined on Tuesday afternoon, Rohm's family said.

Vandalia is about 30 miles northeast of South Bend, Ind., in southwest
Michigan. A historical marker in the town park describes Vandalia as a
one-time junction on the Underground Railroad. Slaves escaping through
Illinois and Indiana were taken in by local Quakers, who guided the slaves
east into Canada.

The campground, at 59896 Pemberton Road in Newberg Township, includes
shower and bathroom facilities, a coffee bar called The Joint and a
hemp-themed gift shop. Each year it hosts two festivals called HempAid and
RoachRoast, according to the Web site http://www.rainbowfarmcampground.com/.

This story was culled from several news accounts available at
http://www.mapinc.org.

From High Times http://www.hightimes.com/News/2001_09/rainbow.html
WEED WACO

by Steven Wishnia, Special to HighWitness News

Rainbow Farm's annual Hemp Aid and Roach Roast festivals had made it a
center for pot partying and activism in the Michigan-Indiana area. The
killings capped local authorities' long-running efforts to shut it down.

VANDALIA, MI-Rainbow Farm owner Tom Crosslin, 46, and his partner, Rolland
Rohm, 28, were killed by police Labor Day weekend during a four-day
standoff at the farm here.

Crosslin was shot to death Sept. 3 by two FBI agents, allegedly after he
pointed a gun at them. Rohm was killed by Michigan state police in a
similar scenario early the next morning. Brandon Peoples, 18, who was
walking with Crosslin when he was shot, suffered minor injuries.

Rainbow Farm's annual Hemp Aid and Roach Roast festivals had made it a
center for pot partying and activism in the Michigan-Indiana area. "It's
the Waco of weed," says Ann Arbor Hash Bash organizer Adam Brook. "Just to
think this is all over pot, it's absolutely ridiculous."

The killings capped local authorities' long-running efforts to shut the
farm down. Busted last May, Crosslin and Rohm were facing charges of
growing marijuana, gun possession and maintaining a drug house-undercover
state police had bought pot and other drugs at several festivals, and
accused the pair of letting people deal on the property. State police and
Cass County Prosecutor Scott Teter had also filed papers to forfeit the
farm, and had put Rohm's 12-year-old son in foster care.

The week before the standoff, authorities moved to revoke Crosslin and
Rohm's bail, saying they had violated a court order banning them from
holding events on the property. On Aug. 31, instead of going to a hearing
on the motion, the two began burning the farm's buildings, and shot the
tail of a TV station's helicopter flying overhead. Over 100 state police,
county sheriffs and FBI agents barricaded the road by the farm.

"They thought it was a police helicopter," says "Buggy," a 34-year-old
Vandalia farmhand who served as a go-between between Crosslin, Rohm and
authorities during the ensuing standoff. "The government pushed people too
far. There was a motion to lose their land, and they'd already lost their
child." Family members and sympathizers agree that Crosslin was intensely
frustrated by the prospects of losing his land, his liberty and his family,
but question the police story and tactics. "It seems very suspicious to us
all," says Crosslin's cousin Jim Spry, a 53-year-old truckdriver from
Elkhart, IN. "Who knows that Tommy even had a gun on him?"

The pair's lawyer, Dori Leo of Kalamazoo, who was barred from the property
by police, says what bothers her most is the police and FBI snipers "who
lay in wait for a confrontation to happen."

"Why did they have to use lethal force?" she asks. "I still don't believe I
was in any danger from either of them. That's why I was willing to go in."
"Tommy smoked his grass for years," adds Spry. "He wanted to create a place
where people could relax and be free."

And other than Peoples, the only living witnesses left are in law enforcement.

Go to THCTV http://www.hightimes.com/THCTV/index.tpl to see a video tribute
to the Rainbow Farm Campground.