WARDENS ON FRONT LINES OF POT RAIDS

The annual cat-and-mouse game between marijuana farmers and police
raiding parties drew little public attention until a shootout wounded
an officer -- a state game warden -- and killed a suspect two years
ago in Northern California.

A similar pot-raid shootout this month in Lytle Creek, near north
Fontana, left another suspect dead. Again, the raiding party included
a game warden.

With an estimated 80 percent of the outdoor "marijuana grows"
discovered in national forests and on other public land, game wardens
often are on the front line of pot raids. Because the forest is their
beat, they function as part police officer and part guide for local
sheriff's deputies and state narcotics officers. Story continues below
Frank Bellino / The Press-Enterprise Matt Shanley, 33, a California
Department of Fish & Game warden, removes his gear after participating
on Sept. 20 in a marijuana seizure in San Bernardino National Forest,
east of Hemet.

"This year, every single day (this summer), we've pulled at least one
major grow -- 2,000 to 15,000 plants -- from a national forest in
California," said Warden Matt Shanley, of the California Department of
Fish & Game.

Shanley, 33, was a member of the raiding party involved in the Sept.
10 shootout in the Lytle Creek portion of the San Bernardino National
Forest.

Investigators said a gunman shot at the officers, whose return fire
killed the assailant. Two other suspects escaped, they said.

Shanley is under orders from state narcotics officials not to discuss
the shooting. He did discuss the other 120-plus raids in which he has
participated during the past two summers while assigned full time to a
state-operated Campaign Against Marijuana Planting task force.

"Most of the (pot) gardens that I have entered, we've found some type
of firearm or ammunition," he said.

Pot gardens in California usually are owned and operated by Mexican
narcotics trafficking organizations that hire illegal immigrants to
grow, package and guard the marijuana, officials say.

During 2006 alone, the task forces seized almost 1.7 million pot
plants worth more than $6.7 billion, task force records show. Each
plant is said to be capable of producing an average of one pound of
pot, worth an estimated $4,000.

In Shanley's view, the outdoor pot farms are a danger to hikers,
hunters, fishermen and landowners, as well as police.

"If hikers go into the garden and start snooping around, they could
potentially be targeted," Shanley said.

His advice to forest visitors: Stay on designated hiking trails. At
the first sign of a pot farm, record the location -- with GPS
coordinates, if possible -- then immediately leave and call police.

Any serious hiker can stumble onto a marijuana farm, said Lt. John
Nores, a game warden who was part of the August 2005 pot raid that
resulted in the wounding of Warden Kyle Kroll and the killing of a
marijuana cultivation suspect.

"If you're walking along a streambed that has water flowing in the
summer, there's a 50-50 chance of finding a grow," he said.

"You may not find it right off the hiking trail. But you will find it
eventually, at least half the time, if you continue to hike that channel."

The tip-off will be the garden hoses that move irrigation water from
creeks to pot gardens, he said.

"We found a grow less than 100 yards from a children's hiking trail
and within a few miles of Stanford University in Palo Alto," he
recalled. "There was a hiking trail that hundreds of people had been
using for months. It was right under their noses."

The potential for violence is climbing, Nores said, because the police
pot-eradication teams are becoming more successful in finding the
marijuana farms and because the growers are planting more and more pot
gardens to compensate.

"If they can get two grows out of 20 that aren't eradicated by law
enforcement, they can make their money," he said.

Nores and Kroll were among a seven-man security team that planned to
take control of a pot farm so that an eradication team could remove
the plants.

Pot farm eradication is a priority for game wardens because the farms
result in environmental damage from chemicals, trash and human waste,
he said.

"They're killing animals. They're killing fish. And they're polluting
streams," said Nores. "They dam up the creeks and streams. They use
fertilizers and pesticides (in the irrigation pools) and they shoot it
directly to the plants."

Kroll was shot through both legs by a high-powered rifle bullet, Nores
said. Officers returned fire, killing a man who was armed with a
sawed-off shotgun, Nores said.

"We put up a perimeter around Kyle, started first-aid, treated for
shock and called for paramedics," Nores recalled. "But it took us
three hours to get him off that hill."

A state forestry helicopter flew over the scene twice but wouldn't
land because gunmen were still believed to be in the area, said Nores.

In the aftermath of the shooting, Nores said the task force has
agreements with several law enforcement and military organizations to
provide air support during raids. And the team usually takes more
officers on a raid.

"We try to take at least 10," Nores said.

The team also has better communications and medical support, he
said.

The bottom line is that pot farming is a real danger to both law
enforcement officers and civilians, Nores said.

"It's not just people making a little money growing marijuana in our
forests. It's dangerous. It's violent," he said.

"There's a seriousness to it that people don't fully understand."