News (Media Awareness Project) - US CA: Search For Marijuana Field Guard Who Fled Raid |
| Title: | US CA: Search For Marijuana Field Guard Who Fled Raid |
| Published On: | 2005-08-08 |
| Source: | San Francisco Chronicle (CA) |
| Fetched On: | 2008-08-19 23:50:40 |
Santa Clara County
SEARCH FOR MARIJUANA FIELD GUARD WHO FLED RAID HALTED
Authorities have called off their search for an armed man who fled into the
remote Los Gatos hills after a Friday shootout with authorities raiding a
3-acre field of marijuana.
Federal agents and Santa Clara sheriff's deputies spent Friday night near
the grove hoping to arrest its owners.
Earlier in the morning, a warden from the U.S. Department of Fish and Game
was shot in the legs in a gunbattle with two armed men guarding the pot
field. Gunplay began when authorities arrived to seize the more than 50,000
plants. The 25-year-old warden was recovering Saturday, but one man
guarding the plants was fatally shot and the other fled in Friday's raid.
After the shootout, a team of more than three dozen camouflage-clad SWAT
officers descended by helicopter into the pot grove in a steep, remote area
of Mount Umunhum that is closed to the public, and reachable only after a
90- minute climb.
The danger of the manhunt and the difficulty of the terrain slowed rescue
efforts, said Santa Clara County sheriff's Deputy Terrance Helm.
"The field is even larger than we thought, more than a mile wide," said Bob
Cooke, special agent in charge of the California Department of Justice
Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement in San Jose.
His agency expected to have all the plants removed by Saturday evening and
plans to bury them in a secret location. Federal agents are helping the
Santa Clara Sheriff's Department collect evidence from nearby campsites
where the marijuana field workers ate and slept.
"We're picking up food, trash, things like that," Cooke said.
He estimated that more than a dozen people tended the field. Although the
bust is not the largest in California, it ranks pretty high, Cooke said.
Last year, authorities destroyed 621,315 plants statewide. Slightly more
than 6,000 of them came from Santa Clara County.
The number of plants from the field in Los Gatos is at least nine times
larger than the entire Santa Clara County take last year.
The coroner will conduct an autopsy today to identify the man who was killed.
SEARCH FOR MARIJUANA FIELD GUARD WHO FLED RAID HALTED
Authorities have called off their search for an armed man who fled into the
remote Los Gatos hills after a Friday shootout with authorities raiding a
3-acre field of marijuana.
Federal agents and Santa Clara sheriff's deputies spent Friday night near
the grove hoping to arrest its owners.
Earlier in the morning, a warden from the U.S. Department of Fish and Game
was shot in the legs in a gunbattle with two armed men guarding the pot
field. Gunplay began when authorities arrived to seize the more than 50,000
plants. The 25-year-old warden was recovering Saturday, but one man
guarding the plants was fatally shot and the other fled in Friday's raid.
After the shootout, a team of more than three dozen camouflage-clad SWAT
officers descended by helicopter into the pot grove in a steep, remote area
of Mount Umunhum that is closed to the public, and reachable only after a
90- minute climb.
The danger of the manhunt and the difficulty of the terrain slowed rescue
efforts, said Santa Clara County sheriff's Deputy Terrance Helm.
"The field is even larger than we thought, more than a mile wide," said Bob
Cooke, special agent in charge of the California Department of Justice
Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement in San Jose.
His agency expected to have all the plants removed by Saturday evening and
plans to bury them in a secret location. Federal agents are helping the
Santa Clara Sheriff's Department collect evidence from nearby campsites
where the marijuana field workers ate and slept.
"We're picking up food, trash, things like that," Cooke said.
He estimated that more than a dozen people tended the field. Although the
bust is not the largest in California, it ranks pretty high, Cooke said.
Last year, authorities destroyed 621,315 plants statewide. Slightly more
than 6,000 of them came from Santa Clara County.
The number of plants from the field in Los Gatos is at least nine times
larger than the entire Santa Clara County take last year.
The coroner will conduct an autopsy today to identify the man who was killed.
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