MEDICAL POT ADVOCATE HAS CHARGES DROPPED

Richard Evans says cops trashed his home, slandered him with
accusation of possessing porn

The district attorney's office has dropped drug and pornography charges
against a nationally known medical marijuana advocate, who angrily accused
police of deliberately targeting his residence for a raid and slandering him.

Richard Evans, 35, was arrested following a Friday night police visit to
his residence in the 300 block of South Van Ness Avenue that police said
had been initiated by a silent alarm call. But Evans told The Examiner
Tuesday that he believed police had intentionally triggered the alarm as an
excuse to get inside his residence, where they knew he was growing
marijuana for medical use. Police completely trashed his apartment, he
said, and left one of his four-inch knives lodged in a door in what he
feels was a thinly veiled threat.

"San Francisco police are rogue agents; it's out of control," said Evans.
"I think they were triggering the alarm so they could bust in the back door."

Evans also said that police had seized from his apartment two professional
art books by renowned San Francisco photographer Jock Sturges that
contained nude images. He vehemently denied possessing any prurient pictures.

"The cops slandered me by saying any photograph in my house was
pornographic," he said. "I say, if they have something pornographic, let's
look at it."

Evans also said he had a doctor's recommendation for using pot and that he
was suspicious of how police had come to raid his home. He said he was
growing marijuana strictly for medical use.

Evans said he had learned Tuesday that the district attorney's office had
dropped charges of growing marijuana, possession of marijuana for sale and
possession of child pornography.

Lt. Kitt Crenshaw, the officer in charge of the raid, confirmed that the
charges against Evans had been dropped.

Prosecutors said they wanted to investigate the case further before
deciding whether to refile charges, Crenshaw said.

Evans said he ran the San Francisco Patients and Caregivers Health Center
on Mission Street and had previously been director of Americans for
Compassionate Use.

Events leading to the arrest began late Friday night when officers at the
Mission police station said they had received a silent commercial security
alarm calling them to an apartment on the 300 block of South Van Ness,
Crenshaw said.

Believing the device may have been triggered by someone having a medical
emergency, officers forced their way into the rear of the apartment, he said.

Inside, officers said, they found marijuana and summoned narcotics
detectives, who obtained a search warrant and seized marijuana plants. They
also seized what Crenshaw initially estimated to be 17 pounds of packaged
marijuana. Tuesday, however, he said officers actually had found about "10
or 11 pounds."

Evans said, "It seems awful weird that the alarm went off like that. Seems
awfully fishy. It almost seems like they wanted to find a way in here."

His apartment was "trashed" by police, who left a knife stuck through the
door of one of the apartment's growing rooms, Evans said.

"They stabbed it right through the door, just as an act of meanness," Evans
said. "It's almost like they were pissed that they didn't find more money
or something like that."

Police officials were unavailable for comment about the knife incident.

Evans had recently applied for a city permit to operate a medical marijuana
club, Crenshaw said.

In 1996, police in Covington, Ky., raided an apartment where Evans
allegedly operated a medical marijuana buying club, across from the county
courthouse. Evans told a reporter at the time that he was head of Americans
for Compassionate Use, and had operated 37 buying clubs around the country.
He said the clubs had to buy marijuana on the street because they had no
other source, but added, "We are currently working on ways to make sure we
no longer have to buy it off the street."

Checked-by: Pat Dolan