RECALLING RAINBOW

DOWNPOUR DOESN'T SNUFF MEMORIAL VIGIL

CASSOPOLIS -- The downpour didn't matter.

Neither did their soaked-through clothing or the smeared writing on their
signs.

The dozen or so people who met outside the old Cass County Courthouse on
Monday afternoon to remember their friends, Tom Crosslin and Rollie Rohm,
couldn't have cared less that the skies had opened up to drench their outing.

"It's very important to remember," said Jacob Karr who came to Cassopolis
from outside Traverse City, Mich., for the memorial vigil. "We can't
forget; otherwise, they could do it again."

"They" refers to the FBI or law enforcement in general, while "again"
refers to the killings of Crosslin and Rohm after a four-day standoff at
Rainbow Farm Campground near Vandalia over Labor Day weekend 2001.

The two men -- seen by their friends as martyrs of the war on drugs -- had
become outspoken activists for the legalization of marijuana.

They often held pro-legalization festivals at Crosslin's 37-acre
campground, which brought in thousands of visitors.

Rainbow Farms ultimately caught the eye of local law enforcement, which saw
the festivals as a vehicle for the sale and use of illegal narcotics.

Police eventually gathered enough evidence to file criminal drug charges
against Crosslin and Rohm, and the campground was eventually threatened
with possible seizure.

Both men were facing prison, and many believe that, combined with the
potential seizure of the campground, is what led the men to engineer their
standoff.

The standoff became heightened after Crosslin fired shots at a WNDU- TV
(Channel 16) helicopter, which was checking out a fire that had been
started at the campground.

According to former Cass County Prosecutor Scott Teter's report on the
shooting, Crosslin thought the helicopter was law enforcement.

There was round-the-clock surveillance and the property had been blocked
off by the Cass County Sheriff's Office, Michigan State Police, FBI and
other law enforcement.

After four days had passed, Crosslin was killed Sept. 3, 2001, by an FBI
sharpshooter, after reportedly pointing a rifle at him while walking to a
neighboring home for food.

Rohm was killed the next day, after setting the farmhouse he shared with
Crosslin on fire and heading into an open area behind the home.

Michigan State Police troopers in an armored vehicle moved in to arrest
him, but he was shot when he reportedly raised a rifle and aimed it at the
vehicle.

But the friends who gathered Monday don't believe that account.

"It's straight up a murder," said Morel Moses Yonkers, who lived at Rainbow
Farm for 10 years leading up to the standoff. "They have non- lethal ways
to stop people from doing things.

"They didn't intend on using them. They flat murdered my friends."

Yonkers, who runs the Hemp Center on West Marion Street in Elkhart,
believes that more of his friends will die in the same fashion that
Crosslin and Rohm did.

"For marijuana and $1,500 in taxes?" he asked. "We can find someone in
every city in the United States that owes $1,500 in taxes and grows some
weed. Are they going to kill them all? Where will we get our taxpayers from?"

Despite the low turnout, Yonkers called the event a success.

"We expected our friends," he said. "People came from Detroit, Traverse
City. They didn't just drive 30 minutes. They drove five hours to be here."

James Parker, a Libertarian activist who often set up a booth at the
campground, said he didn't know Crosslin well or Rohm at all, but the
"unresolved questions" surrounding their deaths brought him to downtown
Cassopolis.

"They've got to reopen the case," the Hillsdale man said. "They've got to
release the full records of the autopsy and the full records of the state
police report."

And while those questions still seem unanswered to the friends of Crosslin
and Rohm, the cause embraced by both men remained on display Monday.

Cindy Binkley, of Bristol, said Americans should be able to legally use
marijuana.

"There are people who are sick, who are dying and it's been proven to
help," she said.