DEAN KUIPERS DISCUSSES THE DEADLY 2001 STANDOFF AT RAINBOW FARM IN MICHIGAN

Scott Simon, Host:

Tom Crosslin wanted to build a utopia for alternative recreation in rural
southwestern Michigan. He called it Rainbow Farm, and it was a campground
for people who just didn't fit in at traditional campground of America
sites. They smoked marijuana or were gay or just wanted to be left
alone. Tom Crosslin and his partner, Rollie Rohm, fit all of these
descriptions, and two years ago, they were shot dead by government
sharpshooters after a four-day standoff with local, state and federal
authorities. The story of what happened to Tom Crosslin and Rollie Rohm is
told by reporter Dean Kuipers in the October issue of Playboy
magazine. Mr. Kuipers joins us from our studios at NPR West.

Thanks very much for being with us.

Mr. DEAN KUIPERS (Reporter, "Siege at Rainbow Farm"): Thank you, Scott. My
pleasure.

SIMON: And how does it happen that the owners of a hippie campground in a
rural part of Michigan wind up in a standoff?

Mr. KUIPERS: Well, they got in a feud with the local prosecutor out there,
and even then, it might not have turned into this kind of standoff, you
know, if it weren't for the particular character of all the characters
involved, I think.

SIMON: Well, that's what we're trying to understand. And maybe first, we
have to begin with this region of southwestern Michigan, which is rural,
Cass County, not far from the Indiana-Michigan border, not the kind of
place a lot of people would think would be congenial to a hippie retreat;
but you say just the opposite.

Mr. KUIPERS: Sure. It's definitely in, you know, a part of the world that,
you know, William Berles (ph) would have called it an area of
Johnsons. It's definitely a people who like to be left alone, and they
respect their neighbors. And, you know, Tom and Rollie, even though they
were gay, they were basically good old boys in a lot of ways, and I think
there were plenty of people who didn't agree with Tom and Rollie's
marijuana politics but who still didn't want anybody to go in there and
mess with their farm. That rubbed everyone there the wrong way, I think.

SIMON: Well, also explain to us, if you could, there's, apparently, a
loophole in the laws in Michigan that made it possible for people to openly
smoke marijuana illegally...

Mr. KUIPERS: Oh, right. Right.

SIMON: ...but enjoins the police from coming onto private property.

Mr. KUIPERS: Smoking pot is a misdemeanor offense, and I did have it
confirmed by the prosecutor who was working at that time, Scott Teter, that
they would be reticent to go onto private property to serve a ticket. So
basically this was, you know, what I say in the article, is the thin green
line he drew around his farm.

Tom knew that to be in the house with a group of people represented--broke
another law and a crack house law that's called maintaining a drug house,
but there is no such law for being out in a field. So amazingly, you know,
having 3,000 people standing out in the middle of your field doing this was
something altogether different, and people were pretty reticent to go out
and try to bust that.

SIMON: You described what they called the hemp festivals...

Mr. KUIPERS: Right.

SIMON: ...that were held out in their fields...

Mr. KUIPERS: Right.

SIMON: ...on Rainbow Farm. Merle Haggard played there. So did The Byrds.

Mr. KUIPERS: Right. And Tommy Chong; and John Sinclair spoke there. There
was a number of pretty top-level acts that came out there.

SIMON: I think we have to note at the same time, although Tom Crosslin
tried to discourage people from going beyond marijuana, there were some
people out there who were using LSD, coke, etc.

Mr. KUIPERS: Evidently so. I mean, the police had undercover officers out
there for years, and they busted people for doing all kinds of things. I
believe, though, that the big thrust of their investigation was to try to
tie that to Mr. Crosslin. That was the only way that they could actually
sort of shut this thing down, and they never could do it. So I think that
was always kind of a sticking point there.

SIMON: Tell us a little, if you can, about the country prosecutor, Scott Teter.

Mr. KUIPERS: Well, this was definitely a clash of personalities, I have to
say. I've talked to him several times. I don't find him a disagreeable
person in any way. I think he was definitely trying to do something that
he thought as being good. Tom Crosslin was the kind of guy--he was a deal
maker. He was the kind of guy--if Scott could have gone out there and
talked to them a few times, they could have talked out a lot of things. And
I think that in the beginnings, Mr. Teter was invited to the festivals,
'Please come see what's going on out here.' Scott never talked to Tom
Crosslin, and Tom really felt like, 'Here's a guy I can't even talk to.'
And I think that that did contribute.

SIMON: What finally happened that brought this dispute to a head, the
dispute between the Cass County prosecutor, Scott Teter, and then Tom
Crosslin and Rollie Rohm?

Mr. KUIPERS: Beginning in the spring of 2001, somewhere in there, Tom and
Rollie allegedly started growing marijuana in their basement. The
prosecutor came in on a tax warrant and found these plants, a couple of
shotguns in the house. Then they were up on charges, and they were
immediately bailed out. Obviously, Tom had some money. But about a week
later--Rollie's son lived with them; he had a 12-year-old biological
son--Rollie's son did not get off the bus. He had been taken from school by
Family Independence Agency officials and placed in foster care.

And later in the summer, they were observed smoking pot on their farm
again. So there was a movement on August 31st. They were supposed to show
up for court for a bond revocation hearing, and I think probably a week
beforehand Tom and Rollie decided they weren't going to go. And things
kind of got off the rails right away that day.

That morning, the farm was on fire, burned everything down, whether that
was Tom or someone else--we think that it was Tom--burned the farm down
except for the farmhouse. And then later that day, because of the fires, a
WNDU helicopter flew over out of South Bend, TV reporters, and someone on
the farm shot at the helicopter and actually hit it. That's a FAA matter,
so that brought in the FBI.

SIMON: Yeah. And how were they shot?

Mr. KUIPERS: This went on for three days, about 72 hours, and on September
3rd, a young boy who lived next door, Brandon Peoples, came walking through
the woods, somehow evaded all the different police agencies that were out
there, actually made his way to the farmhouse, and he sort of offered his
services to Tom in terms of, like, 'Do you need any help?' and Tom said,
'Well, come with me to the neighbor's house. I've got to get some food,'
and on the way back, actually, three times passed a group of FBI snipers
who were hidden in the woods. Tom, I guess, spotted one of the guys,
immediately froze, started creeping out into the woods and this FBI agent
sort of jumped out behind a tree and shot him in the head.

SIMON: Rollie Rohm, how was he killed?

Mr. KUIPERS: The sun went down, and sometime during the night some agents
in an armed personnel carrier managed to get him a phone. The fires had
burned their phones up and everything. And during the night, Rollie
negotiated that he would come out if he could see his son. So they made
arrangements for the son to come out at 7:00 the next morning. And, in
fact, he was produced there. They did not see each other, but he was
there; he was on his way. But about 6 AM, the house was on fire, still
sort of unknown exactly how that happened. It could have been Rollie. It
could have been something else. I'm not sure. Rollie came running out of
the house. There was a lot of confusion. Michigan State Police--it was
sort of their watch at that point--rolled up in a personnel carrier and
were trying to tell him to put the gun down and alleged--according to the
snipers on the scene, he raised the gun and he was shot from quite a long
distance away.

SIMON: We have to note the date again. We're talking about September 2001.

Mr. KUIPERS: Right. This is September 3 and 4. It was only a week before
9/11.

SIMON: Do you believe the timing of this incident here in rural Michigan
worked against it becoming a kind of well-known and celebrated case?

Mr. KUIPERS: Yeah, I absolutely do. Right away, there were people--even
while it was happening, there were protesters out on M-60 which is a sort
of main drag through Cass County there, protesting, holding up signs,
saying, 'This is the next Waco.' 'This is the next Ruby Ridge.' In the news
cycle, the way these things work, you know, first there is the spot
reporting and everybody's trying to figure out what exactly happened during
this five-day standoff. Then about a week later comes the analyses. Those
never came because 9/11 intervened, and the whole thing just kind of
quietly went away. The back story and the whole lead-up to this and all
their political views and all that just never got explained.

SIMON: Mr. Kuipers, thanks very much.

Mr. KUIPERS: Thank you so much, Scott.

SIMON: Dean Kuipers, who wrote the article "Siege at Rainbow Farm" which
appears in the October 2003 issue of Playboy magazine.

And you're listening to WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News.