A ROLL OF THE DICE

Watch out if you try to buy marijuana on University Hill in Boulder. Your
cash could be stolen or, worse yet, you might end up dead. Law enforcement
officials disagree on exactly how many of these drug rip-offs occur, but
Sheriff Joe Pelle thinks they are vastly under-reported.

"It's really common," says Pelle, a former Boulder Police Department
commander. "In my last couple of years at the police department, we were
getting up to 30 reports a year. If we get 20 to 30 reports in a year, I'm
assuming there's maybe 10 times that many."

Kurt Weiler, a commander with the BPD detective division, says only four
drug jackings were reported in Boulder in 2001 and only two were reported
in 2002. But he agrees that the vast majority of the crimes are never
reported to police.

"I think this is a crime which by its very nature would be under-reported,"
Commander Weiler says. "I don't think that's something that's tracked
specifically."

Perhaps the best-known case of drug jacking occurred in October 2002. A
group of five teen-agers went to the Hill to buy some pot. One of
them-Charlie Castaway, 14-ended up dead of a gunshot wound to the chest.

Police say the case illustrates how much potential for violence exists in
drug jackings. They also show how a relatively common occurrence in
Boulder-heading out to buy a bag-can become a nightmare.

Rip-off goes awry

Pieced together from interviews with Charlie's immediate family, arrest
warrants for the two suspects, and transcripts of arraignment proceedings,
this is what allegedly occurred on Oct. 25, 2002:

That afternoon, Charlie Castaway was at home in Lafayette, chopping
firewood and planning on attending the nearby birthday party of a friend.
Two friends drove up in a stolen green Honda. Charlie's brother, Martin,
and the others persuaded Charlie to abandon his birthday party plans and go
for a joyride to Boulder. Martin got behind the wheel.

First they drove to Broomfield to pick up another friend and then drove to
the Hill in Boulder. Parking near 13th and College, the five teen-agers got
out of the car and began a conversation with a man later identified as
Antoine Davires Harris of Denver, who was allegedly accompanied by Tiffany
Rosebud.

Martin and one of the other boys sat in Harris' car for a few minutes,
allegedly working out a deal. During police questioning later, Martin
reportedly admitted that his only intention was to steal either marijuana
or cash from Harris.

But Harris may have had the same plan. As the conversation continued, he
flashed a gun at Martin. Martin and his friend jumped out of Harris' car
and returned to the stolen Honda. At least one of the teens in the Honda
demanded that Martin chase Harris' vehicle, and a short pursuit on Euclid
Avenue ensued.

In a matter of moments, Harris' vehicle stopped in front of the Honda. The
teens reported seeing an arm stick out of the driver's side window of the
Chevy and hearing a pop.

Then Charlie, holding up his shirt to reveal a bullet hole, cried out, "I'm
hit! I'm hit!"

Martin drove immediately to the Fox Theatre and made at least one other
phone call before calling 911. Charlie Castaway was removed from the car
and taken to Boulder Community Hospital. He was declared dead shortly
before 9 p.m.

After hearing about the shooting on his police radio, an off-duty Nederland
police officer, Steve Davis, saw the suspect's vehicle make an illegal
high-speed wide turn to enter the Boulder turnpike, and followed long
enough to get a license plate. Harris was last seen heading toward
Broomfield at 90 mph with someone-allegedly Rosebud-in the passenger seat.

Boulder police continue to seek leads as to the whereabouts of Antoine
Harris, but the BPD's Commander Weiler says Harris "could be anywhere."
According to Sheriff Pelle, Harris might be living in Nigeria with his father.

"His dad is sort of infamous, too. He was Antonio Harris, who was a CU
football player who was convicted of a number of sexual assaults in the
'80s," Pelle says.

Rosebud voluntarily waived extradition from Mexico and turned herself in to
San Diego authorities in January. She faces a charge of aggravated robbery
relating to the theft of $80 to $90 worth of marijuana in a separate
incident that occurred the afternoon of the day that Charlie Castaway was shot.

Charlie's mother, Valerie Peterson, believes the bullet that killed Charlie
may have been meant for his brother, Martin, who is in the Boulder County
jail for probation violations. Charlie probably went with Martin to keep
his older brother out of trouble, she speculates.

Charlie was a good kid, Peterson says. He enjoyed helping others, babysat
the family's youngest child, was semi-vegetarian, taught himself to play
piano and skateboard, and thrived in a home-school environment.

"I will never hear what Charlie has to say of this," Peterson says. "I do
know that he had been to the Hill probably hundreds of times in the last
seven years without getting into any trouble."

Preying on trust

Sheriff Pelle says Charlie's death is an example of why the War on Drugs is
"BS."

"What we're doing is some community policing," he says. "The Hill is a
magnet. We've tried to control the open-air aspect of the drug dealing up
there. Part of what leads to this problem is an open-air atmosphere."

With its reputation for drug availability, the Hill also extends an open
invitation to outsiders to come in and take advantage of the naivete and
trust of Boulder pot-smokers.

"A couple of pretty nasty assaults and two shootings have happened," says
Pelle. Marijuana is usually mentioned during these crimes, but isn't always
present, the sheriff says. Sometimes people are just looking for an excuse
to rip off some cash from people seeking pot, he explains.

But there are other methods, as well. And drug jackings and home burglaries
targeting drugs have occurred in other parts of Boulder and Boulder County,
Pelle says. In one incident-allegedly tied to Harris and Rosebud as well-a
Boulder woman shared a joint only to be assaulted and have her remaining
pot stolen.

Vraja Meberg reported that theft on the bike path after five days had
passed; she recognized photos of shooting suspect Harris printed in local
newspapers. On Oct. 30, she told Boulder police that on Oct. 25 a man
matching Harris' description had stolen a quarter-ounce of marijuana from
her, assisted by a woman matching Rosebud's description.

Meberg hesitated to make the report because she was afraid she would be
charged with dealing drugs.

According to police and court records, Meberg claims she was walking home
on the bike path about noon on Oct. 25 when a young man and his
girlfriend-later identified as Harris and Rosebud- approached her and asked
to buy marijuana. They told Meberg that they had been fighting and were
tense because they had no marijuana.

Meberg reportedly felt sorry for the pair and offered to let them smoke a
joint from a quarter-ounce of pot she had with her. But she told them she
couldn't roll joints and handed Harris the bag of pot and some rolling
papers. They reportedly rolled a joint and smoked it, with Meberg taking
only one toke.

Harris allegedly asked her if she would sell him the entire bag. After some
discussion, Meberg and Harris arrived at a price of $80 for the bag. Harris
told Meberg that he only had large bills and asked her repeatedly if she
had any change (Pelle says rip-off artists often try to verify that their
intended victims have cash on them). She said she did not and suggested
that they go to a nearby convenience store to get change.

Meberg said Harris agreed verbally, putting the marijuana in a loose pants
pocket and saying, "I'll hold on to this." Then Harris told her he was
going to keep the marijuana and that he would have to pay her later.

Meberg explained that was not the way things worked and asked for her
marijuana back. Harris reportedly told Meberg that he was poor, that she
could always get more pot and that he could take her backpack, too, if he
wanted it. She reached for Harris' pants pocket to retrieve her pot, but
she felt her head struck from behind, where Rosebud was standing. Harris
allegedly showed her something in the waistband of his pants that might
have been a gun.

The two argued loudly in front of Meberg's workplace, and one of Meberg's
coworker came out to see what was the matter. The coworker escorted Meberg
into their building, from where she could see Harris across the street in
the skateboard park. Meberg says Harris stood yelling and gesturing for
about 10 minutes, then left the neighborhood on foot.

Buyer and seller beware

Drug-jackers have also wrangled invitations into people's homes, only to
hold them at gunpoint, assault them and steal their belongings. But the
sheriff says most rip-offs occur in alley or in remotely parked cars.

"Usually they'll meet somebody on the street or on a street corner. They'll
make arrangements for a quantity or whatever-they'll say, 'Yeah, meet me in
the alley,' try to get them off into a secluded place, and that's where
they'll rip them off," Pelle says. "Once in a while, we get a drug robbery
in a house. That occurs all over town, not just on the Hill."

Law enforcement all over the nation deals with drug rip-offs, the sheriff
says. "I know it goes on all over the place. The term 'drug rip' is a
common law enforcement term-everybody knows what you're talking about."

The safest thing to do, Pelle says, other than abstaining, is to buy pot
only from people you know and trust.

"Know your drug dealer, I guess," Pelle says. "Don't deal with strangers.
Don't agree to meet people in alleys."

Pelle says he's not sure there's a simple solution to the problem. "First
of all, I'm not a national policy maker, and neither is the police
department," he says. "Naturally the solution is to put a cop on every
corner and a narc in every bar, and you displace the drug dealers from one
location like the Hill, take it out of the neighborhood, make more people
fearful to deal with people they don't know."

But many people aren't comfortable with that level of enforcement, he says.
Pelle realizes that some Boulder citizens want no drug law enforcement,
while others insist on more drug law enforcement. Pelle says it's a no-win
situation for police.

But recent violence shows that Boulder's open-air marijuana market can be
dangerous for everyone involved, Pelle says.

It's a case of buyer-and seller-beware.