Thread: Oregon Sheriff warns Public land off limits to Citizens

Mexican drug cartels, armed and dangerous, have occupied so much land in So. Oregon and No. California that the local citizenry is warned to stay out for their own safety.

Hunters warned to look for signs of pot grows, avoid confrontations
If you find an illegal pot grow, you should 'leave,' 'consider yourself lucky'
September 25, 2010- Medford, Oregon

[snip]Deer hunters will be taking to the woods en masse next weekend during the middle of the marijuana harvest season, and police are warning hunters to steer clear of any suspected gardens for their own safety.

Already this season, two bowhunters have reported confrontations with armed guards from suspected marijuana gardens on public land in southern Jackson County, which law enforcement officials say has become a growing area for Mexican drug cartels. Hunters who stumble upon features such as irrigation pipes, manually widened game trails, garbage piles or even the smell of cooking tortillas should steer clear and avoid confrontations that could prove dangerous.

"You need to turn around and leave and consider yourself lucky," Jackson County Sheriff Mike Winters said. "If you push the issue, you might get yourself in a situation you'll regret."

Hunters or anyone who believe they have stumbled upon a marijuana garden are urged to take notice of their location and leave quickly by retracing their steps.

Oregon Hunters Association has offered a reward of up to $200 for anyone with information leading to the arrest and conviction of people responsible for marijuana gardens or other damage to public lands.

More than 180,000 hunters are expected to take to the woods. About half of Oregon is public land, with the vast majority of it federally owned.

OSP Lt. Darin Lux said Mexican drug cartels have taken advantage of good growing conditions and water availability on federal lands in Southern Oregon and Northern California to cultivate large marijuana plantations, with a definite increase in activity the past three years.

"There's a lot of profit, and it brings a greater need to protect that profit," Lux said. "That's when the arms come in."

Medford police Lt. Tim Doney, a member of the MADGE team, said the confrontations between bowhunters and suspected garden guards occurred during the start of the bowhunting season in late August and the first week of September.

In one case, a bowhunter told MADGE detectives he heard gunshots strike a tree just above his head, and then he was confronted by a man carrying an assault-type rifle who told him to leave, Doney said.

MADGE received a secondhand report of a similar confrontation in the same area.

Two Jackson County SWAT team members shot and killed a man Aug. 11 at a marijuana growing operation deep in the woods. A Jackson County Grand Jury ruled the shooting was justified.

Winters said authorities so far have pulled about 125,000 plants from 30 different gardens throughout a seven-county area of Southern Oregon and Northern California this year.

In these cases, police have noticed that game trails were widened near the gardens and that PVC piping was used to irrigate the plants, Winters said.

Some signs of nearby gardens included walls of cut brush on trails, the pungent smell of marijuana, piles of garbage and piping. Because the caretakers often live at the garden sites, the smell of cooking could be a warning sign.

"There's no way to know until you're almost into one of these, so there's no preventative way to act," Winters said.

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More smoke and mirrors by the GOP

The new 'Pledge' has NOTHING to fix the immigration problem or enforce the LAW.
Tea Party people......Are you going to let the established GOP keep screwing us or are you going to shed these open border hack leaders like Armey, Whitman, McCain and the out of touch fools who designed this phony 'Pledge'????
You ALL despise the democrats when they pull this shady stuff, when will you STOP defending the GOP for doing the same???
Some of the GOP are hijacking the Tea Party movement, which will destroy it. Most of them don't like you any better than the democrats do! You are being USED!

House Republicans Pledge to ‘Establish Operational Control of Border,’ But Say Nothing about Border Fence, Worksite Enforcement or Amnesty
Thursday, September 23, 2010 http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/75709

[snip] The Republicans in the U.S. House of Representative released “A Pledge to Americaâ€

Work with State and Local Officials
to Enforce Our Immigration Laws

The problem of illegal immigration and
Mexican drug cartels engaged in an
increasingly violent conflict means we need
all hands on deck to address this challenge.
We will reaffirm the authority of state and
local law enforcement to assist in the
enforcement of all federal immigration
laws.

Strengthen Visa Security

To stop terrorists like Omar Farouk
Abdulmutallab, the Christmas Day bomber,
we will require the Department of
Homeland Security to review all visa
applications at high-risk consular posts and
prevent aliens from attempting to avoid
deportation after having their visas
revoked.
39

Page 39 of the version with pictures.

http://www.gop.gov/resources/library/do ... merica.pdf

There's another paragraph on operational border security and something to do with stopping interference by the Secretaries of interior and Agriculture with border patrol's efforts to enforce immigration law on federal lands.

If they mean the first one about reaffirming state and local law enforcements rights to enforce US immigration law then this alone is extremely powerful because unleashing 800,000 state and local police officers to the task of stopping illegal immigration is the only viable answer to solving this problem through LEOs.

Time to send in the troops and clean out our forests.

I am sure Messico would let me and my friends grow in their forests and carry weapons.

WHAT on earth is this @sshole president doing?

Ok, so we've given up a large swath of land on the AZ/mex border to cartels and illegals and now this?!? This looks to be at very least a thousand miles from the border. Why can't this be taken under control by law enforcement!? By the way this article is written, it does not appear that law enforcement is doing much of anything except to tell US citizens to stay out. This is crazy.

Originally Posted by SicNTiredInSoCal

Ok, so we've given up a large swath of land on the AZ/mex border to cartels and illegals and now this?!? This looks to be at very least a thousand miles from the border. Why can't this be taken under control by law enforcement!? By the way this article is written, it does not appear that law enforcement is doing much of anything except to tell US citizens to stay out. This is crazy.

It won't be long before state militias are going to have to take things into their own hands. With budget cuts, law enforcement will eventually be weakened. The feds have no intention of seriously cracking down on the IA problem. Their plan is just to keep a loose lid on it in order to not upset La Raza, Calderone and their supposed hispanic voting base. There is too much money in the drug business and much of it is being controlled by politicians who will do anything they can to ensure that their cash cow isn't imperiled. It's up to the people. Let's see if we can all muster the guts to do something that needs to be done.

Our local sheriffs do all they can. They've been fighting this for years. At first DHS told them, 'It's not our problem'. Drug enforcement has since sent some help. Local crime has raised 6 1/2 percent in the last year in Medford. There is no time to fight anything else except the invasion of the land by Mexican cartels.

Ironic, isn't it? Sheriffs can't enforce immigration law, or protect the environment with all those endangered species laws, but they MUST go after the drug growers...., NOT illegal alien criminals. BTW, some of these growers have been found with USA issued ag green cards.

Photos and years of these stories here.
http://towncriernews.blogspot.com/searc ... +800+miles

I live in NWestern Oregon, and it is actually further up than they are admitting. Pot grows have been found as far north as the Warm Springs Reservations, which is close within proximity of Mount Hood, northern Oregon. Reservation police with sheriff, state and federal have shut down at least two in the past few years, and am sure more are going to be found.

Notwithstanding, we get out into the woods ourselves and our favorite area is a little traveled region of the Mount Hood National Forest, and we have come upon some questionable things we have seen.....

I could almost guarantee there is some going on all the way up into the Cascades in Washington state.

Oregon itself is vast, about 97,000 square miles of land, which, as it was said, it only about half populated into dense regions. The rest is mountainous, heavily wooded and largely unchecked and little traveled, which makes it all ideal places to have these operations in. The only saving grace is this could be a bad year for them as our weather has been terrible for any growing, a very short summer of barely moderate weather.

We have a large population of cougars up here too, so maybe they will get to some of these guys left to guard the grow operations?

AmericanElizabeth, it's going on all over the nation.

http://towncriernews.blogspot.com/2010/ ... d-all.html

Alien Mexican Cartels occupy land all over the USA!

Yes, we know Arizona has land that has been given up to Mexico and it's Narcoterrorists, but it's not just along the border. It's true. Search just about any state and you'll find the story.
Many refuse to believe it, at the peril of all of us.
Private property rights??? Forget about it! Public property protected??? LOL!

Utah
Another Marijuana Farm Seized by Southern Utah Law Enorcement ...‎
KCSG - - 4 hours ago
(St. George, UT) – A 40-member law enforcement team seized over 3000 plants in another Marijuana growing farm near Central, Utah in ...Thursday's raid is the sixth this year in Washington County, Moss said. Last year, there were two.

California

For years TheTownCrier has been reporting the hundreds of thousands of acres of habitat that is destroyed, without a word from 'enviro friendly' non profits and misguided, corrupt politicians. Last year, in the LaBrea Fire, 88,000 acres were burned down by the same illegal alien narcoterrorists.
This today:
Man fatally shot by deputies during pot raid was armed with pellet gun
[snip]Scouting deep within the steep, wooded wilderness of the sprawling N3 Cattle Ranch on July 21, three deputies shot Jose Penaloza-Soto, a landscaper from East Palo Alto. Deputies reported that the camouflaged 28-year-old did not drop his weapon when they spotted him and called out orders in both English and Spanish. In fact, he seemed to be aiming what clearly looked like a hunting rifle at a group of Alameda County sheriff's deputies who were also on the raid. As officers advanced on the wounded man, he suddenly reached out to grab the dropped weapon and was shot once more, according to officials.

When they finally got to him, lying on a hillside of loose scree not far from an 18,000-plant illegal marijuana garden, Penaloza-Soto was dead.

Deputies estimate that there was about $60 million of marijuana ready for harvest within two well-hidden gardens nearby. Other suspects at the scene ran, deputies believe. Deputies heard them crashing away through the underbrush during the shooting. They have not been found.

The dead man's family declined to be interviewed. But sheriffs reported that he was a Mexican national, here for slightly longer than a decade. He had worked for years with no criminal problems as a landscaper in the San Francisco area. Recently, his family reported, he had grown quiet and distant.
Marin Marijuana Farm Crackdown Nets $20 Million Of Pot
August 20, 2010
[snip]Sgt. Debra Barry said the plants, between 2 and 5 feet high, were spread over approximately 100 acres in the ridgelines and canyons surrounding Kent Lake in the Mount Tamalpais watershed. Dangerous chemicals, including rat poison, fertilizers and insecticides that pose significant dangers to pets and wildlife, public land and the water supply, were found at three clandestine grow sites, Barry said. The illegal cultivators also diverted water from natural springs, creating further danger to fish and wildlife. The growers also set up "improvised diversionary devices" used to disguise trails and injure people, Barry said. The growers' encampments had tents, food, showering areas, camouflage clothing, personal items, and ammunition for .45-caliber handguns.

Madera County - $135 million worth of marijuana - that's what drug agents found growing on private property in Madera County Wednesday. It is a record find for that county.

The grow was in a corn field, near Road 21 and Avenue 19.

It is a continuing problem across the Valley - Mexican drug cartels growing marijuana on acres of private property, and the land owners have no clue about it.

20-year-old Alejandro Castellanos, and 21-year-old Carlos Bailon-Martinez, both from Oaxaca, Mexico, were arrested.

They now face felony drug and weapons charges and are in the custody of immigration officials.

Ohio
Officers swarm 'marijuana megafarms' with suspected ties to Mexican drug cartels

Sept. 22, 2010 - Chasing some of the men as they fled along the Muskingum River, authorities arrested 10 Mexican nationals and charged them with conspiracy to cultivate marijuana in two carefully tended fields about 90 miles apart.

Authorities then arrested Hugo Ayala, 40, at his apartment on Columbus' North Side. They say he was the ringleader of a potentially multimillion-dollar operation that could be linked to Mexican drug cartels.

Ayala, a legal U.S. resident, is thought to have shuttled his work crews from Columbus to their duties in the marijuana fields both east and northwest of the city. ...men would camp out at the sites while working days a time. (THIS is what DHS is giving green cards out to!)

Wisconsin

'Marijuana Megafarm' Hidden In Wisconsin National ForestAug 12, 2010
[snip]Investigators say a band of Hispanic men turned the forest's southeastern tip into a giant pot farm, growing thousands of plants on remote plots, moving supplies along forgotten logging roads and buying supplies and ammunition at local stores.

Federal, state and local police spent June and July tailing suspected growers, following pickup trucks down abandoned logging roads and watching Hispanic men appear in the trees and toss nylon sacks resembling grain feed bags into the beds.

They followed one suspect to a Fleet Farm in Green Bay, where he purchased six pairs of pruning shears. They watched another man purchase 9 mm ammunition at a nearby Wal-Mart, documents said.

In Wisconsin, the number of seized plants in grew six-fold between 2003 and 2008, a year when more than 32,000 plants were seized

Drug investigators believe Mexican cartels are largely responsible for the spike. Growing the drug here helps them get it to major American markets more quickly. They often import unskilled laborers from Mexico to help find the best land and tend their crops.
Hidden in national forest: marijuana megafarm

In this Wednesday Aug. 11, 2010 photo, the men arrested in connection with marijuana farms that were raided by authorities in a national forest in northeast Wisconsin appear in federal court in Green Bay, Wis.

Cartel grow recruiters often look for people with family in Mexico so they can use them as leverage to keep the farmers working and quiet. If anyone betrays the farm, they go after the worker's family, intelligence experts say.
Comments (1)

Texas
Officials say Mexican cartels growing more pot in Texas | McClatchy
Jul 15, 2010 ... It's still early in the growing season, but the Ellis County Sheriff's Department has already unearthed nearly 30000 high-grade marijuana ...Link
Mexican cartel farmers believed to be back growing marijuana in North Texas
[snip]"If these cartels are involved, that's something for landowners to be concerned about. That's some mean people down there, and there's a lot of money at stake."

Washington

Two arrested in alleged pot-growing operation
[snip]One of two alleged marijuana growers captured by police late Tuesday night was armed with a loaded rifle when caught tending about 1,300 plants hidden in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, police say. ( Manuel C. Granados, 51, and Jose G. Perez, 36,)
In a similar case in Oregon on Wednesday morning, Jackson County Sheriff’s Office deputies shot and killed an armed man in a raid of an alleged Mexican cartel’s outdoor marijuana growing operation, according to a bulletin from the Oregon State Police.
Officials said Wednesday evening they didn’t yet know whether the suspects are in the U.S. legally. Perez also was being held for arrest warrants, issued in other areas, charging DUI and negligent driving.
Police say illegal pot farms causing potential harm to environment
[snip]There's no regard for the environment or maintaining public lands," said Special Agent Sue Thomas. "There's a lot of trash, a lot of garbage, fertilizer, chemicals. It's a hazard to the environment, a hazard to hikers."

Oregon
A public menace
[snip]Illegal marijuana plantations on government lands are expanding, putting forest users at risk, say Southern Oregon law officers.

Unlike domestic pot operations of years past, many of the plantations now growing on federal land are operated by Mexican drug-trafficking organizations who are well-financed and well-armed, the sheriffs said.

"The longer it goes on, the harder it will be for us to overcome," Winters told Walden. "They are better funded than us ... There are more of them than there are of us."

A separate 2008 NDIC report on cartel-related drug-trafficking organizations said the Federation cartel was active in Klamath Falls, and undetermined cartels were working in Medford and Roseburg.

The Justice Department's 2010 national drug threat assessment concluded the operations "constitute the greatest drug-trafficking threat" to the nation.

S. Oregon has been a big pot growing area for two or three decades, even before any cartel invasion.

However, these stories make me wonder if there might be a fair amount of cash...kinda hanging around those growing operations.

Hunters warned to look for signs of pot grows, avoid confrontations

If you find an illegal pot grow, you should 'leave,' 'consider yourself lucky'

September 25, 2010
By Mark Freeman
Mail Tribune

Deer hunters will be taking to the woods en masse next weekend during the middle of the marijuana harvest season, and police are warning hunters to steer clear of any suspected gardens for their own safety.

Already this season, two bowhunters have reported confrontations with armed guards from suspected marijuana gardens on public land in southern Jackson County, which law enforcement officials say has become a growing area for Mexican drug cartels. Hunters who stumble upon features such as irrigation pipes, manually widened game trails, garbage piles or even the smell of cooking tortillas should steer clear and avoid confrontations that could prove dangerous.

"You need to turn around and leave and consider yourself lucky," Jackson County Sheriff Mike Winters said. "If you push the issue, you might get yourself in a situation you'll regret."

Hunters or anyone who believe they have stumbled upon a marijuana garden are urged to take notice of their location and leave quickly by retracing their steps.

If there is immediate danger, call 9-1-1. If not, call your local sheriff's department. In Jackson County, call the Medford Area Drug and Gang Enforcement Team tip line. MADGE can be reached at 541-618-1TIP.

The Medford-based Oregon Hunters Association, the state's largest hunting organization, has offered a reward of up to $200 for anyone with information leading to the arrest and conviction of people responsible for marijuana gardens or other damage to public lands.

Tipsters, who can remain anonymous, should call the Oregon State Police hot line at 1-800-452-7888.

Oct. 2 marks the statewide start of rifle hunting for deer, and more than 180,000 hunters are expected to take to the woods. About half of Oregon is public land, with the vast majority of it federally owned.

OSP Lt. Darin Lux said Mexican drug cartels have taken advantage of good growing conditions and water availability on federal lands in Southern Oregon and Northern California to cultivate large marijuana plantations, with a definite increase in activity the past three years.

The plantations can contain thousands of plants that can potentially produce enough marijuana to fetch $5,000 per plant, police said.

"There's a lot of profit, and it brings a greater need to protect that profit," Lux said. "That's when the arms come in."

Medford police Lt. Tim Doney, a member of the MADGE team, said the confrontations between bowhunters and suspected garden guards occurred during the start of the bowhunting season in late August and the first week of September.

In one case, a bowhunter told MADGE detectives he heard gunshots strike a tree just above his head, and then he was confronted by a man carrying an assault-type rifle who told him to leave, Doney said.

"The hunter in this situation did the right thing," Doney said. "He backed out of the situation, took note of the location and called authorities when he got back to town.

MADGE received a secondhand report of a similar confrontation in the same area, which Doney described as being in the south Jackson County area. Both cases remain under investigation.

"Probably 99.9 percent of people won't have to deal with issues like this, but certainly they are occurring," Doney said.

Two Jackson County SWAT team members shot and killed a man Aug. 11 at a marijuana growing operation deep in the woods. A Jackson County Grand Jury ruled the shooting was justified.

Winters said authorities so far have pulled about 125,000 plants from 30 different gardens throughout a seven-county area of Southern Oregon and Northern California this year.

In these cases, police have noticed that game trails were widened near the gardens and that PVC piping was used to irrigate the plants, Winters said.

Some signs of nearby gardens included walls of cut brush on trails, the pungent smell of marijuana, piles of garbage and piping. Because the caretakers often live at the garden sites, the smell of cooking could be a warning sign.

"There's no way to know until you're almost into one of these, so there's no preventative way to act," Winters said.

Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 541-776-4470, or e-mail at mfreeman@mailtribune.com.

Sidebar
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What to watch out for

Here are some of the dos and don'ts for hunters and others who suspect they have stumbled upon an illegal marijuana garden in the woods.

DOs

* Know your location using GPS coordinates, a map or landmarks
* Make a note of any vehicles, including license plates, or people in the area
* Make a note of any guard dogs or alarm systems
* Call local law enforcement

DON'Ts

* Don't enter the garden area
* Don't confront anyone in the area
* Don't look for more plants or garden sites
* Don't return
--

http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dl ... WS/9250309