Thread: Immigration detains 7 after pot crop discovery

http://www.mailtribune.com/archive/2005 ... 7local.htm

November 1, 2005

Immigration detains 7 after pot crop discovery By MARK FREEMAN Mail Tribune (Medford, Oregon)

Jackson County Sheriff’s deputies are investigating whether the marijuana plantation sporting more than 4,800 plants in forest land near Ruch and seven suspects in custody are part of a larger drug cartel, authorities said.

"It very well could," Jackson County Sheriff Mike Winters said Monday. "It’s hard to say until we look into this further."

The plantation contained 4,866 marijuana plants 3 to 4 feet tall scattered among a half-acre chunk of reforested land burned in the 2002 Squires Peak fire.

The plants were watered with a drip-irrigation system fed from water siphoned from a creek, Winters said.

"It’s standard," Winters said. "Nothing unusual about it."

Advertisement Citing a public records exemption, Winters refused Monday to publicly identify the seven men arrested Sunday during a search by several law-enforcement agencies of a square mile of woods around the plantation.

The seven suspects, which he described only as Hispanic males, were lodged Sunday at the Jackson County Jail on immigration holds. They have not been arrested on any charges related to the marijuana operation, Winters said.

Their information was also left off the jail’s published log because releasing even their names and ages could harm police’s continued investigation, Winters said.

Asked if the suspects were cooperating with investigators, Winters said, "Not at this point."

Tips from two different deer hunters a week apart helped lead police to the marijuana operation as well as Sunday’s arrests, Winters said.

On Oct. 23, an unidentified deer hunter stumbled upon the marijuana-growing operation and notified sheriff’s deputies, who seized and removed the plants that day, Winters said.

On Sunday, another deer hunter reported seeing a dozen armed Hispanic men in the vicinity of the operation, Winters said. That hunter also telephoned police, triggering Sunday’s search and subsequent arrest of the seven men and the seizure of 11 guns, Winters said.

"They may have some local ties, but that has yet to be determined," Winters said.

Winters declined to say whether police had the plantation under surveillance last week.

Doug McGeary, an assistant county counsel, said Monday that he believes withholding the arrested men’s identifies falls under a public-records exemption.

State public-records law specifically exempts identities of arrested suspects if public disclosure clearly would jeopardize the investigation.

Keeping mum on their identities allows police to pursue more potential suspects in this case "without spoiling the hunt, so to speak," McGeary said.

County officials will identify the suspects "when we have a little better grip as to how these people are related to the group, who they are and what they’re doing," McGeary said.

Winters said there is no evidence suggesting that the marijuana plantation had any ties to marijuana seized Thursday at a Gebhard Road residence where two men were wounded in a gunfight Wednesday night.

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

NOTE: This is 7 or 8 busts like this in the past 2 or 3 months in a 2 county area. No small invasion, this one! And 800 miles from the border!

Glad they did not have the intestinal fortitude to fight it out. Also good thing the hunter saw them before they saw him.