Pubdate: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 Source: Red Bluff Daily News (CA) Copyright: 2001 Red Bluff Daily News Contact: http://redbluffdailynews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1079 Author: Sarah Bardwell Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis - California) FEDERAL AGENCIES HONOR SHERIFF PARKER After spending much of the last marijuana season camouflaged and in the midst marijuana fields, Tehama County Sheriff Clay Parker has been recognized with the second annual Excellence in Law Enforcement award for 2000 for not only his work destroying drug-laden fields, but for locking grass gardeners behind bars. "Clay wanted to place the message that Tehama County was not the place to grow marijuana," said Special Agent-in-charge Jerry Moore of the United States Forest Service Pacific Southwest Region. "This is a small way of recognizing that effort." Based on a nomination by Moore for the "record marijuana eradication efforts of the sheriff's department on federal lands during 2000," Parker was presented the award by the Federal Law Enforcement Administrators of the Bay Area, a group comprised of 17 agencies including the Secret Service, U.S. Coast Guard, and Department of Defense. "The sheriff, along with his entire office, did a truly outstanding effort eradicating and going after marijuana cultivation," Moore said, explaining it takes a "really dedicated staff to take the time and energy to do so." Calling Parker's efforts "labor intensive" and the country in which he worked "rugged," Moore said Parker not only took pains to find and demolish drug gardens, but "went the extra mile" to arrest those involved. Over the course of the 2000 marijuana season, Parker's agency confiscated a record 42,000 pot plants inside Tehama County boundaries worth an estimated $210 million, netting the second-largest plant count in the state. Along with those numbers, the sheriff and his deputies arrested 28 people, many of them armed Mexican Nationals. Parker has no desire to stop what he's begun and has stepped strongly into the 2001 season, raiding three plantations to date, grabbing two more gun-toting field hands, recovering three weapons, and wresting another 11,685 plants from the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, the Battle Creek area and from near Mt. Lassen. Parker said one of his main priorities when he took office in 1999 was to send the message "if you grow in Tehama County, we're going to make the arrests." The sheriff, who didn't expect to find quite so much, said it "shows it has been rampant in the county for years," but was overlooked or neglected. "It was time to do something about it," Parker said. "It may take a couple of years, but after this year I believe the message will be out there," Parker told the Daily News, saying the department is not stopping at the arrests of field hands, but is actively working up the chain of command to those bringing labor in - -- to what is "no doubt" Mexican drug cartels. Parker doesn't expect the numbers to change much this season, and said his department knows of at least 10 more gardens they will begin purging. When he can, Parker will continue to work alongside his men, either dangling from the helicopter, or knee-deep in demolished dope. "The award came unexpectedly," Parker said. "But I'm very pleased ... a large part of this award is the hard work the employees of this department put in during the marijuana season." - --- MAP posted-by: Josh