Pubdate: Thu, 27 Sep 2012
Source: Press Democrat, The (Santa Rosa, CA)
Copyright: 2012 The Press Democrat
Contact:  http://www.pressdemocrat.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/348
Authors: Randi Rossmann and Chris Smith

AUTHORITIES TARGET ILLEGAL POT GROWS IN SOUTHWEST SANTA ROSA SWEEP

Dozens of combat-clad police officers, deputies and federal agents 
swarmed a southwest Santa Rosa neighborhood Wednesday morning in the 
region's largest-ever operation against residential marijuana gardens.

A team of 150 law enforcement officers raided 32 homes off Moorland 
Avenue immediately south of the Corby Auto Mall, where the pungent 
smell of marijuana hung heavily in the air and backyard marijuana 
plants towered over fences in plain view from the street.

Law officials, who suspected gang involvement with at least some of 
the gardens, arrested 13 people on a variety of drug and weapons 
charges and seized more than 300 plants from 32 locations, said 
Sonoma County sheriff's Lt. Dennis O'Leary.

The raids began about 9 a.m. when FBI agents in full military gear 
ordered residents to leave, then rushed into their homes, most of 
them modest multi-plex units.

Soon the area was punctuated by the sounds of exploding flash 
grenades at several homes in the neighborhood, which is bordered by 
Highway 101 on the east and railroad tracks on the west.

After the homes were secured, officers carrying search warrants 
poured into backyards and uprooted hundreds of marijuana plants, 
piling the 6- to 8-foot-tall plants into giant heaps in driveways as 
neighbors watched.

The operation was planned after a recent complaint about rampant pot 
cultivation in the neighborhood, O'Leary said. A sheriff's helicopter 
surveyed the area and discovered more than two-dozen marijuana 
gardens in the backyards of homes along Barbara Drive, Eddy Drive, 
Robin Way and Neville Way.

"We just looked into this neighborhood and, literally, probably every 
backyard but two or three have a (marijuana) grow," O'Leary said. 
"Our goal is to go in there to rid the neighborhood of these, what we 
think are probably illegal grows."

One resident was not surprised when she learned the purpose of the raid.

"The whole street smells like weed," said the woman, who asked not to 
be identified.

She said she was awakened by officers outside a neighbor's unit 
screaming, "Open the door!" She arose and looked out to see "the 
street was full of FBI, SWAT, everything."

Participants included personnel from the Sonoma County Sheriff's 
Office, Probation Department and District Attorney's Office, Santa 
Rosa Police Department, California Highway Patrol, the FBI and 
federal departments of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs 
Enforcement.

Many of the marijuana gardens were still visible Wednesday as 
authorities worked their way down the block to remove them. The 
bright-green plants peeked over the tops of fences, easily visible 
from the sidewalk. It was all so obvious, several residents said, 
that they knew authorities would eventually show up.

"It was going to happen sooner or later," said one resident, 
identifying herself only as Anna.

The staging ground for the operation was the parking lot of the Santa 
Rosa Veterans Memorial Building. Just before 9 a.m., a long line of 
FBI and sheriff's SUVs, trucks, patrol cars and large assault 
vehicles snaked out of the parking lot and onto Highway 12, then 
southbound 101.

At the Corby Avenue exit, a patrol car stopped cross traffic to allow 
the motorcade to stream through red signals.

Onlookers said an FBI team dressed in fatigues and helmets and 
carrying an assortment of battering rams, shields, ladders and 
weapons first entered a residence on Moorland Avenue at Barbara Drive.

That team then moved to several homes on Barbara Drive. Soon, 
handcuffed residents sat in front yards up and down Barbara Drive and 
the adjoining streets.

Resident Derick Joyce said officers didn't come to his house, but he 
knew early what was going on.

"I woke up to a roar. They were flash-banging," said Joyce, who 
described the loud explosions occurring at house after house on his street.

"I could feel the vibrations," Joyce said.

By late morning, the FBI assault team and a big-wheeled SWAT vehicle 
had left the neighborhood. But people still sat, detained in their 
front yards, some holding their babies while young children played nearby.

With all of the houses secured, officers began obliterating the 
gardens and searching the homes.

Wearing gardening or latex gloves, some using wheelbarrows and garden 
loppers, officers made repeated trips transporting the cut bushes 
from backyards to front yards.

It was eventually all piled into a covered trailer and hauled to a 
sheriff's site for burial.

"They took my crop," said Erica Mejia, pointing to a large pile of 
cut plants outside of her home.

Mejia, who wasn't being detained like many of her neighbors, said 
officers had indicated they weren't going to arrest her. She had 
paperwork to grow medical marijuana and said her garden was legal, 
with 30 plants, as is locally allowed. But Mejia, who held a receipt 
issued by officers, was upset her garden still was yanked.

Groups of neighbors gathered to watch. Several called the officers' 
tactics "overkill" and questioned the value of ripping out the 
gardens, saying there were other more serious crimes to pursue.

"It's a big bunch of crap," said Lora Wilson, as she leaned against 
some mailboxes. "How much taxpayer money did we just waste doing this?"

O'Leary, the sheriff's lieutenant, said the show of force by 
authorities and their tactics were deliberate, selected in part 
because there is a heavy gang presence and lots of children in the 
neighborhood.

"It's absolutely not overkill, with the history in this neighborhood 
of violence and gang violence," he said.

Some residents disagreed with the depiction of their neighborhood as 
a gang stronghold, or authorities' assertion that gangs were involved 
in the gardens. Many of the backyard growers were low-income 
residents who smoke some pot for medical needs and sell the rest to 
make ends meet, they said.

"Some have disabilities and it's a way to make money," said Joyce, 
who said he smokes it for chronic pain. "They aren't gang-related."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom