Gun battle over marijuana plants leaves grower dead, two police wounded

LITTLE VALLEY (Redding.com) — Members of the Lassen County anti-drug task force were scouting for illegal marijuana cultivation Tuesday afternoon near Little Valley when they came across a suspected pot garden and an armed man who began shooting at them.

Two task force members [Sgt. Dave Martin and deputy David Woginrich] were wounded in the ensuing gunbattle that left the man who started it dead, according to the Lassen County Sheriff’s Office. The full names of the task force members have not been released by the sheriff’s office.

The name of the dead suspect was also not released, with the sheriff’s office saying the identity was being withheld until his family was notified. Names of six other suspects also were withheld.

The task force included representatives from the Lassen County Sheriff’s Office, Susanville Police Department and the BLM, according to the sheriff’s office. The task force was scouting the woods south of Dixie Valley, just across the Lassen County line east of Burney, for illegal marijuana, the sheriff’s office reported.

Six men were arrested following the gunfight.

There is no marijuana plant worth dying for or shooting anyone over.

The details in this case are sketchy, but if you raise your firearm and shoot at a police officer, I cannot defend your actions nor condemn theirs.  This doesn’t seem to be a case of self-defense, like when the SWAT team suddenly bursts in the door of your home late at night and in shock and surprise you fire off a round or two at what you believe to be intruders (like Cory Maye or Kathryn Johnston).  This was in the middle of the day with uniformed officers in a national forest.  If you’re so trigger happy as to fire at cops, who’s to say you wouldn’t have fired at an innocent hiker or camper?

That said, I cannot defend the initial actions of the police in trampling through national forests looking for pot gardens.  Does it really need to be noted that in a paradigm of legalized marijuana, we wouldn’t have clandestine marijuana grows in our national forests?  With legal pot, what we call “growers” and “dealers” would become “farmers” and “co-ops”, with all the affiliated rules, regulations, market realities, and profit margins that would make clandestine grows too expensive to be a viable option.

After all, when is the last time you heard of a shoot-out in a national forest over a tobacco plantation, a hops farm, or a wine grape vineyard?