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?

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ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) – A former police officer tearfully apologized Monday for his role in an elderly Atlanta woman’s shooting death during a botched drug raid, and another told a judge he prays daily for the victim. 

“I used to think I was a good person,” ex-cop Gregg Junnier said before breaking down on the witness stand during a sentencing hearing in a federal courtroom in Atlanta, CNN affiliate WXIA reported.

Junnier and two other ex-officers, Arthur Tesler and Jason Smith, face prison in connection with the November 2006 drug raid that left 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston dead in a hail of gunfire.

Smith, Junnier and Tesler pleaded guilty to federal charges of conspiracy to violate civil rights resulting in death. Smith and Junnier also pleaded guilty to state charges of voluntary manslaughter and making false statements, and Smith admitted to planting bags of marijuana in Johnston’s house after her death.

Tesler was convicted on one state count of making false statements for filling out an affidavit stating that an informant had purchased crack cocaine at Johnston’s home in a crime-plagued neighborhood near downtown Atlanta. The informant denied having been to Johnston’s home, leading to investigations by local authorities and the FBI, and the breakup and reorganization of the Atlanta police narcotics unit.

Police said Johnston fired at them with an old pistol during the raid, and they shot back in self-defense. Johnston’s one shot went through her front door and over the officers’ heads; they responded with 39 shots, hitting Johnston five times.

“Her death was the foreseeable culmination of a long-standing conspiracy in which the officers violated their oaths of office,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jon-Peter Kelly said, according to CNN affiliate WSB. The officers “regularly swore falsely” to get warrants and make cases, he said.

Federal prosecutors said officers cut corners to make more time for lucrative side jobs providing additional security to businesses, often while on duty and for cash payments.

Excuse me, CNN and other mainstream media outlets – this was no BOTCHED DRUG RAID!  That makes it sound as if the police were executing a lawful warrant for a serious crime and, whoopsie, somebody made a typo on the address on the warrant.  Kathryn Johnston was shot to death during a premeditated fraudulent raid by crooked cops enabled by drug war corruption.

This is the natural result of domestic militarization of police and the inevitable corruption prohibition generates.  Kathryn Johnston is one of many citizens who’ve been killed or had their lives drastically altered from an unnecessary SWAT-style raid.  Some are innocent victims, like John Adams, Willie Heard, and Rev. Accelyne Williams, who die in drug raids at honestly mistaken addresses.  Some are guilty victims, like Bruce Lavoie, Scott W. Bryant, and Delbert Bonar, whose doors are kicked down by black-body-armor-clad disguised police with automatic weapons throwing flash-bang grenades in the middle of the night, only to find a few grams of marijuana for personal use.

There is no need to kick down citizens’ doors.  A suspect can be watched, tailed, and apprehended in broad daylight, away from the suspect’s family.  Even if a suspect is known to be armed and dangerous, coming at him full force in his lair just endangers the neighborhood.  The only purpose in these no-knock paramilitary drug raids is to instill terror in the population.  It’s all about “sending a message” that we’re “tough on drugs” and showing the criminals who control the market that the cops are the baddest gang on the street.

I’m happy to report these low-lifes who found their rent-a-cop moonlighting gigs more important than civil rights and an old woman’s life will be spending the next few months behind bars learning important lessons of respect and empathy:

ATLANTA — A federal judge has sentenced three former Atlanta Police officers to prison terms in connection with a botched drug raid that left a 92-year-old woman dead.

Jason Smith, Gregg Junnier and Arthur Tesler pled guilty to a charge of conspiracy to violate civil rights resulting in death.

U.S. District Judge Julie Carnes sentenced Smith to 10 years in prison, 3 years probation and a $100 fine.

Judge Carnes sentenced Junnier to 6 years in prison, 3 years probation and a $100 fine.

Judge Carnes sentenced Tesler to 5 years in prison and 3 years of supervised release.

The judge also ordered all three men to split the funeral costs of nearly $8200 for Kathryn Johnston, who was killed by police gunfire in the November 2006 raid.

In the sentencing hearing, Judge Carnes said, “The sentence must be tough to send a message to other police and also mend the confidence of the community.” While she indicated the three men did eventually cooperate with authorities, she said “This is a wrenching process for everybody.”

Judge Carnes was also very critical of the Atlanta Police Department and indicated the shooting was due in part to pressure on police officers to make drug arrests.

The U.S. Attorney’s office had recommended that Smith serve about 12 1/2 years in federal prison, and Junnier and Tesler serve about 10 years. Prosecutors recommended that Smith and Junnier receive reduced sentences because they cooperated with authorities.

I’m sad to report these lowlifes will be spending less time behind bars than most federally convicted growers tending large legal medical marijuana crops in California.

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ATLANTA (AP) — An appeals court on Thursday overturned the conviction of a former Atlanta police officer sentenced to prison for lying to FBI agents about the killing of a 92-year-old woman during a botched drug raid.

A Fulton County Superior Court judge sentenced [Arthur] Tesler to 4 1/2 years in prison and six months probation last May. Tesler has also pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy charges.

Kathryn Johnston was killed by a barrage of bullets fired by officers who stormed into her home in November 2006 with a no-knock warrant.

Police originally said officers had gone to Kathryn Johnston’s northwest Atlanta home in 2006 after an informant bought drugs there. But after finding none, officers tried to cover up the mistake by planting baggies of marijuana, prosecutors said.

Two other officers, Jason R. Smith and Gregg Junnier, pleaded guilty to state and federal charges. Tesler, who did not fire a shot, faces sentencing next month after pleading guilty to a charge of conspiracy to violate civil rights resulting in death.

Tesler was in Johnston’s backyard when plainclothes officers burst in through the front door the night of Nov. 21, 2006, using a special “no-knock” warrant to search for drugs. Johnston fired a single shot from a rusty revolver at the intruders, but hit no one, and officers fired 39 bullets, hitting the woman five or six times, prosecutors said.

via The Associated Press: Conviction nixed in deadly botched Ga. drug raid.

Does it bother anyone else that police missed at least 33 shots at close range against a 92-year-old woman?  Or that cops thought that finding planted weed on a dead elderly woman wouldn’t raise a few eyebrows?  Or that cops in Georgia are running around with a couple of baggies of weed on them “just in case”?

I even have a small (very small) degree of sympathy for the officers in this case because their job requires them to serve these no-knock warrants to catch what they believe will be gun-totin’ drug-addled violent thugs.  The lying and planting evidence is inexcusable, of course, but treating all drug warrant as if they are taking down Tony Montana is bound to get innocent people and police officers killed (see: Corey Maye).

Why can’t police officers watch a suspect’s home, wait til he leaves the home, and apprehend him, when they can see he’s not armed? I know the no-knock warrants are so a suspect doesn’t have the time to flush the cocaine down the toilet, but why are no-knocks given for marijuana raids?  Lights, ballasts, pots, soil, and live plants are not exactly easily disposable, there should be plenty of time for police to knock, identify themselves, and enter calmly.

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