TexasCHLforum.com

http://www.wfaa.com/news/local/Owners-i ... 54841.html

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/08/14/t ... marijuana/

Apparently, it's really really difficult, for undercover officers, and even officers conducting aerial surveillance, to determine the difference between a marijuana plant and a tomato plant --necessitating a SWAT raid on a farm. Or, I'm guessing, it's easier to enforce "nuisance abatement" when you claim someone is growing marijuana than it is for just a property code violation.

Police in Arlington, Texas are being criticized for their tactics during a drug raid on a local farm that came up empty while allegedly damaging both the property and the crops.

“They can’t even tell the difference between tomato plants and a marijuana drug cartel,” farm resident Quinn Eaker told KXAS-TV. “That’s just really bad intel.”

Eaker said to KXAS that he and several residents at the “Garden of Eden” sustainability garden were handcuffed at gunpoint by officers during the Aug. 2 raid, which also involved a SWAT team, after an undercover officer and helicopter surveillance allegedly gave authorities probable cause to believe there was marijuana being grown on the premises.

If not for the war on (some) drugs, that outstanding traffic warrant might not have been resolved. An excellent use of tax payer's money.

It sounds like the City of Arlington has had a bee in their bonnet for some time for the Garden Of Eden folks.

MoJo wrote:It sounds like the City of Arlington has had a bee in their bonnet for some time for the Garden Of Eden folks.

It would be interesting to see how many other complaints were filed against the Garden of Eden and what the nature of them was. The story talked about "code violations". In our town, a code violation is having your town provided trash can in a place where it can be seen from the street. There can be a whole range of things that fall into the code violation area. About 80% of our town probably wouldn't pass a strict code violation examination.

My imagination can come up with a bunch of possibilities. There were really marijuana there and the Edenites somehow were tipped off about the pending raid and destroyed them before it happened. The City decided to use the possibility of marijuana plants to harass the people there because they couldn't come up with any other way to do it. We'll probably never know. But it stuff like this that makes me really nervous. All it takes is one phony tip and SWAT descends.

Harrassment. Sounds like someone with some pull simply does not care for them and has decided to make life hard enough to make them move the off beat place somewhere else far away. My dad once had a place in the city limits that was a former garage service. There were some non running cars behind the building that had been there for years. No one cared until a city counsel member moved onto the street. Suddenly, my dad got letters with threats of $10,000 per day fines if the place was not made spic and span. I feel sorry for these folks. From our experience, the harassment isn't likely to end until they are driven out.

The one I read said stuff about old tires and pallets, and I guess some weeds that the people said were shade for the other plants.

This whole thing is disgusting......so without any other information than a few minor problems with pallets and weeds they swat raided a mini farm? What is wrong with these people. Does no one think anymore..no one said....."hey wait a minute....perhaps we should knock on a door instead of smashing it down."

Is there any compensation for these farmers. Berry bushes take a long time to grow! Crops are worth money. These guys went in and destroyed the farm based n nearly nothing.

mamabearCali wrote:This whole thing is disgusting......so without any other information than a few minor problems with pallets and weeds they swat raided a mini farm? What is wrong with these people. Does no one think anymore..no one said....."hey wait a minute....perhaps we should knock on a door instead of smashing it down."

Yeah.... who ever authorized SWAT deployment for a minor abatement code violation should be fired and, if there's a law against it, charged with wasting public resources.

Dave2 wrote:

mamabearCali wrote:This whole thing is disgusting......so without any other information than a few minor problems with pallets and weeds they swat raided a mini farm? What is wrong with these people. Does no one think anymore..no one said....."hey wait a minute....perhaps we should knock on a door instead of smashing it down."

Yeah.... who ever authorized SWAT deployment for a minor abatement code violation should be fired and, if there's a law against it, charged with wasting public resources.

If I'm reading the article correctly, that is not how SWAT was used. They were supposedly only there 45 minutes. The article describes a two step process. SWAT was sent in because of the supposed pot plants. They handcuffed the adults and then searched for the plants. Then, the code enforcement group showed up and they were the ones who started stripping everything. There is no justification at all for uprooting berry bushes but the owners will have a hard time proving malice over that with everything else that was removed. I don't think that the folks that live there have the means to seek redress from the city legally. It was just another case of local governmental overreach. Of course, I might feel differently if I had to live next door to them. There is no telling how bad things were before the code enforcement raid.

In looking at the garden behind the guy during a news interview, it looks like a permaculture garden. These are not laid out in the way traditional gardens are and if a person does not realize what they are looking at, they can think they are just a jumble of disorderly plants. Instead, it is a sophisticated way of raising food that is very productive and organic.

chasfm11 wrote:

Dave2 wrote:

mamabearCali wrote:This whole thing is disgusting......so without any other information than a few minor problems with pallets and weeds they swat raided a mini farm? What is wrong with these people. Does no one think anymore..no one said....."hey wait a minute....perhaps we should knock on a door instead of smashing it down."

Yeah.... who ever authorized SWAT deployment for a minor abatement code violation should be fired and, if there's a law against it, charged with wasting public resources.

If I'm reading the article correctly, that is not how SWAT was used. They were supposedly only there 45 minutes. The article describes a two step process. SWAT was sent in because of the supposed pot plants. They handcuffed the adults and then searched for the plants. Then, the code enforcement group showed up and they were the ones who started stripping everything. There is no justification at all for uprooting berry bushes but the owners will have a hard time proving malice over that with everything else that was removed. I don't think that the folks that live there have the means to seek redress from the city legally. It was just another case of local governmental overreach. Of course, I might feel differently if I had to live next door to them. There is no telling how bad things were before the code enforcement raid.

Sorry that is still not good enough. What if my neighbor who thinks food comes out of a box and has never seen a squash plant before they moved next to me *thinks* my cherry tomatoes are pot plants. Should my family be raided, have guns pointed at us, and be handcuffed for ten hours. I don't think so. Should my garden that I have worked so carefully on to provide food for my family be destroyed? If this is how they are going to handle situations like this of misidentification by nosy busy bodies of vegetation then I am going to become in favor of legalization. I'd rather have pot heads than a tyrannical heavy handed state.

mamabearCali wrote:

chasfm11 wrote:

Dave2 wrote:

mamabearCali wrote:This whole thing is disgusting......so without any other information than a few minor problems with pallets and weeds they swat raided a mini farm? What is wrong with these people. Does no one think anymore..no one said....."hey wait a minute....perhaps we should knock on a door instead of smashing it down."

Yeah.... who ever authorized SWAT deployment for a minor abatement code violation should be fired and, if there's a law against it, charged with wasting public resources.

If I'm reading the article correctly, that is not how SWAT was used. They were supposedly only there 45 minutes. The article describes a two step process. SWAT was sent in because of the supposed pot plants. They handcuffed the adults and then searched for the plants. Then, the code enforcement group showed up and they were the ones who started stripping everything. There is no justification at all for uprooting berry bushes but the owners will have a hard time proving malice over that with everything else that was removed. I don't think that the folks that live there have the means to seek redress from the city legally. It was just another case of local governmental overreach. Of course, I might feel differently if I had to live next door to them. There is no telling how bad things were before the code enforcement raid.

Sorry that is still not good enough. What if my neighbor who thinks food comes out of a box and has never seen a squash plant before they moved next to me *thinks* my cherry tomatoes are pot plants. Should my family be raided, have guns pointed at us, and be handcuffed for ten hours. I don't think so. Should my garden that I have worked so carefully on to provide food for my family be destroyed? If this is how they are going to handle situations like this of misidentification by nosy busy bodies of vegetation then I am going to become in favor of legalization. I'd rather have pot heads than a tyrannical heavy handed state.

Personally, I'm inclined to believe that no one called about marijuana plants and they just made it up as pretext for the raid.

One of the guys who leads worship with me at my church is Arlington SWAT. I'll have to ask him if he was involved.