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| Attack Of The Killer Tomato Cops |
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Posted by FoM on July 24, 2001 at 08:09:33 PT By Joel Miller Source: WorldNetDaily 
Ever think about taking up gardening? When I say forget about it, you might wonder why. After all, according to Vita Sackville-West, "The man who has planted a garden feels that he has done something for the good of the world." Sure, but the trouble isn't well-meaning sodbusters and seed-tossers, it's "well-meaning" drug warriors. Cops have a hard enough time distinguishing between marijuana and hemp plants (one will get you high, the other won't); now they're diversifying their ignorance to include standard garden produce something Glen Coberly found out the hard way. While sorting through his tomato vines last week, an unmarked, dark-green helicopter buzzed overhead, followed moments later by scads of flatfoots brandishing firearms, ordering Coberly and a visiting friend to hit the dirt like dropped sacks of potatoes. "They had their guns out," said Coberly, quoted in the July 20 Middlesex, Va., Daily Press. Within minutes, one officer was introducing the two to Ms. Miranda, while another inspected the contraband crop. A Homer Simpson "Doh!" could probably be heard for miles because they found no cannabis, just juicy red tomatoes. Going from sativa to salad is bad news for a drug bust. The Daily Press headlined the snafu, "Drug agents ketchup to wrong suspects: Tomato vines, pot similar from the air." Sure enough, flying over Middlesex County to scope out pot plantations, one member of the helicopter crew said the tomatoes looked like marijuana because "the color was right." The officer, according to the Daily Press, asked not to be named because he was working undercover. Piffle. He didn't want to be named because he's a chowderhead. Confusing tomatoes with dope does not look good on a resumι and worse on the 6 o'clock news. Getting publicly tagged, "Joe Schmoe, the officer who mistook tomatoes for marijuana," might be a career-inhibiting move (though, considering this is the government we're talking about here, probably not). Middlesex County Sheriff Guy Abbot apologized before leaving the scene, saying later, "We're not perfect; we make mistakes." Without doubt, this mistake can be blamed on bad policing. The Keystoners should have double-checked before raiding. Triple-checked. It's not like the suspect's going to flush the whole crop down the toilet, thus requiring (or excusing) a "dynamic entry" or no-knock-style raid. Besides, the day after the raid the same officer who explained that tomatoes look like pot from the air because of the color admitted that the hue could have been obscured by the cloudy skies. Catch that? On an overcast day, we treat word from an airborne officer like gospel. What is this, Saturday morning cartoons? Before police rush in like Power Rangers, I would hope they'd use better recon than some guy in a chopper with less than great visibility. Neither the AP nor Daily Press articles filed on the incident confirm any police fact-checking before going off half-cocked. Kid Icarus spots some leafy stuff, and it's gung-ho, Geronimo! Worse, this was a major operation. The antidrug team that descended upon Coberly involved the National Guard, state police and a local narcotics taskforce. What if Coberly was showing his friend a pistol or rifle at the time of the raid? People who own guns do that sort of thing. Let's say he's just bought a new shotgun and the two are talking about duck hunting: "Hold on, let me show you my new Remington." He'd run inside while his friend picks a few tomatoes and then hear the "whump-whump-whump" of the chopper get closer as he stepped outside, looking up to spy the bird circling overhead. Maybe by then the police have already converged on the house, running out back, where the chopper pilot tells them their suspect is armed, shouting: "Drop the gun!" Police raids not being common occurrences during produce-picking sessions, Coberly might spin around "What?" a bit confused, gun still in hand. Which do you think he'd sense first? The physical shock of the 9mm. slug penetrating his body or the audible register of the pistol? Many bullets, interestingly enough, move quicker than the speed of sound. And, in reality, it wouldn't even have to be a gun. In high-stress situations, police get less than keen with distinguishing weapons from whatever else. Remember Amadou Diallo, shot multiple times by New York police for brandishing a loaded wallet? In "Shakedown: How the Government Screws You From A to Z," James Bovard recounts the case of Erdman Bascomb, killed by Seattle cops when they stormed his apartment and shot him, thinking the TV remote in his hand was a gun. You might want to consult the props department, but for the tomato raid, a garden hoe would probably suffice just fine. Sure the shooting would be justifiable. They always are. The guy had a gun, maybe; of course, the police had to fire. What else do you expect them to do, get shot? A better question is to ask why they showed up in the first place. What fewer and fewer people seem to expect from police is police work. Investigation is the science of evidence collection and proper interpretations of that evidence. A few flyovers in overcast skies looking at a plant that can only be distinguished by its color (and just think about how many other plants besides tomatoes share the same shade of green as do cannabis plants) is hardly good evidence collection, and, given the conditions, worse interpretation is inevitable. Given that, what we should expect before police rush in endangering their own lives and, even more importantly, the lives of citizens that are innocent until proven guilty is a little verification. They should have verified what the chopper said, peeked over the fence, or something, for pity's sake. Instead they stormed in, armed, to arrest a guy for growing salsa ingredients. "We're just trying to do our best to protect citizens," said Abbott. Yeah? Well, how about looking before you leap, next time? That's sure a start. And as for the rest of us, always be wary of people looking to do "something for the good of the world," especially drug warriors. Joel Miller is the commentary editor of WorldNetDaily. His publishing company, MenschWerks,recently published "God Gave Wine" by Kenneth L. Gentry Jr. Due to time constraints, he cannot get back to every reader's e-mail, but he does enjoy receiving feedback both pro and con and swears that's what keeps the joy in it. E-mail: jmiller@worldnetdaily.com Source: WorldNetDaily (US Web) Related Article: Drug Cops Swoop Down On Tomato Patch CannabisNews Articles - Joel Miller Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help |
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| Comment #8 posted by freedom fighter on July 25, 2001 at 21:55:30 PT |
| in N.Y.. because he had a loaaaaaaaded wallet.. Just while ago in colorado, they shot a man 42 times and he had nothing on him.. dang man, makes me feel so freaking lucky when I got busted for one little plant.. (I had a gun, it was five feet away from my plant...) In name of freedom [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #7 posted by SWAMPIE on July 25, 2001 at 02:04:06 PT |
| Yepppir!Honey,go get my 30-30 with the big scope on it!Them nimrods are after my tomaters agin!!!! What ludicrous idiots!! [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #6 posted by Slug on July 24, 2001 at 20:09:38 PT |
| Hitler proclamed he was doing something for the good of the world. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #5 posted by mayan on July 24, 2001 at 16:49:23 PT |
| Exactly Doug! Now they can come down in anyones yard that is growing anything! Very scary. Once they have landed they can get a closer look & say that you were acting nervous(with a gun in your face) so they can do a thorough search. What if this tomato farmer did have a few pot plants that the narcs didn't see until they landed? This is complete B.S. & this alone is reason enough to end this ludicrous war on plants! [ Post Comment ] |
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Comment #4 posted by lookinside on July 24, 2001 at 16:44:25 PT:
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| i like your thoughts kap...if the cops lost a few dozen aircraft to irate(and well hidden) citizens...they might rethink this BS...i'd like to see surface to air missiles legalized for duck hunting...you never know when pigs will fly... [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #3 posted by Sudaca on July 24, 2001 at 13:46:55 PT |
| they should dispense with the flying around and just break i; the excuse could be made more honest " oh I thought he had mj in the yard" doesn't need the hundreds of bucks an hour it takes to have a chopper in the air. maybe he thought they were growing tomahighk [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #2 posted by Doug on July 24, 2001 at 09:56:01 PT |
| After this we can expect the cops to swoop down on us if we have anything green growing in our backyards. The cops will always have the excuse, well, I thought it looked like marijuana. This is yet another reason that all people should bw against the war on marijuana -- it endangers your right to grow vegetables. I'm wondereing if this story has made the evening news, where it could be used to hold up the whole armed patrollers from the sky image to ridicule.This is actually quite scary, and reminds one of the first Robocop movie. [ Post Comment ] |
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Comment #1 posted by kaptinemo on July 24, 2001 at 09:03:49 PT:
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| But then again, so have been the cops. Ponder this scenario: You've just been told you have cancer. You have maybe 24 months to live. And the last six are literally going to be the worst 6 months of your life. In your young and wild days, you'd tried pot, and knew of it's anti-emitic and analgesic properties. You decide to grow some cannabis, to stave off the pain and nausea. You've always been a model citizen. Hell, you even supported the little kiddies in their DARE programs. but now, you are being told to go off quietly and die somewhere...oh, and don't use pot, 'cause even though it works, it's illegal. No one can help you, few are willing, and the medical establishment is more concerned about getting as much as it can out of you money-wise before you croak and take any further possibility of milking the insurance company for those $3,000 a pop cancer treatments. You've played by the rules all your life, and now, in your time of need, those who make the rules would rather you died in agony than allow you to use a proven remedy for pain and nausea. They don't want you sending the wrong message to those DARE-programmed kiddies; might ruin the mindset they are so assiduously cultivating that cannabis is bad for you. And who should start flying around but Roger-Ramjet wannabes who want to make a name for themselves, up their careers, and maybe have a little fun at Joe Taxpayer's expense...literally and figuratively. They spot your garden from the air, and decide they are going to come on like gangbusters and raid you. You are terminal. You have nothing to lose because you are a walking dead man. And you are armed. There's one thing a chopper pilot fears above all things: Foreign Object Damage. Something getting sucked into the jet nacelle, turning the rapidly spinning tiny metal impellers into the worst anti-personnel mine you can imagine, because all the force gets expelled along the same line of rotation as the engine. They'd fly off in a spiral pattern and rip through the body of the chopper like the shrapnel they've become. And anything inside of it gets perforated. Something like a rifle bullet would do very nicely. Have a care, DrugWarriors. Someday you will meet that man who has nothing left to lose...and he might just be tempted to take a few of you Hitlerite b******s with him. [ Post Comment ] |
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