cannabisnews.com: Police Continue Search of Campground 










  Police Continue Search of Campground 

Posted by FoM on September 05, 2001 at 01:05:35 PT
By Dee-Ann Durbin, The Associated Press 
Source: Associated Press 

Federal and state police were searching a campground for marijuana advocates late into Tuesday night, hours after the camp's owner and his partner were fatally shot in a standoff with police. Police said both were shot after pointing weapons at law enforcement officers. But many of those who live near Rainbow Farm, a 15-year-old campground that promoted medical and recreational marijuana use, lashed out at police for failing to end the standoff peacefully. 
Grover "Tom" Crosslin, 47, the owner of Rainbow Farm, was fatally shot by an FBI agent Monday night after a standoff that began Friday. Rolland Rohm, 28, who lived with Crosslin, was shot by Michigan State Police Tuesday morning on the campground property. A third man at the campground, Brandon J. Peoples, was walking with Crosslin and suffered minor injuries when Crosslin was shot. Authorities questioned Peoples but did not take him into custody. The standoff began Friday when deputies went to the farm after neighbors said Crosslin was burning buildings on his property. Authorities said Crosslin shot a news helicopter as it flew overhead Friday. Shots also were fired at an unmarked state police plane Saturday but missed, police said. Both aircraft landed without injuries. Police said they believe Crosslin was upset about a Friday hearing to revoke his bond. Authorities had arrested Crosslin and five others in May after a two-year investigation into allegations of marijuana use at the 34-acre campground. Crosslin was charged with felony possession of a firearm, growing marijuana and maintaining a drug house. Rohm also faced criminal charges, although it wasn't clear Tuesday whether he was among those arrested in May. The men had lived together for about 11 years, family members said. Police said Crosslin violated an order prohibiting him from holding an Aug. 17-18 festival, prompting the bond hearing. The campground hosted at least two music festivals each year, HempAid and RoachRoast, according to its Web site. Crosslin's younger sister, Shirley DeWeese, said Tuesday that the campground also held many events for the residents of this rural southwest Michigan community, including an Easter egg hunt and Halloween hay rides. "What is America coming to?" DeWeese said as she sat at a makeshift protest site near the campground. "These people murdered them. There's really no explanation." DeWeese vowed that Rainbow Farm would be rebuilt at another location. Neighbor Tammy Brand, 31, said she didn't follow the debate over marijuana. Instead, she knew Crosslin and Rohm because her son is friends with Rohm's 12-year-old son Robert. "I don't know what their cause was. I just wanted to say, `It's not worth it. Robert needs you,"' she said. "We trusted them. We liked them. They were good people." Rohm's son was put into foster care in Cass County after the May arrests, said Rohm's and Crosslin's attorney, Dori Leo. Rohm's stepfather, John Livermore, said Tuesday that he and Rohm's mother may try to become the boy's guardians. Livermore also said the family may sue state and federal police over Rohm's death. Livermore said he believes Rohm left the house Tuesday morning because he thought police were going to allow him to see his son. "He had a learning disability and he trusted them," Livermore said. "I believe he walked out expecting to see his son and met his death." Michigan State Police Lt. Mike Risko defended police actions and said Rohm was repeatedly ordered to put down his gun. "In each occasion both subjects pointed firearms at officers, and I don't know what else you would have officers do," Risko said. The FBI has said little about the standoff. Special Agent Dawn Clenney said officials were investigating and still did not know what sparked the standoff. "It's a big crime scene out there," Clenney said. "We've got a lot to do." Local, state and federal officials were still at the campground Tuesday evening. State police helicopters flew overhead early Tuesday and a bomb squad also was on the scene, but Risko said no bombs had been found. Police had suspected the property was booby-trapped. "The house is still smoldering so it will be a few days before we get the investigation part of it done," Risko said. Vandalia, about 30 miles northeast of South Bend, Ind., has a historically defiant spirit. A plaque in the town park describes Vandalia as a one-time junction on the Underground Railroad. Slaves escaping through Illinois and Indiana were taken in by local Quakers, who guided the slaves east into Canada. The campground had been one of the town's best-known landmarks. A state-issued sign pointing the way to the farm was still up on Tuesday morning, but had been removed by Tuesday night. Complete Title: Police Continue Search of Campground as Community Mourns Source: Associated PressAuthor: Dee-Ann Durbin, The Associated PressPublished: September 5, 2001Copyright: 2001 Associated PressRelated Articles & Web Site:Rainbow Farm Campground http://www.rainbowfarmcamp.com/ Police Kill Second Suspect In Standoff at Farm http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10819.shtmlPolice Kill Second Man at Rainbow Farmshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10813.shtmlCannabisNews Articles - Crosslinhttp://cannabisnews.com/thcgi/search.pl?K=Crosslin 

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Comment #8 posted by E. Johnson on September 05, 2001 at 09:58:55 PT

Child abuse at Waco
The stories about child abuse came about because of Koresh's practice of "marrying" attractive teenage girls. This was described by someone who was forced into such a "marriage".But a team of child abuse specialists said that the federal response to this -- to consider it an emergency worthy of immediate intervention -- was wrong and caused more trauma in the end than what Koresh was doing.He was effectively raping teenaged girls. But the child trauma specialists said that the children whom they evaluated who had been in his cult were more traumatized by the violent end of the cult than they were by what Koresh himself was doing to traumatize them.And they backed this up with science. Children were in imminent danger of being scarred for life either way, but having everyone they knew go up in flames was far worse for them than having a few of them become Koresh's little rape-brides.But in our country we still have not acknowledged the disastrous effect of adult violence on children. We are very focused on the threat posed to children by adult sexuality -- but adult violence is something we are still imagining leaves little impact on children, compared to the impact left by sexuality.
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Comment #7 posted by Lehder on September 05, 2001 at 08:05:16 PT

two points on Waco, and some true lies
It's bween a long time since Waco or since I've read anything of Waco, so I'm not going to look for links and references today but trust to my memory on two points. You can check them out for yourself and correct any of my errors if you like - it's a free country, sorta.1. The meth lab. I've read that the remnants of meth lab run by previous owners of the place were there at the time the Davidians purchased the compound. It consisted of some left over junk unused by the Davidians and known to local authorities. The Davidians had asked local police to come and haul the remaining junk away but they never showed. How convenient.2. From my personal observation: I did not watch the developments there day by day, minute by minute. But I probably saw about an hour's worth or more most days during the nearly two months that the story was unfolding. I remember being stunned by sleazy audacity of the fed's allegations of child molestation charges which were made only after the attack on the compound had begun. Maybe I was not paying attention, but it seemed to me at the time that I had heard nothing at all about child abuse until the very last days. How conveient. I still think the stories of sexual child abuse were cooked up in the fed's own lab after the violent attacks had begun.3. Another example that I'm afraid you will have to look up for yourselves to verify; you'll pardon me for not carrying around 15 years of old newspapers on my back for your convenience, but they're on microfilm in the Albuquerque Public Library. In the Spring of 1986, I think, a plane bound from San Francisco to New Orleans made an emergency landing in ALbuquerque because of a bomb scare. One passenger, a graduating Ph.D. on the way to see his publisher, had pulled down his "tray table" and found there a note reading "there is a bomb on board". He brought it to the stewardess' attention saying it looked like a prank but he felt he ought to report it. Needless to say he was "met" at the airport where he was detained for a whole week. The feds were convinced that the note was of his own writing and set about to prove it, willing to go to any length to do so. They brought in their handwriting expert who proved that the writing was his own. But this conclusion was challenged - the guy had many friends, was respected by his professors, publisher and fellows as a responsible and sane guy. So the feds brought in their psychologist who proved that the guy had a split personality, that he, unknown even to himself, flipped in and out from one personality state to another and that he had in fact written the bomb threat while in his crazy state. The feds proved this, people, scientifically.A whole week of this went on, the guy held in federal detention, missing his appointment to have his book published. It was front page news every day. He just seemed to get guiltier and guiltier! Finally, a miracle occurred: A woman came forward and explained that she and her twelve-year-old son had flown, in those same seats where the note was discovered, from Hawaii to San Francisco, their final destination and where the accused man had boarded. She said that her son had written the note fooling around, just being foolish and dumb. The man was then finally released without any sort of apology. That is almost the end of the story. Almost. The final end is that the guy had to rent a car to drive back home; the airline was unwilling to take him as a passenger for the retrun flight because he had made so much trouble on his first flight.SO much for federal handwriting analysis, federal psychological profiling, and federal evidence. Convictions to feds are more important than truth or evidence. Trot out a couple of federal pigs in suits and haircuts to impress a profoundly ignorant jury and, presto! another life destroyed. Abbie Hoffman said it first, friends, in thirty pages with his very first book:http://216.39.161.171/Abbie/html/abbie_books.html
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Comment #6 posted by tdm on September 05, 2001 at 07:48:40 PT

oh, and one more thing...
If a SWAT team was sent in to take into custody every property owner who had ever held an event where illegal activity had taken place, I don't think we'd be able to round up enough SWAT teams on the planet. These men were targeted for their outspoken beliefs -- plain and simple.
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Comment #5 posted by tdm on September 05, 2001 at 07:45:09 PT

correction for R. Wilson
R. Wilson, I'm afraid you incorrectly worded your message. I've corrected it for you below.1. They were under arrest and did not turn themselves in.2. Someone shot at airplanes and hit one.3. They *supposedly* leveled guns at LEOs.I will give you extra credit, however, for getting #2 correct in a literal sense. "Someone" shot at airplanes and hit one. Was it someone from the farm, or someone from the large number of LEOs present at the scene? I don't suppose we'll ever know, though I have my suspicions.
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Comment #4 posted by goneposthole on September 05, 2001 at 07:16:40 PT

Detroit Free Press
The DFP reported that there was nudity and sex at the Rainbow Campground. On what campground or farm for that matter has there never been nudity or sex?Just an attempt to fill out a book of faults and then to redeem them like S&H Green Stamps. In the area that I live, the number of farmers that use pot would astound you."It's a big crime scene out there, and we have got a lot to do." You also have a lot to learn. Stick around
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Comment #3 posted by R. Wilson on September 05, 2001 at 07:02:15 PT

Police continue search of campground
I am sorry that the men were killed. They, however, did everything to ensure that ending:    1. They were under arrest and did not turn themselves in.    2. Someone shot at airplanes and hit one.    3. They leveled guns at LEOs.They are not martyrs. I am still sorry and they are still dead.
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Comment #2 posted by endorfin on September 05, 2001 at 06:28:47 PT

poll
Detroit News "Cyber Survey" Rainbow Farms deathshttp://detnews.com/2001/metro/0109/04/metro-285449.htmWhose fault was it that two men were fatally shot by law enforcement officials at a Western Michigan campground? O Their own fault O The FBI and state police's fault 
Detroit News "Cyber Survey"
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Comment #1 posted by kaptinemo on September 05, 2001 at 06:02:06 PT:

The Fed's propensity for coverups
is not to be forgotten.I expect to see bulldozers used very shortly, just as they were at Waco, to "excavate" (and in the process, bury) any possibly damning evidence - like the tear gas grenades that may have touched off the fire at Waco.Just as the Feebs covered up an explosion at FBI HQ's in 1987, destroying valuable evidence - which may cause a huge number of cases to be re-examined:http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0123/ridgeway.phpJust as the Feebs - again! - covered up instances of their much-vaunted, nationally famous Crime Lab's incredibly, criminally slipshod handling of evidence...to the point of perjury.http://sidebar.cnn.com/US/9703/07/fbi.lab/index.htmlJust as the ATF lied about there being a meth lab at Waco:http://waco93.com/dallasmorningnews9_26_99.htmfrom the article:"On Dec. 4, 1992, almost three months before the raid, ATF decided to seek military assistance to serve its warrants at the Branch Davidian commune, according to government records. ATF learned it could go one of two ways. Agents could seek military assistance under federal laws that would require them to reimburse the Department of Defense for manpower and equipment. Or they might qualify for free military support if evidence of illegal drugs came up in their investigation.(My, how familiar this sounds, doesn't it?) ATF began looking for a drug connection on Dec. 14, 1992, according to GAO investigators. The GAO report said ATF agents found people who told them that Mr. Koresh had said "drug trafficking was a desirable way to raise money." And they found ("Found"? Or would 'manufactured' be a better word?) informants who told them that a methamphetamine lab once operated on Branch Davidian property. Criminal record checks determined that several Branch Davidians had been convicted of drug offenses. Defense department records show that some military lawyers suspected ATF of manufacturing the drug connection just to get thousands of dollars in free military assistance. And others, including Sheriff Harwell, said ATF's information appeared to be several years old. Unproven allegations of a meth lab on Branch Davidian property had only been a hot topic before Mr. Koresh took over the religious sect in 1988, Sheriff Harwell said.Oh, yes we can trust the FBI (who's 'expert sniper' shot and killed an unarmed Vicki Weaver at Ruby Ridge while she was holding an infant) the ATF, and the whole panoply of Federal alphabet soup to be absolutely professional about this entire matter.Believe that, and I have some real estate on the Moon I'd like to interest you in. Cash, please, no checks, and all sales are final.
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