cannabisnews.com: Pair Saw One Escape: Death 





Pair Saw One Escape: Death 
Posted by FoM on September 06, 2001 at 07:11:03 PT
By Shawn Windsor, Free Press Staff Writer
Source: Detroit Free Press
He had no power and nothing to eat. He had no place to go -- his farm was surrounded by nearly 100 police, deputies and FBI agents, most of them hidden in the woods. On Sunday afternoon Grover Tom Crosslin left his stone house on Rainbow Farm and slipped through the trees. He faced losing his campground to the state. He faced 20 years in prison for drug and weapons charges. And he'd already lost his partner's son, whom he helped raise. On a cell phone a day earlier, he told his lawyer, who was trying to get him to surrender, that "society consists of bad government.
You're going to be the only one left to tell the story."He knew he would die, a determined if frustrated martyr in a campaign to legalize marijuana.On Wednesday, Dori Leo, the lawyer for Crosslin, 47, and his longtime partner Rolland Rohm, 28, explained in a kind of suicide-note-by-lawyer why they decided they had no option of leaving the farm alive and provoked police into shooting them to death in separate but hauntingly similar incidents 13 hours apart.According to the FBI, Crosslin reached a neighbor's house just before 5 p.m. Monday. He broke in, took food and headed back, only to realize he'd forgotten a coffee pot.So the owner of the marijuana advocacy campground headed back out. He was wearing camouflage and carrying a semiautomatic rifle. He'd already set fire to nine of the 10 buildings on the campsite, including the general store and coffee shop.Only his and Rohm's homes weren't ash. As he approached the house, carrying the coffee pot and gun, he noticed an FBI agent.He raised his gun.The agent shot first. Crosslin collapsed into a campfire pit.The next morning, his partner, Rohm, set fire to the house, walked away, saw a Michigan State trooper, raised his gun, and was shot the same way."I was stunned Rollie didn't make it," said Leo. "I knew what would happen to Tom after we talked. Tom was the defiant one. But Rollie was scared."He was also, she said, a follower.Still, before midnight on Sunday, she talked to Rohm on a cell from inside an FBI vehicle. The agents were standing outside.Rohm asked what kind of time he faced."When he said that, I thought there was hope," she said.But it started raining. Hard. The agents climbed back in the truck. She told Rohm they had company. And they'd talk in the morning."I remember lightning lit up the whole camp, and that was the first time I could see how many police were there," she said.Then it grew dark.On Wednesday, Cass County Sheriff's deputies, FBI agents and lab scene specialists, state fire investigators and Michigan state troopers picked through the rubble and soot, looking for clues. It was an odd vista, the bucolic, rolling, 34-acre campground full of charred buildings and vehicles, including a VW Bug."We made no effort to provoke," said John Bell, special agent in charge of Michigan's FBI.Bell's team got involved when shots were fired at aircraft on Friday and Saturday. He'd been there since Sunday afternoon. His cleanup team found 100 shell casings, a pipe bomb that burned but didn't explode, revolvers and long guns. They found no evidence of marijuana on the property. In May, police had found plants growing in the basement under artificial light.Bell said they expected to be out of Rainbow late today."We want to find everything out we can about what happened," he said.Two FBI agents shot at Crosslin, he said, and both are still working. The two state troopers who fired at Rohm are on administrative leave.Both agencies are following their own protocol after an officer is involved in a shooting.Officials involved and others say the shootings were reasonable but unfortunate, but others say their deaths are an example of a government that infringes on the rights of people."This has obviously shaken us a bit. People are horrified," said Keith Stroup, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, a Washington, D.C.-based group fighting to legalize pot. "I think there is a growing awareness that in some parts of the country, offenses considered minor in most of the country are potentially lethal. Now we know one of those places is rural Michigan."Leo, a former Cook County, Ill., prosecutor who talked in her Kalamazoo law office, wondered Wednesday why her clients had to die."Why can't we maim them? Or tranquilize them?" she asked.Leo said she asked the Sheriff's Department on Friday afternoon to back off in the hopes Crosslin and Rohm would surrender -- a warrant had been issued that day because the two men failed to appear in court on drugs and weapons charges. Crosslin allegedly sponsored a concert at the campground last month in violation of the conditions of his bond.Leo said the sheriff was concerned about public safety."Maybe they were justified," she said. "But it's too bad it had to end this way."Note: Cornered by cops, men on farm feared losing land, freedom.Source: Detroit Free Press (MI)Author: Shawn Windsor, Free Press Staff WriterPublished: September 6, 2001Copyright: 2001 Detroit Free PressWebsite: http://www.freep.com/Contact: letters freepress.comRelated Articles & Web Sites:NORMLhttp://www.norml.org/Rainbow Farm Campgroundhttp://www.rainbowfarmcampground.com/ Martyers or Menaces?http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10831.shtmlPolice Criticized for Standoff's End http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10830.shtmlCrosslins Passions Led To Downfall http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10828.shtml
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Comment #7 posted by Will on September 07, 2001 at 00:18:20 PT:
RE: New facts coming out?
As a Michigan resident who is familiar with the area surrounding the campground, I can tell you that the government is most likely more interested in the land than the buildings on it. The campground is adjacent to a state park, and part of Crosslin's land is protected wetland. It's my guess that had any buildings been left standing, the government would have just torn them down and absorbed the property into the adjacent state park.
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Comment #6 posted by FoM on September 06, 2001 at 22:48:14 PT
Thanks Will
I saw that article today but thought it wasn't worth posting. We see them do things like that on the Network news channels and I always mind it. That's why I passed on it but only after a great deal of thought. It's hard to decide what to post or not sometimes.Thanks for the link.
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Comment #5 posted by Will on September 06, 2001 at 22:23:54 PT:
Take Detroit Free Press news with a grain of salt
The Detroit Free Press is notorious for bad journalism and discriminatory advertising policies. A friend of mine attempted to purchase advertising space in the Free Press for the Personal Responsibility Amendment ballot initiative, and was denied because the ad copy she submitted contained the words "marijuana" and "hemp".Also, the Free Press, rather than report the facts in the Rainbow Farm bloodbath, has decided to dig up personal dirt on the dead, and publishing an article based on an interview with Rolland's ex-wife, with the headline, "As teen, Rohm left wife to move in with Crosslin."The Detroit Free Press sure as hell doesn't live up to its name. Their reporting is reminiscent of the yellow journalism of the Hearst owned newspapers of years past, and their advertising policies are in direct contrast to the very name of the newspaper.
Latest example of yellow journalism from Detroit Free Press
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Comment #4 posted by Kathy on September 06, 2001 at 17:54:44 PT
alienated neighbors
It is tragic that Crosslin had to go to his neighbors and break in to get food, if this account is even correct.....if this was a good country, the neighbors would have taken food and a coffee pot to Crosslin and coffee and donuts to the cops and got involved to stop the violence. People are all too alienated from each other, dumbing down in front of a tv, waiting for a movie....it is all a mockery of reality, and we all need to wake up. People should not have let this go down, and I am not just talking about hemp legalization supporters, I am talking about all people---our freedoms---where are they going? Remember, during the American Revolution, the people rebelled against the Brits long before there were murders----the people rebelled because of surveillance, taxes, and the draft into the British Navy. Later, Patriots rebelled because of massacres of the people by the redcoats...and we are at the point of massacres. It is so tragic. We all want peace. We are not violent, but violence is being done to us. God/Goddess help us all!!!!!!
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Comment #3 posted by xxdr_zombiexx on September 06, 2001 at 15:05:40 PT:
Plan Waco?
Or perhaps, Native Americans? afraid of having thier homes stolen by the Whites?ALL the people out west need to pay attention to this incident. How it is handles -or whitewashed, as is obviously already happening - will set the tome for the other Federal Government Agendas.The Waco Model is apparently Standard Operational Procedure now. Control of the press makes it easier. A Bill Bennett-style "policy success". 
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Comment #2 posted by Patrick on September 06, 2001 at 09:24:57 PT
We the people would prefer a peacefiul revolution.
"Note: Cornered by cops, men on farm feared losing land, freedom."The above quote could easily be translated as…Note: Cornered by British redcoats, colonialists feared loosing land, freedom.
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Comment #1 posted by kerouacko on September 06, 2001 at 08:48:47 PT
New facts coming out?
Well this article certainly addresses a few things not mentioned before. I'm glad all the buildings got burned down; less for the government to make money off of. But what's this about the FBI saying Tom made it off the property and back safely? Did they not know? With all the troops there, how could he have pulled this off? Was he that good or was he allowed to do this? He was shot the second time by an FBI agent who was ON HIS PROPERTY. How could Tom be the one who provoked the situation when the the feds were the ones being aggressive? If they had wanted a peaceful resolution, they wouldn't have been patrolling or doing reconiassance or "looking for booby traps" or whatever it was that they said was the reason for them being in a place that would be regarded as threatening by Tom.And what's this new news that both men had two people shoot (at) them? This sounds more and more like these two were ganged up on, not like it was just one agent had no choice but to defend himself when they had a weapon aimed at them. And what was the weapon Tom had? I've heard 22-semi and mini-44. I think the cops and feds need to just get one fiction writer to set the whole thing down in one version so that the fact that they are full of S*** can be repressed/hidden for a little longer.
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