Norkali
Active member
Link: Authorities target illegal pot grows in southwest Santa Rosa sweep
This makes me uneasy and I don't like the connotations....
This was a mostly Hispanic neighborhood....'ghetto' by Santa Rosa standards, but not bad at all.Dozens of combat-clad police officers, deputies and federal agents swarmed a southwest Santa Rosa neighborhood Wednesday morning in the region's largest-ever operation against residential marijuana gardens.
A team of 150 law enforcement officers raided 32 homes on Moorland Avenue, Eddy Drive, Barbara Drive and Neville Way, immediately south of the Corby Auto Mall.
Following the initial raid, officers carrying search warrants went into yards and confiscated a large amount of marijuana plants. Residents, many of them handcuffed, sat in front yards and watched as the pot was piled in great heaps.
The raids began about 9 a.m. when FBI agents in full military gear ordered residents to leave their homes, then rushed into the residences, most of them modest multi-plex units. The neighborhood was punctuated by the sounds of exploding flash grenades at several homes.
The agents ushered adults and children outside, where many of the adults were handcuffed and watched over by officers with a variety of agencies. Participants included personnel from the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office, Probation Department and District Attorney's Office, Santa Rosa Police Department, California Highway Patrol and federal departments of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Sheriff's Lt. Dennis O'Leary said the operation was planned after authorities discovered that suspected pot cultivation in the neighborhood had become rampant.
“We just looked into this neighborhood and, literally, probably every backyard but two or three have a (marijuana) grow,” O'Leary said. “Our goal is to go in there to rid the neighborhood of these, what we think are probably illegal grows.”
This makes me uneasy and I don't like the connotations....
