Pubdate: Sat, 08 Sep 2001
Source: Niles Daily Star (MI)
Copyright: 2001 Niles Daily Star
Contact:  http://www.nilesstar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1555
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
http://www.mapinc.org/find?200 (Rainbow Farm Shooting)

RAINBOW FARMS STANDOFF SPARKS TALK, OPINIONS

Tragedy struck the small town of Vandalia when two men were shot and killed 
in a four-day standoff with police. Grover Thomas Crosslin, 46, was shot by 
an FBI agent Monday afternoon and his roommate, Rolland Rohm, 28, was shot 
by a Michigan State trooper Tuesday morning at Crosslin's Rainbow Farm 
campground.

It began last Friday when Cass County law enforcement officers responded to 
reports of fires on the campground east of Vandalia on M-60. An anonymous 
call to police warned the fires were set to ambush officers.

Rainbow Farm was well known for staging festivals where drugs where 
exchanged and used. Crosslin held Hemp Fest every Memorial Day weekend and 
Roach Roast on Labor Day weekends.

Authorities searched the campground in May and seized 300 marijuana plants 
and three loaded firearms and arrested Crosslin and Rohm on drug and 
weapons charges. Rohm's 13-year-old son was removed from the property and 
placed into foster care.

In June, Cass County Circuit Judge Michael E. Dodge issued an order 
prohibiting Croisslin from holding festivals until his trial, scheduled 
February 26, 2002.

Crosslin allegedly violated the terms of the order when he held a festival 
at Rainbow Farm Aug. 17 and 18, leading to hearings that were scheduled 
last Friday to revoke Crosslin's $150,000 bond and Rohm's $25,000 bond.

Neither appeared in court Friday.

Cass County Sheriff's deputies who responded last Friday to the scene where 
not allowed on the grounds and found themselves in a standoff. Attempts to 
negotiate with Crosslin through a third party were unsuccessful.

On Monday afternoon, Crosslin, carrying a rifle and accompanied by Brandon 
James Peoples, allegedly approached an area where an FBI observer was 
stationed. Upon seeing the FBI observer, authorities said Crosslin raised 
his weapon to shoulder height and pointed it directly at the agent. The FBI 
agent fired one round and fatally wounded Crosslin.

Authorities established negotiations with Rohm that continued through the 
night. Rohn was killed the next morning after authorities saw a glow in the 
upstairs of the farmhouse. At approximatley 6:30 p.m., Rohm was observed 
leaving the residence and walking out into the yard with a long gun. After 
several orders to put the weapon down, Rohm reportedly pointed the weapon 
at a Michigan State policeman and was fatally shot.

The violent end to what was hopefully going to be a peaceful negotiation 
prompted questions posed to Dowagiac residents as to what they thought of 
the incident and if they thought police handled the situation well.

John Hall, a hot dog vendor on Main Street said he believed officers did 
not want a confrontation.

Hall, a former police chaplain said he knows Sheriff Joseph Underwood and 
other officers.

"I know the attitude of the guys. I think they did a good job. I was sick 
for them when I heard he got shot because that's not what they wanted."

Crosslin was given every opportunity to give himself up, Hall said. It was 
Crosslin who made the aggressive move when he came out with a gun during 
negotiations.

"It was totally opposite of what he was trying to do. So that's why we 
think it was a suicide by cops," Hall said.

"He had everything, why didn't he just come to court? But just seeing the 
situation in the news, I knew, and even my son said it was going to end up 
going wrong because he's creating his own problems."

Kris Dawkins was out of town when the incident happened, so she said she 
doesn't know the details of the standoff at Rainbow Farms in Vandalia but 
people at work were talking about the incident.

"Everyone was just really upset about how it was handled," Dawkins said. 
Some of her co-workers felt police overreacted when they shot the two, she 
said.

"Because I don't have the facts, I don't have the details, I don't know," 
she said.

Jerry Ferrari said he got the tail end of the story. It started the day he 
left town and ended the day he came back, he said, and what he knew about 
it, he read on the internet.

"I really didn't follow it that closely," he said. "I really don't have a 
negative or positive on it. Probably a little bit of both sides."

Ferrari said in previous standoffs with police in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and 
Waco, Texas, "it seems like police like to use force."

"I think they jump the gun a lot of times," he said, adding that he didn't 
know what the situation at Rainbow Farm was and that it was not a good 
thing for Crosslin and Rohm to have pointed guns at police.

Sally and Don Heffington said they followed the story a little bit on the news.

"I don't really know all the facts, just a lot of hearsay" Don Heffington 
said. "The radio says one thing, the paper says another."

"I don't think they needed to kill him," Sally Heffington said.

"They could have shot him in the legs or something," Don said.

The two also said police could have waited Crosslin out or used tear gas to 
end the situation.

Margaret Farmer said she heard about the standoff through the grapevine and 
saw it on the news Friday night. She said she knew someone had shot at a 
helicopter, but didn't know there was a standoff.

"Nobody can prove cops could have handled it differently." she said when 
asked if she thought police handled the situation well.

"I couldn't handle it no different and you couldn't handle it no different 
than what they could," she said. In that situation something was bound to 
happen, she said. "I wouldn't know what to do."

No innocent bystanders where hit and no police got hurt, she said.

"That's their job. They should know what they're doing."

Darin Hackett said shooting at a helicopter and plane were actions that 
threatened authorities.

"The minute he raised his gun and shot at a news chopper and at police 
that's a threat right there," Hackett said.

"They could have had something to lure cops in there," he said, "so I think 
they did do it fair sniping them off, if they did snipe them off."

Hackett just got out of the Navy after four years and is now in the 
National Guard. He was on call during the standoff, he said. When he went 
to the Cass County jail to put a resume in for corrections officer, there 
were a lot of FBI agents there, he said.

Kyle Belew, owner of the Wounded Minnow Saloon, said he doesn't advocate 
the legalization of pot.

"I think that actually in that whole arena, they set the whole thing back 
by the choices they made," Belew said.

"I think the guy was unstable to begin with and I think the FBI did pretty 
much the right thing. They gave him his chances. He shot at a helicopter. 
If he didn't have a gun, he wouldn't have been shot. When it comes to that 
point..."

Belew thinks the two men chose to be martyrs for the cause of legalizing 
marijuana.

"Unfortunately, there's a 13-year-old boy involved in that whole thing."

"I might sound harsh, but they had their choices. They made their choices. 
The FBI had to do what they had to do."

Belew also expressed concern that in highlighting the events of the 
standoff, local media did not portray happenings at the farm that led up to 
the incident.

"The bad thing is there were two people who were shot," he said. "They both 
received bullets, and really, for what? In a way, I'm torn. Did they need 
to be shot? I actually think those guys probably were not violent people. 
But they chose to walk out of that house with a gun and actually point it."

Wounded Minnow cook Mike Mortimore recounted a news story he read about the 
frame of mind an officer would be in if a rifle were aimed at him or her.

"I think they handled like they could," he said.

"Everybody can speculate about what happened," Mortimore said, but said 
people need to think about it from the police's point of view.

"Do they want to do somthing like that? Would they come down to small town 
America and draw that kind of attention?

"I think they did everything they could. Remember he's the one who shot at 
the NewsCenter 16 chopper."

Mortimore supports the legalization of marijuana, saying if it is regulated 
and taxed it "could help a lot of our country's problems."

He has friends who have gone to Rainbow Farm, he said, but never went there 
himself.

"I always thought it was a bad idea to go out there," he said.

Mortimore said he thinks the incident hurt the cause of legalizing drugs.

"He could have chosen a better way than to get busted with 300 plants," 
Belew said. "He just did all the wrong things."
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager