Pubdate: Fri,  5 Aug 2005
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Copyright: 2005 Hearst Communications Inc.
Contact:  http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/388
Authors: Wyatt Buchanan and Suzanne Herel, SF Chronicle Staff Writers
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis - California)

SUSPECT SLAIN, WARDEN WOUNDED IN POT RAID SHOOTOUT

One suspect was killed and a Fish and Game warden was shot in the leg 
this morning when a shootout erupted during a raid on a marijuana 
farm in the hills near Los Gatos.

A manhunt is under way in the steep, rugged terrain of Mount Umunhum 
for a second armed suspect who fled the gunfight. Authorities do not 
know whether the man is injured.

About a half-dozen officers from several agencies began the 
eradication program at 5 a.m., beginning a 1 1/2-hour hike up to a 2- 
to 3-acre parcel where up to 10,000 mature marijuana plants had been 
detected. The land, which is closed to the public, is owned by the 
Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District.

About 7 a.m., officers encountered two armed men who apparently had 
been guarding the farm, said Terrance Helm, spokesman for the Santa 
Clara County Sheriff's Department.

Details were still being determined, as radio communication is poor 
in the remote area, but someone started shooting, Helm said.

The warden, Kyle Kroll, 27, of Mountain View, was hit in one leg by a 
bullet that then traveled through the extremity to his other leg, 
Helm said. His injuries are not life-threatening.

Steve Martarano, a spokesman for the Fish and Game Department, said 
Kroll was airlifted to Eden Valley Medical Center in Castro Valley.

"It makes no sense," Helm said of the shootout. "Generally, when they 
know law enforcement is coming, they flee. They generally don't shoot 
it out with the cops."

The eradication project began as a routine one for the Campaign 
Against Marijuana Planting, run by the California Department of 
Justice. CAMP, as it is called, has five teams that work throughout 
the state trying to locate and destroy marijuana plants, which are 
harvested at this time of year.

CAMP began its first raids of the season on Thursday, removing about 
5,000 plants from Big Basin State Park north of Santa Cruz, said Bob 
Cooke, special agent in charge of the Department of Justice Bureau of 
Narcotic Enforcement in San Jose.

Last year, he said, authorities destroyed between 600,000 and 700,000 
plants statewide. The harvest season, when the raids are conducted, 
runs through the end of September.

The farm raided today was larger than authorities initially thought, 
Cooke said. They suspected that about 10,000 plants were being grown 
on 2 or 3 acres. But they discovered the swath to be about a mile 
long, Cooke said, and it could be yielding up to 50,000 plants. The 
plants stand about 4- to 5-feet tall.

Each plant is worth about $4,000 in street sales, Cooke said, so it's 
not surprising that they are guarded so heavily.

Most of the large scale marijuana-growing operations in California 
are based out of Mexico, he said.

He estimated that it would take about a dozen people to cultivate the 
crop on Mount Umunhum.

Officers from the California Highway Patrol, the California Division 
of Forestry, the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Department, the 
Department of Fish and Game and the San Jose Police Department were 
working out of a command center that had been set up at the Los Gatos 
Christian Church at 16845 Hicks Road.

Three helicopters were being used in the search. John Maciel, 
operations manager for the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, 
said that the marijuana was being grown on a preserve that is marked 
closed to the public because it has not been developed for recreational use.
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake