Pubdate: Sun, 7 Sep 2008
Source: Post-Star, The ( NY)
Copyright: 2008 Glens Falls Newspapers Inc.
Contact:  http://www.poststar.net/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1068
Author: Don Lehman
Note: MAP archives articles exactly as published, except that our 
editors may redact the names and addresses of accused persons who 
have not been convicted of a crime, if those named are not otherwise 
public figures or officials.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Marijuana)

WEED WHACKERS

Officers Take Flight to Stamp Marijuana Out

The undercover police car raced west on Route 8 in Bakers Mills, the 
officers inside knowing that every second that passed meant there was 
more chance the evidence had been disposed of.

Minutes earlier, a State Police helicopter had hovered over the home 
of [redacted], looking for marijuana plants a tipster had told police 
were growing near woods on the east side of the home.

Helicopter pilot David Bowden had radioed a "hit" -- their code for a 
positive sighting -- to the officers on the ground below.

But they had not yet made it that far into Johnsburg from points 
south, so they weren't ready to visit the property yet to confiscate the weed.

So rather than hover over the home until the officers arrived, Bowden 
landed the helicopter behind the Johnsburg United Methodist Church on 
South Johnsburg Road and waited to meet up with the ground crews. 
Within five minutes, the vehicles were on the headed to the Route 8 
home to pull up the plants.

They arrived to find [redacted] coming down a set of steps to greet 
them, two dogs furiously barking from second-story home windows.

"What's this all about?" he asked Warren County sheriff's Sgt. Steve Stockdale.

When Stockdale told him marijuana plants had been sighted on his 
property, [redacted] said he had no knowledge of them. He welcomed 
officers to look around.

Just to the east of his home, sheriff's investigators Ed Affinito and 
Mo Aldrich and State Police Investigator Walter Trojanek found a big 
vegetable garden with a number of large holes in the ground between 
tomato plants.

But [redacted] had apparently made a mistake in his haste.

Two marijuana leaves had fallen off the plants as he pulled them up, 
and officers presented the evidence to him as he continued to 
maintain he didn't know of any marijuana plants on his property.

After a few minutes of questioning, during which [redacted] implied 
he knew but was not responsible for what had been seen on his 
property and said he didn't smoke marijuana, he eventually admitted 
he had pulled up the plants when the helicopter left and disposed of 
them behind an old bus up a hill to the east of his home.

"What's going to happen? Is this going to be in the paper? I can't 
have this in the paper, I'm running for highway superintendent in 
town. I need that job," [redacted] told the investigators. "Geez, God 
almighty, I knew better."

Seconds later the investigators found two piles of pot plants, nine 
in total, where [redacted] said they would be.  [redacted] was 
advised he was going to be charged with the misdemeanor of unlawful 
growing of cannabis and released to appear in Johnsburg Town Court.

"You work fast. I can't believe you got rid of them already," Bowden, 
a State Police technical sergeant, said.

The seizure from [redacted]'s home was one of three on the day as the 
State Police and Warren County Sheriff's Office took their annual 
September day to search for outdoor marijuana with the aid of eyes in the sky.

The Sheriff's Office and State Police Community Narcotics Enforcement 
Team spent the day checking areas where tipsters had indicated 
marijuana might be found growing. They had 11 spots on their list, 
which the helicopter would check from the air and guide officers on 
the ground to pull up.

Another spot in the hamlet of Bakers Mills, owned by a relative of a 
Johnsburg man who was arrested on felony marijuana possession 
charges, yielded 15 plants to sheriff's investigators Russ Lail and 
Terry Comeau while [redacted]'s property was searched. No arrests 
were made Tuesday in that case, but the investigation was continuing.

A field between deep forests in Bolton yielded another 20 or so 
mature plants. The helicopter also located several other parcels that 
were too remote to reach Tuesday afternoon.

"They'll mark the longitude and latitude for us and we'll go in later 
to grab them using GPS," Stockdale explained.

The next day, they did.

Harvest Time

In rural counties like Warren, Washington and Saratoga, marijuana 
growers find plenty of vacant, fertile land for cultivation.

However, the advent of indoor growing operations and availability of 
State Police aircraft for surveillance has lessened outdoor growing. 
In the 1980s, police in Washington County annually seized thousands 
of plants, and that number has dropped dramatically over the years.

Sometimes pot growers choose state land, or relatives land, or that 
of people they don't know.

The State Police annually set aside time for their helicopter pilots 
to assist local police in the search for pot patches, efforts that 
also serve as training for pilots.

On Tuesday morning, a team of 19 police officers, including two State 
Police pilots traveling in a Black Hawk helicopter, met at Floyd D. 
Bennett-Warren County Airport to go over their intelligence on 11 
specific locations where tipsters had indicated pot was growing.

The goal was for officers on the ground to be in the area being 
looked over by the helicopter as the chopper perused specific areas.

That way, if marijuana is located, the officers can get there quickly 
before the owner has time to move or harvest it.

Sometimes, that's not possible. Helicopters obviously move much 
faster than cars, and sometimes the pot is far off the beaten path, 
where four-wheelers or long hikes on foot are needed to gain access.

So as was seen in the case at [redacted]'s home, the timing doesn't 
always work perfectly. The helicopter crew can drop smoke grenades to 
mark spots for officers working on the ground, or hover over the 
parcel to guide police into an area by radio.

The helicopter crew -- two State Police pilots, the State Police 
investigator Trojanek and sheriff's Patrol Officer Anthony Bruno -- 
communicates constantly via radio to the guys on the ground, using 
code letters instead of road locations to describe the areas they are 
searching.

They don't take chances and are all armed. Police have found trip 
wires and other hazards set up to protect plants from raiders, law 
enforcement or not.

Defending the Crop

Last summer, an unarmed police officer in Albany County was shot when 
he and a group that was pulling up marijuana plants encountered the 
plants' grower, leading to a fight.

"Make sure you're wearing a jacket or shirt on it that says 'Police' 
on it," Stockdale instructed the sheriff's officers who involved in 
the effort. "I don't want someone touching off rounds at us because 
they think we're stealing their stash."

[redacted], the Johnsburg resident who was arrested Tuesday, didn't 
go that far, but there was a fence around his pot parcel that was 
equipped with chain-wrapped metal cans that would make noise if 
anyone entered his plot.

The officers went over each site they planned to check, assigning 
code letters to them for conversation over the radio and explaining 
who they thought might be linked to each parcel, and whether there 
was any information of booby traps or other possible hazards to 
machete-wielding officers who would confiscate the plants.

Seven of the 11 locations on the list, from Queensbury to Stony Creek 
to Johnsburg, were flown over Tuesday, with plants found at five of them.

In all, the effort had yielded about 100 plants as of Thursday.

With each plant producing about a pound of marijuana, the crop was 
worth about $200,000, Stockdale said.

"There's big money in marijuana, and that leads to violence," Stockdale said.

A fatal shooting in Saratoga Springs several years ago was linked to 
large-scale marijuana trafficking.

Washington County Sheriff Roger Leclaire said his department was 
awaiting its annual flight time with the State Police, but ground 
checks of suspected pot-growing locations as of Friday had not 
yielded any seizures. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake