Pubdate: Fri, 05 Oct 2012
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2012 The New York Times Company
Contact: http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/lettertoeditor.html
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Monica Davey

UNLIKELY, AND LARGE, MARIJUANA CROP IS FOUND IN A CHICAGO INDUSTRIAL PARK

CHICAGO - Of all the remote hillsides where a patch of marijuana 
might grow unnoticed, just off a major highway in the nation's third 
most populous city hardly seems the place. Yet that was precisely 
where the authorities this week uncovered a virtual farm of marijuana 
- - plants up to 10 feet tall in perfect rows across a stretch of land 
the size of two football fields, and all of it within Chicago's city 
limits, not far from the Bishop Ford Freeway.

"I never thought I'd see something like this," said Edward Graney, a 
tactical flight officer for the Cook County Sheriff's Police, who was 
on a routine helicopter flight over the city on Tuesday when he 
noticed a glimmer of lime green. Even then, he was doubtful of what 
he was seeing, and took photographs that would later send a team of 
officers into the city's far South Side.

"When I walked in there to get my head around this, I couldn't 
believe how big it was," he said. "I was in shock. Basically, someone 
put 1,500 plants in the middle of an industrial park."

By Thursday, an investigation was under way, though no arrests had 
been made in connection with the plants, which the authorities 
described as the city's largest such discovery outdoors in memory. 
Marijuana crops are relatively common in rural areas, on public lands 
and even, at times, hidden in farmers' fields, but the police here 
are far more accustomed to finding secret growing operations indoors.

"This isn't normal for Chicago," said Nick Roti, chief of the Chicago 
Police Department's bureau of organized crime.

There were reasons such an elaborate planting, with a street value of 
$7 million to $10 million, according to the police, could go 
unnoticed for what is estimated to have been four to six months. Its 
location, near Stony Island Avenue and 105th Street, while beside a 
busy highway and not far from a residential neighborhood, is within 
an industrial area traveled mainly by trucks. And the marijuana 
plants themselves were surrounded by a perimeter of tall, dense - and 
legal - plants.

A makeshift lookout, complete with food and a pile of blankets, was 
abandoned when the police arrived.

The crops were not only bulldozed and burned, officials said, but 
special wood chips were distributed in the area to discourage new 
plantings. And helicopter officers, accustomed to monitoring car 
chases and fleeing criminals from above, were certain to keep a 
special watch on the area.

"My partner and I were just saying, now every plant looks like dope 
to us," Officer Graney said, after his usual helicopter patrol on Thursday.

Still, if the discovery appeared to be some modern twist on the 
city's 19th-century motto, "Urbs in horto" (Latin for "City in a 
garden"), no one here seemed particularly concerned that a rash of 
outdoor marijuana operations was now conceivable in Chicago.

"Frankly, there's just not many wide open places," Chief Roti said.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom