SALT LAKE CITY, Nov. 16 - In a case that has spurred intense soul-searching in legal circles, a 25-year-old convicted drug dealer, who was arrested two years ago for selling small bags of marijuana to a police informant, was sentenced on Tuesday to 55 years in prison. The judge who sentenced him, Paul G. Cassell of the United States District Court here, said that he pronounced the sentence "reluctantly" but that his hands were tied by a mandatory-minimum law that required the imposition of 55 years on Weldon H. Angelos because he had a gun during at least two of the drug transactions. [continues 449 words]
THREE RIVERS, Calif. - Wearing camouflage and armed with machetes, a dozen police officers waited in the gathering heat of morning for a helicopter that was to drop them into a marijuana farm, in the hills two miles distant. Rattlesnakes, poison oak and bee stings would be the least of their concerns, the officers were warned before the raid: They might be welcomed with gunfire. "You've got to take care of yourselves," Sgt. Richard Matthews, a SWAT team leader for the Tulare County Sheriff's Department, told the officers in a briefing near here, at the western boundary of Sequoia National Park. [continues 1041 words]
RED ROCK, Ariz. - The police are investigating whether armed vigilantes, self-appointed guardians of the border with Mexico, fatally shot at least two illegal immigrants in the desert last week. A 32-year-old man who was part of a group of a dozen migrants waiting to be picked up by smugglers at a pond just west of here last Wednesday told investigators that he escaped through the brush after two men wearing camouflage fatigues descended on the group, firing an automatic rifle and a pistol. [continues 1132 words]
