A California game warden shot and killed a suspected marijuana grower during a raid early this morning at a federal wildlife refuge near Elk Grove. The as-yet-unidentified man becomes the 22nd person to die in US domestic drug law enforcement operations so far this year.
Raiders approached the patch from several different angles, and one of the teams confronted the grower, who police said was armed.
"The man was armed and pointed his weapon at the officers," said state Department of Justice spokeswoman Michelle Gregory. "He was told to lower that weapon but did not comply."
"There was a mortal threat to one of the officers by the armed suspect," said Fish and Wildlife spokesman Captain Patrick Foy.
The man was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics.
There's no word on whether any of the law enforcement personnel were wearing body cameras that could verify their accounts. There were apparently no other witnesses.
Unnecessary death
The police and this task force obviously knew where the grow was and had to have some idea of who or how many they were likely to meet.They must have caught the guy unawares and before he had time to figure out what the true situation was,he was dead.I can think of no scenario that could have been so severe that it was necessary to take a life here.They had the time to tell the guy to put down his weapon and the guy was obviously not firing his weapon.A decently run operation would never have ended up in the death of a marijuana grower.They must have been right on the guy before he was even aware of them.They should never have allowed themselves to become so exposed that they had no option other than to kill.Of course the only witnesses are the cops,so forget about any kind of justice here.They will justify having heavily armed squads of men busting grow ops and killing anyone who dares to produce a weapon.This is how the drug war has evolved and how you can still get the death penalty for growing pot.
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