A lot more things are going to go wrong than are going to go right.
September 25, 2014 8:04 AM   Subscribe

The New Pinkertons: Private Security Outfit Raids Pot Farms In California
"Let me tell you what keeps me awake. If a citizen calls up and says, 'Listen, there's men with long guns and camouflage green that look like policemen that are cutting my marijuana down.' And my dispatcher goes, 'Oh my gosh, it's not us,'" [Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman] said. "What we're going to do is we're going to send cops with guns to this location where we think there's a marijuana ripoff. Honestly, what could possibly go wrong here? A lot more things are going to go wrong than are going to go right."

posted by Room 641-A (9 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: We've got a recent thread on this subject here -- restless_nomad



 
This seems like a situation rife with disastrous consequences. /understatement
posted by Sophie1 at 8:11 AM on September 25, 2014


Unless these guys are just barging onto people's land uninvited, I don't get the scenario the Sheriff describes. Apparently they're patrolling private land in the employ of the owners of that land to protect it from people who are there illegally. The mall ninja surface dressing aside, this doesn't seem all that different from, well, mall cops. They're fulfilling the same basic function as any other private security operation, of which there are many.
posted by Naberius at 8:14 AM on September 25, 2014 [3 favorites]


Yeah, I was about to write the same thing, Naberius. This scenario:
If a citizen calls up and says, 'Listen, there's men with long guns and camouflage green that look like policemen that are cutting my marijuana down.'
seems inherently unlikely if the "citizen" is growing that marijuana illegally on someone else's land--and that seems to be the only situation in which these guys get involved. The FPP seems to frame this as if these guys were anti-marijuana fanatics who are roaming around looking for random marijuana plots to destroy, but that's clearly not what's going on.
posted by yoink at 8:20 AM on September 25, 2014


Dupe, and yes, that's the same issue for me Naberius. Every single story I've seen on this opens with a framing of 'pot farms on private land', but there's a remarkable lack of statements that these people were growing pot on their own land. And the company claims they are solely doing this on land they are being paid to patrol, which is a quite believable statement.

In which case, I'm entirely cool with it. If you don't want your pot plants cut down, grow it on your own land and stop fucking with other people's property.
posted by tavella at 8:21 AM on September 25, 2014


This is kind of a double.

Perhaps a bit more information about the situation, though.
posted by k5.user at 8:22 AM on September 25, 2014


What I didn't get from the article (maybe I'm being naive here) is what happens with the plants they are cutting down. Since the plants are illegal, isn't destroying them effectively destroying evidence of a crime? How does the law expect you to dispose of this kind of thing if you find it on your property?
posted by Dr Dracator at 8:24 AM on September 25, 2014


Perhaps a bit more information about the situation, though.

Or a bit less. The earlier post describes the precise situation the Sheriff was afraid of -- the contractors turning up in the wrong place.
posted by George_Spiggott at 8:24 AM on September 25, 2014


It's a double, but it looks like they actually got to talk to Trouette, unlike other news sources:
"Law enforcement just doesn't have the means to take care of it any longer," Trouette told TPM. The 2011 murder of Fort Bragg, Calif. city councilman Jere Melo by an illegal trespasser tending poppy plants as Melo patrolled private land for a timber company made a big impression on Trouette, he said. Lear was incorporated the same year, and the company has worked with a non-profit founded in Melo's memory.
And that kind of explains a lot here.
posted by Johann Georg Faust at 8:26 AM on September 25, 2014


It feels like if there is a problem with trespassing, that is a police matter, and if the police don't have the funds to prosecute those things, then maybe the people who can afford these well dressed mercenaries could maybe afford higher taxes.

After all, is everyone entitled to security against trespassing, or only those who can afford a private army ?
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 8:26 AM on September 25, 2014 [1 favorite]


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