One of five suspects in a marijuana growing operation was shot numerous times Wednesday morning by four officers in a confrontation in rugged terrain about 10 miles north of Democrat Hot Springs, sheriff’s deputies said. The person who was shot was airlifted to Kern Medical Center with major injuries, sheriff’s spokesman Ray Pruitt said. Democrat Hot Springs is about 12 miles east of the mouth of the Kern River Canyon, the Bakersfield Californian reports. The incident happened at 7:48 a.m. when 12 officers with the sheriff’s department, Drug Enforcement Agency and U.S. Forest Service hiked [...]
MEXICO CITY – A debate about legalizing marijuana and possibly other drugs – once a taboo suggestion – is percolating in Mexico, a nation exhausted by runaway violence and a deadly drug war. The debate is only likely to grow more animated if Californians approve a ballot initiative on Nov. 2 to legalize marijuana for recreational use in the state. Mexicans are keeping a close eye on the Proposition 19 vote, seeing it as a bellwether, Tim Johnson reports for McClatchy Newspapers. “If they vote ‘yes’ to approve the full legalization of marijuana, I think [...]
Update: Police have arrested a Fresno resident who officers said shot and severely wounded a man who had stolen from the resident’s large marijuana garden across the street from Roeding Park. Phayvahn Dydouangphan, 47, was arrested Wednesday on a charge of assault with a firearm, the Fresno Bee reports. Police said he lives at the West Belmont Avenue home where thieves stole the marijuana early that morning and were driving away in a pickup truck when Dydouangphan opened fire. Dydouangphan was one of four residents at the home who had documentation that allows them to [...]
NEWARK — A man charged and later released in a shooting at a San Francisco medical marijuana dispensary two years ago was found dead near the site of a pool party in Newark where shots were fired, police said. The body of Julius Hughes, 26, of Brentwood was found in some bushes near Jarvis Avenue shortly after 7 a.m. Monday, authorities said. On Sunday night, there had been a pool party at the adjoining W Hotel at 8200 Gateway Blvd., the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The event was billed as the second annual Labor Day [...]
Sep 052010
Héctor Aguilar Camín is a historian, a novelist and the publisher and editor of the Mexican magazine Nexos. Jorge G. Castañeda was Mexico’s foreign minister from 2000 to 2003 and teaches at New York University. Their column endorsing Proposition 19 as a powerful tool to fight Mexican drug violence appears in the Washington Post. ============ MEXICO CITY — On Nov. 2, Californians will vote on Proposition 19, deciding whether to legalize the production, sale and consumption of marijuana. If the initiative passes, it won’t just be momentous for California; it may, at long last, offer [...]
Sep 042010
Authorities arrested four people who they suspect broke into a La Grange home while heavily armed early Thursday, beating the resident and stealing marijuana plants, cash and other items, the Tuolumne County Sheriff’s Department reported Friday. No shots were fired. The home-invasion robbery occurred at a home in the 2500 block of Alameda Drive, west of Merced Falls Road, said Sgt. Jeff Wilson, a sheriff’s spokesman. Shortly before 1 a.m., sheriff’s officials received a call from Modesto police about the robbery, Rosalio Ahumada reports in the Modesto Bee. Daniel Carter Lutes, 42, was seriously injured [...]
Bud’s note: Today’s must-read is this fascinating story by Julia Prodis Sulek of the San Jose Mercury News. Every courtroom drama needs a twist. ============ Defense lawyers in the Los Gatos murder-for-hire trial tried to put their first chink in the prosecution’s case on Thursday when they accused District Attorney-elect Jeff Rosen of withholding information they believe could help support their theory that the killing of Mark Achilli was actually a drug-debt collection gone bad. The argument arose during what seemed like routine testimony from a Santa Clara police officer about what he found in [...]
Alameda County sheriff’s investigators are asking for the public’s help in locating two men charged with murdering a man they apparently suspected of plotting to steal their marijuana. Mohammed Kahn, 47, and Manuel Trujillo, 62, know they are being sought in the slaying of Francisco “Frankie” Lopez, 27, of East Palo Alto and should be considered armed and dangerous, said sheriff’s Sgt. Scott Dudek. Lopez disappeared Feb. 26 after he and an older brother went to a five-bedroom home filled with marijuana plants in an unincorporated area near Hayward, Henry K. Lee of the San [...]
The suspect in the killing of one man and the wounding of another on Aug. 25 pleaded not guilty in Humboldt County Superior Court Wednesday to charges of murder, attempted murder, and cultivation and possession of marijuana for sale. The 28-year-old Eureka man, Mikal Xylon Wilde — whose first name has also been spelled by officials as Mykal — allegedly killed Mario Roberto Juarez-Madrid of Santa Rosa, Guatemala, during an argument at a marijuana grow outside Kneeland. He also allegedly shot Fernando Lopez, according to the district attorney’s complaint, the Eureka Times-Standard reports. The two [...]
Sep 012010
Two men were injured during a Wednesday morning home invasion robbery at their northwest Santa Rosa home that police say was likely linked to cultivation of marijuana inside the residence. Police were notified of the incident at about 3:30 a.m. by a call from Sutter Santa Rosa Medical Center, where the two victims sought treatment for minor injuries, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat reports. Police were told that one of the men had just returned from work when he was confronted by several armed suspects outside his Vermillion Way home in Santa Rosa’s Coffey Park [...]
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