7 shot dead at California against the law marijuana growing site
09 September, 2020
An against the law marijuana growing operation where seven persons were fatally shot in a little, rural Southern California town had the markings of organized crime, authorities said Tuesday.
More than 20 people lived on the property, which had several makeshift dwellings, a nursery and vehicles found in production, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco said. Marijuana was processed to honey oil, an extremely potent concentrate created by extracting the high-inducing chemical THC from cannabis.
All seven victims and witnesses were Laotian, Bianco said. Six persons were found dead on the house, and a woman who was shot there died later at a hospital.
“This was not a tiny operation,” Bianco said. “That is a very organized-crime type of an operation.”
Illegal grows are normal in and around Aguanga, an individual stop-sign town around 2,000 persons north of NORTH PARK with horse ranches along dirt roads. Still, the scale of the Labor Day massacre stunned residents and showed how violence permeates California’s against the law marijuana market.
The state broadly legalized recreational marijuana sales in January 2018. However the illicit market is thriving - partly because hefty legal marijuana taxes send consumers looking for better deals in the unlawful economy.
Before dawn Monday, Riverside County sheriff’s deputies taken care of immediately a 911 call of an assault with a deadly weapon and shots fired at the Aguanga home.
Investigators seized more than 1,000 pounds (454 kilograms) of marijuana and many hundred marijuana plants.
Despite there being no arrests or identified suspects, the sheriff’s statement called the deaths “an isolated incident” that didn't threaten people in Aguanga.
Partially eaten pizza sat in boxes in a circular dirt driveway of the dilapidated two-bedroom house where the shootings occurred. Three cars were parked outside - one using its front doors open.
Cases of bottled water were stacked on leading porch, that was strewn with clothing and plastic bags. A black tarp was stretched atop poles in the fenced backyard, indicating a small growing operation. Unlike many neighboring homes, it had neither a gate nor a “no trespassing” sign at the entrance.
Reached by phone, house owner Ronald McKay expressed surprise, saying he didn’t know a shooting had occurred at either of the rentals, a mobile home and the home.
He said he had tried to go to Monday to check on the well through the recent heat wave, but he was turned away by a deputy who wouldn’t simply tell him what was going on. He said he left his phone number, but authorities never called.
McKay said he didn’t know the tenants or their names - the rentals are handled by somebody who works together with him. But he said the home have been rented for three years and the mobile home for just two without incident.
“I’m kind of unaware of anything at this time,” McKay said. “For just two and three years, they’ve been there - perfect. Never had an issue.”
Aguanga, with its post office, general store and real estate brokerage, is within an area dotted with vineyards and horse ranches that have trained with some traction as a weekend getaway for Southern California residents. It’s near Temecula, a bedroom community for NORTH PARK and Los Angeles.
Deputies in February seized a lot more than 9,900 plants and collected 411 pounds (186 kilograms) of processed marijuana and firearms from suspected unlawful marijuana sites in the Aguanga area. Four persons were arrested.
Police surveillance in the area has spawned nicknames like “Marijuana Mondays,” “Weed Wednesdays” and “THC Thursdays,” said Mike Reed, a genuine estate broker and 28-year Aguanga resident.
Reed said he does real-estate business with pot growers - a few of whom are in his gated community.
Residents proceed to Aguanga for “peace and solitude,” Reed said. “People live here because it’s not in the town.”
Aguanga’s isolation, however, may have made it prone to against the law marijuana sales and cultivation. The sheriff said nearly every marijuana procedure in the mountainous communities is illegal.
Adam Spiker, executive director of the Southern California Coalition, a cannabis industry group, said the shootings were a reminder that the sprawling against the law marketplace remains largely unchecked.
“Shame on most of us: It seems we've one foot in and one foot from regulating this industry,” Spiker said.
Many California communities have not established legal marijuana markets or have banned commercial marijuana activity. Law enforcement has been struggling to match the illicit growing operations.
“This risk is inherent in the underground market,” said Los Angeles marijuana dispensary owner Jerred Kiloh, who heads United Cannabis Business Association, a business group. “If you have money and high returns, persons want to take that from you.”
Kiloh said most illicit market crimes go unreported because farmers who have been robbed cannot turn to authorities.
Laotian involvement in unlawful marijuana harvesting has grown during the last decade in California’s agricultural heartland. Folks from the relatively small community take into account a lot of the pot growing in backyards and on prime farmland.
Large cannabis growing businesses typically have thousands of dollars of product at each site, making them attractive targets for criminals.
“That’s why the violence becomes worse and worse,” Kiloh said.
Source: japantoday.com
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