On Wednesday 17 September 2003, Drug Enforcement Administration agents, Illinois State Police, Cook County sheriff’s officers and the Illinois National Guard seized about 6,000 marijuana plants from six concealed plots in the Cap Sauer’s Holdings section of the Cook County forest preserve near Palos Park.[1] The plants stood 5 to 12 feet tall in unincorporated Palos Township at McCarthy Road and 104th Avenue.[1]
Burn on site
Officers found the farms about a mile north of 123rd Street between 104th Avenue and Wolf Road after airborne surveillance.[1] They cut the plants down and burned them where they grew.[1] DEA Chicago special agent in charge Richard Sanders said growers had damaged trees and left garbage in otherwise pristine woodland.[1] Cook County Sheriff Michael Sheahan said hikers could encounter armed cultivators in such sites.[1] DEA spokesman Gary Boertleen said no arrests had been made by Wednesday but investigators were following several leads.[1] Sanders said the raid was part of the agency’s Domestic Cannabis Eradication/Suppression Program and that more than 20,000 plants had already been seized in northeastern Illinois that year.[1]
Aftermath
Palos Park Police Chief Joe Miller told the Tribune that publicity about the burn drew people hoping to salvage usable cannabis from the area, creating parking problems and alarming nearby residents.[2] Miller said the seekers visited daily even though authorities said everything found had been destroyed.[2]
