Unarmed passenger shot dead at marijuana traffic stop in Eufaula
Eufaula police shot unarmed passenger Cameron Massey, 26, five times during an October 2013 traffic stop launched on a tip that the car carried marijuana; officers later found seven pounds in the trunk. A grand jury declined to indict the officers in 2014.
On 15 October 2013, Eufaula officer John Phillips stopped a car driven by Joshua Kelly, 30, with
Cameron Massey, 26, riding in the passenger seat.[1][2]An informant had said a car matching its
description was carrying a load of marijuana through town, and Phillips cited an improper lane
change and obscured registration tags.[1][3]
Phillips handcuffed Kelly after he twice stepped out of the car and grew loud and aggressive, then
called for backup; Chief Ralph Conner arrived and ordered the 6-foot-8 Massey to keep his hands on
the dashboard.[1][2]When Massey leaned toward the driver’s side and the car began rolling forward,
Conner fired once and Phillips fired four more times, killing the unarmed Massey.[1][2][3]Officers
later found seven pounds (about 3.2 kg) of marijuana in the trunk.[3]
Body-camera footage from Conner, published by BuzzFeed News in January 2016, shows Conner aiming at
Massey before the engine started and firing as the car rolled forward.[1][2]A grand jury declined
to indict the officers in 2014, and Massey’s family filed a civil suit in July 2015.[1][2]
Photos and video
Body-camera footage of the October 2013 Eufaula traffic stop in which officers shot Cameron Massey Source: BuzzFeed News (via YouTube)
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
Two armed suspects entered a marijuana dispensary on Nadeau Street in Florence-Graham on the evening of 8 October 2026 and exchanged gunfire with an employee, 33-year-old Martin Gudines, who was pronounced dead at the scene. The suspects fled, and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Homicide Bureau appealed for information.
Josepha Littlewolf Basurto, 31, was found shot dead in a pickup at an illegal marijuana grow outside Covelo on 9 July 2026. By 24 July investigators had arrested three men, including two brothers and their father, and were still seeking a 17-year-old charged with homicide.
Mexican farmworker Jaime Alanís García died on 12 July 2025, two days after falling about 30 feet from a greenhouse during a federal immigration raid on the licensed Glass House Farms cannabis farm near Camarillo. DHS said he was neither in custody nor pursued; his family filed a federal claim alleging an illegal search and excessive force, and Mexico weighed its own legal action.
Mendocino County deputies responding to a 911 hang-up near Covelo on 14 May 2025 found one man fatally shot on Hulls Valley Road, two others wounded, firearms and cartridge casings, and a blood trail leading to a large illegal cannabis grow with hoop houses that investigators linked to a drug-trafficking organization.
