Three dozen officers from nearly a dozen agencies raided a huge boomerang-shaped cannabis garden below Lumpkin Road near Feather Falls on 19 September 2003 after an aerial patrol had spotted it in August.[1] Deputies surprised three men on a trail in the grow area, and Martin Cardenas Baez, 40, levelled a loaded AK-47 rifle at them.[1] The deputies fired 17 rounds, hitting Baez 11 times, and Jose-Guadalupe Castaneda Casillas, 22, was also fatally hit; both men lived in Mexico.[1]
The garden held more than 11,000 mature plants, which the district attorney valued at about 22 million dollars on the street.[1] A county eradication unit source put the same garden at more than 10,000 plants.[2] A third man, Valentine-Guizar Mora, 34, was taken into custody unharmed and arraigned in Butte County court on charges carrying up to four years, but the county charges were dropped so he could be handed to the federal authorities.[1]
Justified, the district attorney found
District Attorney Mike Ramsey announced on 30 September that a special shooting-protocol team of officers from every law-enforcement agency in the county had found the shootings justified and done in self-defence, clearing the deputies of criminal liability.[1][2] The only surviving suspect’s statements supported the findings.[1] Sheriff Perry Reniff said the deputies had fired on the suspect closest to the weapon, as trained, and that the garden had been watched since August because it was guarded by armed men.[1]
