A Sad Anniversary

Today marks the end of a five day armed standoff that happened four years ago between marijuana legalization activists Tom Crosslin and Rolland Rohm and a small army of local, state and federal agents. Crosslin and Rohm had been driven to the breaking point by a witch hunt pursued by then Cass County Prosecutor Scott Teter.

Tom and Rolland ran a licensed campground called Rainbow Farm, about five miles east of the town of Vandalia, Michigan. The campground was a venue for concerts, festivals and activism. They were also two homosexual men raising Rohm's 12 year old son together. They were persecuted by Teter, an anti-abortion Republican who campaigned on child welfare and antidrug issues.

In 1998 Teter sent an undercover narc into the festivals but couldn't find enough evidence to prosecute its organizers. He sent a letter, as he now says, "putting Crosslin on notice" that he knew about "hard drugs" there. When fliers went up announcing HempAid '99 Teter sent another letter, dated March 24, 1999. This time he threatened to seize Crosslin's property if hard drugs were found.

The letter sent a cold shock through Cass County. Overnight, what had been a political chess match turned into a blood feud. Crosslin responded with a letter, saying, "I have discussed this with my family, and we are all prepared to die on this land before we allow it to be stolen from us. How should be we be prepared to die? Are you planning to burn us out like they did in Waco, or will you have snipers shoot us through our windows like the Weavers at Ruby Ridge?"

Based on the word of an informant who alleged that employees had been paid under the table, Rainbow Farm was raided on May 9, 2001 by a heavily armed squad enforcing a tax warrant. Crosslin, Rohm and a few others were subsequently arrested on charges of manufacturing marijuana and maintaining a drug house. A week later, Rohm's son, Robert, didn't come home from school. At Teter's behest, sheriffs deputies under the direction of the Family Independence Agency had taken the boy out of class and placed him in the custody of a former police chief from Edwardsburg.

On August 31, 2001, Crosslin made good on his word to Teter. Armed with Ruger Mini-14 rifles and dressed in camouflage, Crosslin and Rohm began to burn down the buildings at Rainbow Farm, leaving the farmhouse intact. By dawn on Labor Day, 120 county, state and federal law enforcement officers were on the scene. By September 4, 2001, both Crosslin and Rohm were dead, Crosslin shot in the head by an FBI sniper on Labor Day morning, and Rohm multiple times in the chest by State Police in the evening on the following day.

As I was driving to Elkhart, Indiana on the day of Rolland Rohm's funeral, I heard about the attack on the World Trade Center on my car's radio. While I was at the funeral parlor, the Pentagon was hit. As I sat there, remembering my friends and fellow activists, I couldn't help but reflect on the irony of our nation's misplaced law enforcement priorities. It took more than 100 cops to gun down two men armed with squirrel guns who never hurt anyone, while a mere week later, 19 men armed with box cutters killed over 3,000 innocent people.

Posted at Sunday, September 04, 2005
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