| The local news blurred out the “Fuck the Growers…Marijuana is still illegal” part of this narc’s lame shirt |
There is no shortage of headlines in the news these days about police officers abusing their power and denying citizens of even their most basic rights.
From Ferguson, Missouri, to your town or one nearby, cops are getting caught – many times on camera – showing little or no respect for due process, and all too often are using their own personal ideologies as a sliding scale of sorts to decide when and how to enforce the law.
They typically do not wear that ideology printed on their uniforms, however, but one law enforcement officer involved in a raid earlier this week in San Diego has some explaining to do regarding his blunt sense of style.
It all began Wednesday morning when 911 dispatchers received a call that several masked men were seen breaking into and burglarizing a commercial building in Imperial Beach, in South Bay San Diego.
The building housed an insurance company, owned by a man named Marcus Boyd, but authorities who responded to the 911 call quickly discovered that the location also served as a medical marijuana grow site.
That’s when the second robbery took place.
Less than five miles from Boyd’s place of business is a field office for the San Diego division of the federal Drug Enforcement Agency.
As they have so many times in San Diego, and up and down the state of California, the feds took over the scene and started hauling out 40 marijuana plants found growing onsite, along with undisclosed amounts of harvested cannabis and other property deemed “evidence”.
Boyd handed over all of the appropriate documentation to show that his grow was completely legal under California state law, and as it turns out, he ought to know.
Marcus Boyd is not just an insurance expert by day and cannabis lover by night, he is actually a pretty outspoken and influential pro-cannabis activist in his South Bay community, and throughout San Diego. In fact, Boyd currently serves as the Vice Chair of the San Diego Chapter of Americans for Safe Access (ASA).
Of course, the feds paid little respect to the paperwork presented, especially considering that the city of Imperial Beach has enacted its own moratorium on enforcing the state’s 18-year old medical marijuana laws.
Boyd was not arrested, and awaits a decision by District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis as to whether or not she will choose to prosecute. Normally, it would be a no-brainer considering Dumanis’ long and aggressive anti-cannabis track record in San Diego, but her recent run-ins with ASA in court may have her thinking a bit more deeply about which battles to pick.
But as protestors and local news crews gathered at the scene of the raid on Wednesday, one cameraman captured an image of a shirt being worn by one of the undercover agents on the San Diego Narcotics Task Force involved in the raid.
On the back of the agent’s shirt were the words “Marijuana Eradication”.
Ok, odd font, sir, but to each his own.
Then it said “San Diego, CA”.
Alright, whatever.
Then some caveman level artwork of some sort of mole-like cartoon characters carrying some pot leaves.
Then the money shot, like a tramp stamp across the lower back:
“Fuck the growers…Marijuana is still illegal”
Way to stay classy, San Diego.
Both the local branch of the DEA and the San Diego Sheriff’s Department have responded to the unwanted media coverage of the dumbass shirt by strongly stating that they “do not condone” the language used on the shirt, and that “administrative action will be taken”.
Whether or not that “action” amounts to a taxpayer-funded paid-leave remains to be seen.
The raid at Marcus Boyd’s place in San Diego this week came on the heels of a statement made last week by James Cole, the Deputy Attorney General under Eric Holder at the U.S. Department of Justice.
On October 16th, speaking on the current status of California’s medical marijuana laws, Cole told the LA Times, “If you don’t want us prosecuting [marijuana users]in your state, then get your regulatory act together.”
When California voters go to the polls to vote on the most important issues of their times next month, there will not be one option for reforming the seemingly toothless set of marijuana laws currently in place.
Maybe in 2016, we’re told.
Until then, narcs in snarky t-shirts will keep kicking down doors.