Suspected Marijuana Grower’s Slaying by Agent Investigated

Investigators from the state attorney general’s office are inquiring into the fatal shooting Wednesday of a suspected marijuana grower by a U.S. Forest Service agent in a remote area of Butte County.

The suspected grower was only identified as a white male.

The shooting occurred after two Forest Service “resource protection officers” and a Butte County Sheriff’s deputy went to observe a marijuana patch with more than 200 plants in an area bordering and including a small section of the Plumas National Forest, according to a sheriff’s department statement.

The three were videotaping the patch, about 15 miles northeast of Oroville, when they noticed a man watering marijuana plants, Butte County Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Ramsey said.

When the man spotted one officer and attempted to flee, an officer identified himself and ordered the suspect to stop, but instead the man “worked the action of a shotgun he was carrying and leveled it at the officer,” the statement said.

The man was then shot dead by Forest Service agent Thomas Roland, 33, an eight-year agency veteran, a service spokesman said.

Each of the three officers was wearing a “clearly identifiable badge and hat,” according to the statement.

Officials emphasized that Wednesday’s stakeout had nothing to do with the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP), the federal, state and local program to eradicate pot growing, now in its third year.

Although CAMP crews have worked with Butte County law enforcement officers on similar marijuana raids, Wednesday’s stakeout at Plumas was engineered by the Sheriff’s Department, which had spotted the patch from a plane, authorities said.

Because a CAMP crew was already working in another section of the county on Wednesday, the department enlisted the service’s aid for the surveillance mission--a routine procedure, according to a spokeswoman.