It was a late photo assignment; I was told to call a number and find out details of a ride along for a marijuana farm bust in Merced County.

Sgt. Vern Warnke answered and told me to head out to the former Castle Air Force Base in Atwater, CA. "You'll see the police cars," he said. I drove the 30-or-so miles from Modesto to the decommissioned base and saw two Merced County Sheriff's vehicles, 3 SUV's and 1 pick-up truck. I was immediately questioned by a deputy as I drove up, showed him my press credentials and asked to speak to Warnke. He pointed me in his direction.

Warnke was exiting a building along with my photographer friend, David Getzschman, of the Merced Sun-Star newspaper. David is not only an excellent photographer, but a really nice guy. I did find it a little disconcerting, however, to see David wearing a bullet-proof vest. I didn't have one and didn't realize I might need one.

I hadn't realized that they were going in "live," and we were riding along to document whatever happened. Luckily it was just he and I, with no other media to have to worry about.

Suddenly the door to a white SUV opened up and Deputy Mark Taylor cranked up his stereo to AC/DC blaring from the back. It reminded me of the scene in the film "Apocalypse Now" when helicopters stormed the beaches in Viet Nam to Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries."

It was as if Taylor was pumping up his adrenaline for the rush of the raid. I gave a brisk jog towards Warnke to let him know I'd be taking my own car, rather than ride in their vehicles. As I raised my hand to tap Warnke on the shoulder, Taylor's German Shepard, "Blitz," bolted towards me. Taylor yelled out in German. Blitz "stood down" as he was up at my chest.

I didn't need to pump up MY adrenaline after that. I looked over at Getzschman. "You missed your photo opportunity," I taunted.

Everyone jumped into their vehicles, with my company Chevy Malibu taking up the rear of a seven vehicle caravan.

(NOTE: I'm listening to "The Rapture" CD by "Siouxsie and the Banshees" right now for my inspiration - great album!)

We headed out towards Highway 59 en route to the area near the town of Snelling. It was odd driving along in the law enforcement caravan as other vehicles yielded to our stature along the way. Of course I drove the speed limit... Snelling is a charming town at the fringe of California's historic gold rush strip mining. It sits along the Merced River, perhaps 60 miles downstream from its origin in Yosemite Valley.

When we got to Turlock Road, we headed northwest on it, an area I was familiar with from the Gallo "Boone's Farm" apple groves nearby. Upon ascending the bluff and seeing the stunning Gallo property to our left, the STAR (Sheriff's Tactics And Reconaissance) team pulled over and I was instructed to leave my car at the side of the road and go in with them for security reasons. I was in Taylor's vehicle and Blitz was still barking at me, but he was wagging his tail (no doubt at the prospect of fresh meat...). They drove up about a half mile or so and turned north onto a dirt road in an orchard, the dust clouds in front of us obscurring the view.

"Stay to your left," came instructions over the radio.

The vehicles came to a halt at various locations around a tan mobile home at the edge of a hill. Deputies jumped out with weapons drawn: a couple of AR-17's, shotguns and pistols. Getzschman came out with camera drawn above his bullet proof vest, but I was told to stay inside the vehicle.

As they confirmed that there was no one in the mobile home, they started walking towards the edge of the hill, ready to descend into a creekbed about 100 yards below. Taylor said he would leave his vehicle running, but as they moved down the hill with weapons pointed to cover various trajectories, I figured "hell with it," and got out to keep an eye on them. What would I do if some bad guy came towards me with a gun pointed? Roll up the window?

It was late afternoon and the view was absolutely beautiful. The terraced edge of the hill was covered in meticulously manicured serpentine rows of lavender, thick as a low-rise hedges. A giant oak tree, easily 100 years old, framed the view over a hidden valley that had almond orchards on my side of the creek and 100's of acres of corn covering the floor of the flood plain starting about 500 to 1,000 yards from my vantage point.

Hidden from my view, though, was the STAR team. After about 15-20 minutes 2 deputies came up the hill to retrieve me, with guns pointed cautiously in different directions. We got into the pick-up and Deputy Rick Shukri drove it down the hill to get closer access for cutting tools and hauling the plants out.

We stopped at the point Warnke radio'd he could see the truck. There was a murky moss-covered creek of unknown depth between us and the creekbed. Shukri wanted to test how deep it was by throwing a nearby branch into the water. It floated. Luckily, Blitz jumped into the water and in an instant he was doing the dog paddle. We walked back up the road about 50 feet and found a narrower spot in the creek that only came up to our knees as we crossed.

They escorted me through thick foliage, hacking away with machetes periodically, until we got to the first of 2 marijuana groves. Vern greeted me and took me on a small tour of the area. "This is high-grade pot," he said. "Sinsemilla." He grabbed a flowering bud in his hands and pointed out the red color that indicated it's potency. "Rub your fingers in there and see how sticky it is," he said. I obliged and could feel the sticky resin. I stuffed my nose into the buds like "Flower the Skunk" did in the "Bambi" cartoon and took a deep whiff. Ahhh...

I looked over at David and he was on his back in the dirt, pointing his 14mm Sigma straight up on his Nikon D1H shooting up the stalks of several 8-foot-tall marijuana plants, SB-25 flash off camera on the NC-17 cord for fill flash against the late afternoon sky.

A deputy pulled out his digital camera and took photos before he allowed anyone to start hacking away. Once the shots were taken, the harvest began. "Make sure you pull them up by the roots," Warnke said, "otherwise they'll grow back."

As Mark Taylor pulled on a plant, Blitz dug with his paws and then clamped his jaws over the exposed base, chewing on the fibrous stalk. A fellow deputy joked that Blitz would soon be craving sweets if he kept it up.

Soon all 72 plants, 49 from one grove and 23 from another, were laying in a pile and a couple cigars were clipped and ignited in celebration.

Apparently the people who planted the marijuana plants didn't reside on the property but had decided it would be a good place to hide it along a hidden stretch of creek on a back road. A note was left attached to a white 5 gallon bucket for the growers. "Thanks for the bud," it read.

As the deputies carried the plants over their shoulders, I KNEW which photo would be the one I wanted to take. Since Getzschman had gone down earlier, he didn't know the exact path where they'd be crossing the creek, but I did and positioned myself on the opposite bank and snapped my photo with fill-in flash as Taylor crossed the creek with the marijuana plants over his shoulder. It was backlit, sun reflecting off the water as he crossed with cigar in his mouth.

My co-workers back at the newspaper said it looked like it was deep in the jungles of Colombia; maybe you saw it in yesterday's edition. As I've stated previously, because of copyright ownership issues, photographs published for the newspaper will not be reproduced here.

However, I do choose to exercise my First Amendment right of free speech to describe the experiences I have as a photojournalist, much in the same way I would describe it for a college lecture or Rotary Club presentation (I have one scheduled next month). To maintain the journalistic shield legal coverage, I've only acknowledged the actual photo taking of the single image that appeared in the newspaper. None of my written notes were referred to in writing this blog.

After loading the cargo, we drove up to the top of the hill and Taylor put his music back on full blast. Warnke said it's a tradition.

"We're going back to burn it now if you want to get some pictures," Warnke asked.

"Hmm," I thought to myself. "Burning 72 sinsemilla pot plants..." I called in to my supervisor, but she said we didn't need photos of the burning and I needed to head back in for deadline.

It's probably just as well. There probaby weren't enough Ho Ho's and Twinkies in the county to share between Blitz and I.

Posted by: Adrian / 8:38 PM
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