In October, a Fish and Wildlife warden stumbled onto a decomposing body stuffed in the trunk of a vehicle parked along the roadside near Covelo, in the northern part of the county.ĭuring a drive-by shooting last year, one man was shot in the ear and another in the head in Covelo.Īnd in July, a 27-year-old man was fatally shot in the Laytonville area, southwest of Covelo.Īll, according to the sheriff and court records, are linked to illegal cannabis grows. ![]() Illegal crops and violence also has spread to Willits, a quaint community with trendy shops and restaurants in Mendocino County. "And a message to the next person: 'Don’t step out of line.'" "It’s a punishment to the person who stepped out of line," the sheriff said. On a second property Gamble owns, detectives found the victims' headless bodies in April in a ditch under a pile of tires that had been set on fire. The sheriff said he doesn't have enough deputies to safely serve a search warrant amid increasing violence.Ī glimpse at what he's dealing with: Christopher Wayne Gamble, who allegedly operated large illegal crops near the town of Willits, in central Mendocino County, is charged with murdering a 17-year-old boy and his father who came from Mexico seeking work, according to Mendocino County Superior Court records. "They’re poisoning our ground and stealing our water, and we have drought out here," he said. "We have international cartels successfully operating here" setting up multi-million dollar farm operations, said California Assemblyman Tom Lackey, R-Palmdale, a former highway patrolman. ![]() The area is double the geographic footprint of Los Angeles, Atlanta, Houston, New Orleans, Chicago and Denver combined.īecause of the twisty terrain, It can take sheriff's deputies up to an hour to reach the site of an emergency or crime. In Mendocino County, just 21 deputies patrol a jurisdiction that stretches over 3,506 square miles, from ocean-side cliffs on its western border to the Mendocino National Forest on the east. Evidence collected by the Mendocino County Sheriff's department confiscated from illegal growing operations.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |