From Cannabis Culture online http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/2096.html

TWO MARIJUANA ACTIVISTS KILLED BY POLICE

by Pete Brady ( 04 Sept, 2001 )

Tom Crosslin and Rolland Rohm shot to death during Rainbow Farm seige. 

Two prominent Michigan marijuana activists were shot dead Labor Day weekend, during a police siege of the activists' "Rainbow Farm" compound in Vandalia, Michigan. 

Tom Crosslin, a 47-year-old events promoter who hosted pro-marijuana concerts and rallies on his rural Southern Michigan land, was shot dead by federal and state police on Monday.  Rolland Rohm, 28, was shot Tuesday morning.  Agencies involved in the fatal siege include the Cass County Sheriff's Department, Michigan State Police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. 

Crosslin, Rohm and their allies have been sponsoring counterculture events, including two High Times "WHEE" festivals, for several years.  Entertainers like Merle Haggard and The Birds graced the stage at Rainbow Farms happenings, which were also known for their freewheeling recreational activities, such as the famous "nude hippie mountain mud slide."

Police and other anti-drug minions had spent years trying to shut down Rainbow Farms using techniques similar to those used against Oregon pot events promoter Bill Conde, New York events organizer Rob Uncle Sam, and Washington landowner-activist Gideon Israel.  Crosslin had bitterly complained about police roadblocks, undercover officers, and other harassment, which he believed were being used to keep people away from his popular counterculture resort. 

In May, police stormed Crosslin's 34-acre property and arrested him in connection with alleged marijuana use and cultivation, as well as possession of firearms.  Crosslin and his attorneys insisted that the arrests were a politically motivated attempt to shut down pro-marijuana activities that were generally peaceful and posed no threat to the community. 

Authorities responded by investigating Crosslin's accounting records and by court-ordering him to abstain from holding any more marijuana-related events on his land.  They also initiated asset forfeiture proceedings, which Crosslin described to friends as "the government trying to steal my property because they don't like my political views."

Crosslin was out on $150,000 bond, facing 15 years in prison and the loss of his property when he allegedly defied the court order and held a pot event at Rainbow Farms in August. 

Just before Labor Day weekend, officials told Crosslin his bond was going to be revoked.  Crosslin responded by setting fire to many of the buildings on his property, and by allegedly shooting at media aircraft and police aircraft that flew over his home as the situation became an armed siege. 

As Labor Day weekend commenced, squadrons of FBI agents and foot soldiers surrounded the farm.  Although police reports about Crosslin's death were not delivered in a timely manner and contain puzzling omissions, current reports indicate that an FBI agent killed Crosslin Monday afternoon when Crosslin and another activist discovered the agent on Rainbow Farms property.  Police allege that Crosslin pointed a gun at the agent before he was shot. 

The siege continued because Rohm and other Crosslin associates refused to surrender.  Police say Rohm was shot early Tuesday because he too pointed a gun at an officer.  Friends of Crosslin and Rohm who were camped near the Farm in a support encampment disputed police reports, saying that the dead pair were legally walking on their own property when they were shot in cold blood by police. 

Crosslin was widely respected in the North American marijuana movement and even among his conservative non-pot smoking neighbors in Southern Michigan.  He had a 20 year history of civil rights activism.  He bought and restored a historic brick house built in 1807 that had been used by anti-slavery "Underground Railroad" activists during the 1800's, intending to use the house as an educational "bed and breakfast." He donated thousands of dollars to local charities, and worked hard to keep hard drugs, sexual harassment, and violence out of his popular events, which sometimes drew as many as 20,000 visitors. 

Cannabis movement videographer and potographer Chadman, whose digital photos and movies have been widely distributed in cannabis media and mainstream media, told Cannabis Culture that he had been to a dozen events at Rainbow Farm in the last two years. 

"Tom was a dedicated, caring guy," Chadman reported.  "He wasn't a militia guy or a gun nut, but he did believe in the Constitution and in freedom, and he felt that if other people have a right to put on events where thousands of people get drunk, shoot guns, tie cattle in ropes and otherwise act crazy, that he had a right to provide a campground and entertainment for our non-violent marijuana culture.  He hated the marijuana laws, and felt that people being busted for pot and the harassment of his events was a sign that America has become a police state."

According to Chadman, Crosslin's resolve hardened after his arrest in May. 

"He felt that the government was trying to destroy his beliefs and his marijuana family," Chadman explained.  "He told people that he was beginning to think that he had to take this all the way, that he couldn't go on allowing the government to attack him and his friends relentlessly without good cause, that he had to 'go out in a blaze.' He felt that the government was trying to kill him.  I don't advocate the use of weapons or violence as a way of legalizing marijuana, but Tom was pushed to this.  He wasn't a violent man or a wacko.  I'm very sorry that he's gone and that the other guy has been killed as well.  Tom was a serious advocate for marijuana.  I had great times at his events.  They were well-organized and real fun.  It's so sad.  I guess Tom just couldn't take it any more.  He decided to go out fighting.  He's another casualty of this stupid drug war."

~~~~~

From The Week Online with DRCNet http://www.drcnet.org/wol/202.html#rainbowfarm

MICHIGAN DRUG WARRIORS DRIVE MARIJUANA ACTIVISTS TO THE BRINK, THEN GUN THEM DOWN: STANDOFF ENDS WITH TWO DEAD AT RAINBOW FARM

Grover T.  ( Tom ) Crosslin lived for the cause of marijuana legalization.  Early this week he died for it.  Crosslin, 46, the owner and operator of Rainbow Farm, an alternative campground and concert site in Newberg Township outside of Vandalia, Michigan ( http://www.rainbowfarmcampground.com ), was shot and killed on his property by an FBI agent Monday afternoon. 

His long-time partner, Rolland Rohm, was shot and killed by Michigan State Police on the property early Tuesday morning.  The shootings ended a stand-off that began last Friday afternoon, but the fallout from the killings is only beginning. 

Throughout the Labor Day weekend, according to law enforcement accounts, Crosslin and Rohm systematically burned down the ten structures on their beloved farm, shot at and hit a news helicopter filming the fires, shot at and missed a police surveillance plane, sprayed the woods bordering the 34-acre property with gunfire to keep police at bay, and separately confronted law officers with raised weapons, only to be shot dead. 

[In the rural Midwest, the marijuana culture sometimes intersects with an angry populism inscrutable to progressives on both coasts. 

Here, where Waco and Ruby Ridge echo still and where militia men mix with less militant redneck potheads and even more mellow country hippies, conspiracy theories are already springing up around the killings. 

Everything from the size of the alleged bullet holes in the news chopper ( "too big" ) to the alleged shooting at aircraft itself ( "too convenient" -- it allowed the FBI in ), to the actual details of the killings has already been challenged in the movement's electronic media. 

But while the official version of events provided by state, local, and federal officials remains unverified, it also remains so far uncontradicted.]

As the four-day stand-off progressed, while negotiations between Crosslin and Cass County Sheriff Joseph Underwood sputtered and ultimately failed, Rainbow Farm supporters gathered nearby by the dozens to mount a vigil and demand justice and a peaceful resolution of the siege.  "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible demand violent revolution," read one sign at the roadside. 

Beginning in 1996, Crosslin had sponsored pro-marijuana rallies under a variety of names at Rainbow Farm.  While he was a visible and outspoken proponent of reforming the marijuana laws, the rallies caused few legal problems until this year.  But things began to unravel in May when local law enforcement authorities, using the traffic death of a youth who had attended the festival as a pretext, swept down on the compound, arresting Crosslin and Rohm, among others, and charging them with a variety of marijuana and firearms violations.  Though police emphasized the traffic death ( which occurred the day after the youth was at the campground ) in justifying the bust at the time, they later revealed that it came as the result of a two-year-long investigation of Crosslin's activities at the farm. 

By mid-summer, the pressure on Crosslin and Rohm was mounting. 

Crosslin faced 20 years in prison on the marijuana and weapons charges, was out of jail on a $150,000 bail bond, and the state was moving to seize Rainbow Farm under civil asset forfeiture proceedings.  A local judge had issued an injunction barring Crosslin from holding any further marijuana-related gatherings at the campground.  And in a move that must have elevated the pair's situation from intolerable to unbearable, Michigan child welfare authorities had taken Rohm's 12-year-old son and placed him in foster care after the May raid. 

In mid-August, Crosslin defied the injunction, holding a small rally at the campground.  Police observing the property reported they had seen Crosslin and Rohm smoking marijuana. 

Cass County Prosecutor Scott Teter then moved to have Crosslin's bail revoked, which in all probability meant that last Friday, when the bail revocation hearing was scheduled, would have been his last taste of freedom for years to come. 

Crosslin didn't show up for the hearing. 

As county officials were preparing a warrant for his arrest, they received reports of fires at the farm's address on state highway M-60, 13 miles west of Three Rivers.  Crosslin and Rohm, apparently deciding that all was lost, had begun torching buildings.  Police, claiming they had received an anonymous tip that the fires were an ambush, stayed on the perimeter, but built up their forces to include a SWAT team complete with an armored personnel carrier. 

By Monday, they were joined by FBI agents, who gained jurisdiction because of the alleged firing at aircraft, a federal crime, and by Monday afternoon, Crosslin was dead, shot by two of three FBI agents in an observation post at his property line.  Crosslin, armed and wearing camouflage, according to law enforcement accounts, and accompanied by 18-year-old Brandon Peoples, refused FBI orders to surrender his weapon, instead pointed his rifle at them, and was shot and killed. 

Peoples, who had snuck past police lines onto the property, suffered minor injuries, was questioned by the FBI and released.  Under instructions from the FBI, he has not spoken publicly about the shooting. 

Rohm died early the next morning at the hands of Michigan State Police, who, according to their own account, had moved in to accept his surrender.  Police said Rohm had agreed to surrender if he could first meet with his son, but shortly before the agreed upon hour another fire broke out and Rohm emerged from the burning building, armed and in camouflage.  He refused to surrender his weapon, police said, instead pointing it at them.  He was then shot and killed. 

While the reactions of friends and supporters of Crosslin, Rohm, and Rainbow farm fluctuate from shock to anger to despair to bewilderment and back, prominent members of the marijuana reform movement who share those sentiments are also having to do a cold political calculus. 

The marijuana movement nationally is seeing record levels of support, and Michigan is itself in the midst of petition drive to put a marijuana legalization initiative on the ballot next year.  Crosslin, in fact, had long supported that effort. 

Whether the Rainbow Farm killings will hurt or help the movement is the question facing the politicos. 

While some organizations queasy about the possible political fallout have declined to comment on the shootings, National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws ( http://www.norml.org ) executive director Keith Stroup talked to DRCNet about the politics of the incident. 

"If the goal is to get the public to react with outrage to police use of force, the facts are not perfect here," he said.  "But remember, this started out as indictment for marijuana. 

With these laws, you invite this kind of situation that ends up as a violent encounter. 

These were two men who were ordinarily quite peaceable and peace-loving, not violent and crazy, but they were driven to behave in a hostile and irrational manner.  If the authorities had not done all that they did to these men, they would not have reacted the way they did.  I'm not certain I wouldn't do the same thing in similar circumstances," he said. 

"But one does not have to entirely defend the actions of these two men to indict the police in this case," Stroup argued.  "That they killed Crosslin was a tragedy, but when they came back a few hours later and shot Rohm, that was just inconceivable.  Don't tell me the police had no tools in their arsenal but lethal force. 

If they find a bear rummaging in the trash, they go out and anesthetize it.  You'd think humans deserved at least the same treatment.  I hope there will be a grand jury to investigate these killings," said Stroup, "I hope there will be indictments."

There is no word yet from local authorities on a grand jury -- the role of Cass County Prosecutor Scott Teter as a key target of any investigation makes a local grand jury problematic -- but the US Justice Department has announced that it will investigate the shootings. 

"This is dangerous territory politically," said Stroup, referring to the possible impact of the killings on the prospects for Michigan's ongoing marijuana legalization initiative campaign, the Personal Responsibility Amendment ( http://www.mi4norml.org ).  "Our folks in Michigan feel a terrible sense of loss, but they are trying to figure out how to respond without getting into the middle of a battle that is tangential to their main goal.  The association of this violence with marijuana could make it more difficult for the PRA to gain support, even though it obviously remains the correct position," Stroup said.  "But after the second killing, it is no longer possible to remain silent. 

We cannot in good conscience sit by and be silent while they execute marijuana offenders."

Saginaw attorney Greg Schmid is the man behind the PRA.  "I knew these guys," he told DRCNet.  "I've been out there, I've spoken there a few times.  Like every other campground where there were rock concerts and the like, people smoked pot.  But they used to laugh about it.  Tim was a super nice guy," said Schmid.  "Those guys did a lot of community service work, handing out toys and Easter eggs and things like that.  But by last Friday, those guys had had enough. 

They had had their kid taken and put in foster care."

Morel "Moses" Yonkers describes himself as a long-time friend of Crosslin and Rohm despite having what he called a "falling-out" with Crosslin last year.  "I started working with Tom doing housing renovations in Elkhart," he told DRCNet.  "He was always talking about wanting to buy a big, beautiful, peaceful place. 

Then he got a chance to buy Rainbow Farm and he took it.  I spent eight years living on the farm with Tom and Rollie.  Tom loved his freedom and wanted to help make everyone else free, too," said Yonkers.  For Yonkers, the bust earlier this year and the subsequent persecution of Crosslin by local authorities only amplified Crosslin's mistrust of the government.  "He really believed in liberty, and he watched the government hard because of Waco and Ruby Ridge," said Yonkers.  But it was the loss of Rohm's child that really tore at the couple, he said.  "Rollie was at my camp just a few weeks ago crying about the kid," Yonkers said. 

In one of his last communications, delivered through his lawyer during the siege, Doreen Leo, Crosslin emphatically confirmed Yonkers and Schmid's assessment of his motivation.  "The right-wing prosecutor ( Teter ) and his rubber stamp ( Cass County ) Judge ( Michael E.  ) Dodge have stolen our child and they are who we hold responsible.  They no longer serve the people, they only serve themselves.  They must resign. 

Admit publicly what they have done to our family," Leo read. 

While Schmid mourns the loss of an ally, he is also wary of the political impact on the marijuana legalization initiative.  "There are a lot of people who are very angry about this," he told DRCNet, "and that may help us get the signatures we need.  But it may also excite enough interest to beat us in a general election. 

We are in the damage control mode right now."

While the field marshals wage their wars of position, Crosslin's and Rohm's friends mourn and remember. 

Moses Yonkers' spirits lifted audibly as he recalled with pride -- that Crosslin shared, he said -- that High Times had named the farm "the 14th best place in the world to get stoned." "Tom believed in our right to smoke," said Yonkers.  To that end, Crosslin helped finance his years on the hemp festival circuit.  "We created the Hemp Center -- at first, it was basically just to hand out Rainbow Farm fliers -- but Tom paid for my travel and expenses while I went to about every hemp festival in America for five years," Yonkers told DRCNet. 

Crosslin's generosity wasn't limited to the movement, according to Yonkers.  "Hell, I remember one year when the mayor came to us on Christmas Eve saying there weren't enough toys for the town's kids.  Tom jumped up and charged $2,000 worth of presents on his Sears card.  He wasn't sure he could pay for it, but that didn't stop him.  That's the kind of guy he was."

Yonkers and others took issue with law enforcement depictions of the farm's festivals as dens of depravity.  "Those were beautiful events," he said.  "I was there for Hemp Aid 2000, there were 5,000 people around the campfires and peace was breaking out everywhere.  We had security people, but they didn't have much to do except direct traffic, and maybe chase away the occasional tank of nitrous. 

Yeah, people smoked pot -- these were pot rallies, you know.  We spent five or six years trying to change the marijuana laws, working with Greg Schmid and the PRA."

Richard Lake of Escanaba, Michigan, also attended events at Rainbow Farm.  "I knew Tom from the hemp fests and saw him at the Ann Arbor Hash Bashes.  He talked there," Lake told DRCNet.  Lake, who helps operate the Media Awareness Project's ( http://www.mapinc.org ) drug news archive, said lurid press accounts of goings-on at Rainbow Farm taken from law enforcement sources were overdone.  "I saw their efforts to throw out people who were dealing drugs," said Lake.  "They could have found as much drug dealing at any rock concert or on any college campus. 

Are they closing down the college campuses?"

Other Crosslin supporters expressed their sentiments with signs. 

Brothers Darren and Lloyd Daniels, who live less than a mile down the road from Rainbow Farm, put the blame squarely on Cass County Prosecutor Scott Teter.  "How does it feel to have innocent blood on your hands, Teter?" asked a sign they placed in their yard.  The brothers told the local newspaper, the Herald-Palladium, that the prosecution of Crosslin and Rohm typified Cass County's intolerance.  "I've got friends here getting busted with seeds and stems," Lloyd said. 

"The police should have realized that sending in FBI agents to spy on the property was a provocation," said Lake.  "Why? There was a series of mistakes on both sides, I guess. 

When it became clear to Tom that there was no escape, I'm not surprised they burned the place down rather than give it to the government.  I wish the two of them had just gone to Canada.  It's sad and scary and a lot of people are angry and upset."

As for protests or other actions, Yonkers said no plans were firm yet.  "Right now, we're planning funerals," he said. 

( Funeral services for Tim Crosslin will be held Saturday at 11:00am at Walley Mills Zimmerman Funeral Home, 700 E.  Jackson Blvd., Elkhart, Indiana.  Rohm's body is undergoing a second autopsy at the request of his family; his funeral arrangements have not yet been announced.  )

~~~~~

From Forfeiture Endangers American Rights http://www.fear.org/ekomp1.html

DRUG WAR WACO ON FBI CHIEF MUELLER'S FIRST DAY IN OFFICE FORFEITURE STAND-OFF ENDS IN TWO DEATHS

by Ellen Komp, anti-Drug War activist, 09/05/01

Grover T.  ( Tom ) Crosslin lived for the cause of marijuana legalization.  Early this week he died for it.  Crosslin, 46, the owner and operator of Rainbow Farm, an alternative campground and concert site in Newberg Township outside of Vandalia, Michigan ( http://www.rainbowfarmcampground.com ), was shot and killed on his property by an FBI agent Monday afternoon.  His long-time partner, Rolland Rohm, was shot and killed by Michigan State Police on the property early Tuesday morning.  The shootings ended a stand-off that began last Friday afternoon, but the fallout from the killings is only beginning. 

Throughout the Labor Day weekend, according to law enforcement accounts, Crosslin and Rohm systematically burned down the ten structures on their beloved farm, shot at and hit a news helicopter filming the fires, shot at and missed a police surveillance plane, sprayed the woods bordering the 34-acre property with gunfire to keep police at bay, and separately confronted law officers with raised weapons, only to be shot dead. 

Rohm's stepfather, John Livermore, said he and Rohm's mother drove all night from Tennessee to try to help police negotiate, but were never allowed to speak to Rohm, who Livermore said has a learning disability.  Livermore said he believes Rohm left the house because he thought police were going to allow him to see his 12-year-old son, Robert.  The boy had been taken from the campground and put into foster care by the Family Independence Agency after the drug arrests in May, according to Crosslin's attorney Dori Leo. 

Early Tuesday, Rohm had said he would surrender at 7 a.m.  if his son were brought to see him, Cass County Sheriff Joseph Underwood, Jr.  said.  The sheriff said police were in the process of granting the request when shortly after 6 a.m., a fire was reported at the compound.  Rohm was then seen leaving the residence with a long gun and walking into the yard, Underwood said.  That's when the confrontation with police took place. 

Buzz Daily, 44, a Cass County farmer, said Crosslin and Rohm were known for their generosity.  At Christmas, he said, they would drive their pickup truck into Vandalia and distribute gifts throughout the town of about 350 residents.  They also would buy food and clothes for people staying at the campground, he said. 

Daily also lashed out at police, saying he could not imagine Crosslin or Rohm brandishing a weapon.  "I'm surprised that with all the money ( police ) put into this, they didn't have any non-lethal means of resolving this," said Daily, who said he'd known the pair for about five years and attended several HempAid festivals at the campground. 

Daily and others said they weren't sure what would happen to Rainbow Farm.  But he urged those who support forfeiture reform or marijuana legalization to come to the funerals for Crosslin and Rohm.  Funeral arrangements had not been determined on Tuesday afternoon, Rohm's family said. 

Vandalia is about 30 miles northeast of South Bend, Ind., in southwest Michigan.  A historical marker in the town park describes Vandalia as a one-time junction on the Underground Railroad.  Slaves escaping through Illinois and Indiana were taken in by local Quakers, who guided the slaves east into Canada. 

The campground, at 59896 Pemberton Road in Newberg Township, includes shower and bathroom facilities, a coffee bar called The Joint and a hemp-themed gift shop.  Each year it hosts two festivals called HempAid and RoachRoast, according to the Web site http://www.rainbowfarmcampground.com/. 

This story was culled from several news accounts available at http://www.mapinc.org. 

~~~~~

From High Times http://www.hightimes.com/News/2001_09/rainbow.tpl

WEED WACO

by Steven Wishnia, Special to HighWitness News

Rainbow Farm's annual Hemp Aid and Roach Roast festivals had made it a center for pot partying and activism in the Michigan-Indiana area.  The killings capped local authorities' long-running efforts to shut it down. 

VANDALIA, MI-Rainbow Farm owner Tom Crosslin, 46, and his partner, Rolland Rohm, 28, were killed by police Labor Day weekend during a four-day standoff at the farm here. 

Crosslin was shot to death Sept.  3 by two FBI agents, allegedly after he pointed a gun at them.  Rohm was killed by Michigan state police in a similar scenario early the next morning.  Brandon Peoples, 18, who was walking with Crosslin when he was shot, suffered minor injuries. 

Rainbow Farm's annual Hemp Aid and Roach Roast festivals had made it a center for pot partying and activism in the Michigan-Indiana area.  "It's the Waco of weed," says Ann Arbor Hash Bash organizer Adam Brook.  "Just to think this is all over pot, it's absolutely ridiculous."

The killings capped local authorities' long-running efforts to shut the farm down.  Busted last May, Crosslin and Rohm were facing charges of growing marijuana, gun possession and maintaining a drug house-undercover state police had bought pot and other drugs at several festivals, and accused the pair of letting people deal on the property.  State police and Cass County Prosecutor Scott Teter had also filed papers to forfeit the farm, and had put Rohm's 12-year-old son in foster care. 

The week before the standoff, authorities moved to revoke Crosslin and Rohm's bail, saying they had violated a court order banning them from holding events on the property.  On Aug.  31, instead of going to a hearing on the motion, the two began burning the farm's buildings, and shot the tail of a TV station's helicopter flying overhead.  Over 100 state police, county sheriffs and FBI agents barricaded the road by the farm. 

"They thought it was a police helicopter," says "Buggy," a 34-year-old Vandalia farmhand who served as a go-between between Crosslin, Rohm and authorities during the ensuing standoff.  "The government pushed people too far.  There was a motion to lose their land, and they'd already lost their child." Family members and sympathizers agree that Crosslin was intensely frustrated by the prospects of losing his land, his liberty and his family, but question the police story and tactics.  "It seems very suspicious to us all," says Crosslin's cousin Jim Spry, a 53-year-old truckdriver from Elkhart, IN.  "Who knows that Tommy even had a gun on him?"

The pair's lawyer, Dori Leo of Kalamazoo, who was barred from the property by police, says what bothers her most is the police and FBI snipers "who lay in wait for a confrontation to happen."

"Why did they have to use lethal force?" she asks.  "I still don't believe I was in any danger from either of them.  That's why I was willing to go in." "Tommy smoked his grass for years," adds Spry.  "He wanted to create a place where people could relax and be free."

And other than Peoples, the only living witnesses left are in law enforcement. 

Go to THCTV http://www.hightimes.com/THCTV/index.tpl to see a video tribute to the Rainbow Farm Campground. 

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