Philipsburg:--- Residents of Brill's Drive, Middle Region were shocked and amazed at the huge marijuana plantation they discovered on Brill's Drive on Sunday. According to a resident of Brill's Drive, his girlfriend saw a man running from the area and became afraid because of a false BlackBerry message that is circulating claiming that an HIV positive criminal had escaped from the prison in Curacao and is currently on St. Maarten hiding out. Despite the fear, the woman and other residents of the area went towards the area where they saw the man running from and it was then they discovered a huge marijuana plantation among the bushes. They said the plantation is guarded by four heavily built pit bull dogs.
According to the residents of Middle Region, they called the police and alerted them of their find and the police told them to leave the farm untouched since they have plans to raid the area on Monday.
Police Spokesman Ricardo Henson confirmed on Monday that the police was aware of the marijuana plantation and they are busy organizing the raid. However, Henson wanted to know how SMN News reporter got the information instead of saying when the police would excute the raid they promised the residents of Brill's Drive, Middle Region. It should be noted that Inspector Ricardo Henson is also the acting head of the Philipsburg Surveillance Divsion which is also supervised by Commissioner of Police Carl John.
Shortly after SMN News released this news item, several police officers raced to Brill's Drive to conduct the raid. A resident of the area said that even though police raced to the scene in large numbers, they did not manage to apprehend the marijuana cultivators who were sitting not far away. "All the guys run away and the police did not even catch one of them, the officers then decided to uproot all the plants. While I was there they already had over 10 large garbage bags filled with marijuana trees."
MARIJUANA PLANTATION RAIDED.
On Monday April 8th, 2013 at approximately 12:30pm, the Police Department conducted a raid in the thick bushes on the hill between Brills Drive in Middle Region and Gibbs Drive in Dutch Quarter after receiving information of a large marijuana plantation that was located in that area. The police not being acquainted with area had to take time to plan the raid and not go into the area not knowing what to expect. Going blindly into any type of raid without a plan and the necessary equipment, the chances are that the officers are confronted with the unexpected and could even end up getting injured. Approximately 20 police officers participated in the operation which took approximately four and a half hours. At the site, the investigating officers located several plots of the land that were prepared for planting and several plots of land on which a very large amount of marijuana plants were already growing. The entire plantation was quite large and was well taken care of on a daily basis. The caretakers would spend the whole day working, cooking, and sleeping on the plantation. On the arrival of the officers the caretakers had already left the scene. Several fully grown pit-bull dogs were used to protect the plantation; however a police dog handler dealt with them during the operation and they posed no threat. The garden hoses lead the investigating officers to an apartment building on Gibb's Drive in Dutch Quarter where one man with the initials Z.D.A. from Jamaica was arrested as a suspect in this case. A wooden structure located in the vicinity of Romeo Drive on that same property was searched, a shotgun and bullets were found and confiscated. Over 3000 marijuana plants, garden hoses, fertilizer, and other garden equipment were also confiscated.
This case is under investigation by the Narcotics Department.
KPSM Police Report
