Texas jury sides with cannabis grower who killed SWAT officer

[hush]

A Texas Grand Jury has acquitted a cannabis grower over the death of a police SWAT team officer, after his defense successfully argued that he believed he was being burgled during a police raid.

Burleson County Sgt. Adam Sowders was shot dead in the early hours of December 19th, 2013, by Henry Goedrich Magee, while executing a search warrant on the man’s home. Law enforcement claimed they believed Magee had large amounts of “marijuana” in his property, as well as illegal firearms.

A jury heard how the SWAT team may have failed to make their presence known before bursting in to the house, and Magee immediately fired at the intruders, killing Sgt. Sowders in the process.

Remarkably the other officers did not return deadly fire and Magee was apprehended. No illegal firearms were uncovered, but they did find a small number of cannabis plants, which the defendant claims were for personal use.

He was indicted on both drug and weapons charges, despite his guns being legally owned, because in the presence of illegal drugs weapons automatically become an accessory to the crime.

The jury however would not indict him for the death of Sgt. Sowders because they could not be convinced that he was aware the intruders were law enforcement...

Click here to read the rest of the article.

TL/DR: Dude was raided by SWAT, shot and killed one of the officers believing he was being robbed, and the jury sided with him on that charge. He still went down on drugs and weapons charges though.

 

[Jhhnn]

I think the reasons cops get into these things w/ growers is that they're not really looking for plants but for other drugs. So they want to get in really fast to prevent flushing. With plants, that won't happen, obviously, but they'll weasel a little extra surprise out of the warrant, if they can.

It's stupid dangerous *for them* in a place like Texas.

 

[armedoldhippy]

I think the reasons cops get into these things w/ growers is that they're not really looking for plants but for other drugs. So they want to get in really fast to prevent flushing. With plants, that won't happen, obviously, but they'll weasel a little extra surprise out of the warrant, if they can.

It's stupid dangerous *for them* in a place like Texas.

most places, they turn off the water so it will only flush once, leaving the drugs in the pipe between your house & the main line, tying them to your house. still a PITA to dig the pipe up though. they get off on kicking down doors, throwing flash-bangs & showing who the boss is to an unhealthy degree. poor guys on the SWAT team seldom have a real call for their "talents", so they take out the frustration on us. honest to God criminals are dangerous, they don't want anything to do with them...