Saturday, September 26, 2009

Slow Saturday Special: Stoned Census Taker

Pot people being blamed for every thing lately, notice that?

See: Feds Started the California Fires

The Second-Most Feared Lobbying Group in AmeriKa

The Boston Globe's Invisible Ink: Marijuana Stink

States Stoned Over Pot Laws

Of course, the more you smoke it, 'er, read it, the more it stinks
.

"Mystery surrounds census taker’s death; Found hanging from tree in Ky." by Jeffrey McMurray, Associated Press | September 26, 2009

BIG CREEK, Ky. - Authorities said a US Census worker died by asphyxiation but were releasing few other details about the case nearly two weeks after Bill Sparkman’s body - with the word “fed’’ scrawled on the chest - was found hanging from a tree near a family cemetery in a forest.

The word appeared to have been written with a felt-tip pen, Clay County Coroner Jim Trosper said yesterday. He did not elaborate. Jerry Weaver of Fairfield, Ohio, who was among a group of relatives who discovered the body Sept. 12, said Sparkman was naked and his hands and feet were bound with duct tape.

The substitute teacher, 51, was found in a remote tract of Daniel Boone National Forest in Clay County, where Sparkman was working part time for the government. Law enforcement officials weren’t saying yesterday whether he was working at the time of his death or whether they believed it had anything to do with his job. Authorities have not said if it was an accidental death, homicide, or suicide....

Authorities said yesterday for the first time that the preliminary cause of death was asphyxiation. According to a Kentucky State Police statement, the body was hanging from a tree with a noose around the neck, yet it was in contact with the ground....

At the entrance to the path leading there were two white rubber gloves, and there was other litter on the ground, including soda cans and a children’s toy. Some law enforcement officials said drug operations are prevalent in the area - including methamphetamine labs and marijuana fields - although they had no reason to believe there was a link to Sparkman’s death.

Why? Sounds plausible to me. Guy wanders out where he shouldn't, and the drug dealers take no chances. Drug dealers wouldn't care what agency the guy worked for, or even believe him if he said census.

And if the authorities know drug operations are prevalent in the area.... ?????

On one day last week, county authorities rounded up 40 drug suspects, most of them traffickers, Johnson said.

Johnson said? Who Johnson? They just spill the beans on an anonymous source?

Dee Davis, president of the Center for Rural Strategies in nearby Whitesburg, said the federal government has done “precious little’’ in Clay County other than building a federal prison in Manchester in the 1990s. But Davis said he is not aware of any deep-seated hostility toward the government.

Then that's not what it was.

University of Pittsburgh sociologist Kathleen Blee, co-author of a book about Clay County, said that when she heard of Sparkman’s death, she wondered whether he had stumbled across a marijuana plot. Marijuana growers seeking to avoid federal forfeiture statutes often plant their crops in national forests.

That last sentence doesn't make sense at all -- nor does the idea that DRUG DEALERS are TENDING CROPS in NATIONAL FORESTS!!!

Unless YOU-KNOW-WHO is the DRUG DEALERS!!!

--more--"

Also see: Census worker murder in Kentucky raises questions