cannabisnews.com: Recalling Rainbow





Recalling Rainbow
Posted by CN Staff on September 07, 2004 at 07:37:06 PT
By Jeff Romig, Tribune Staff Writer 
Source: South Bend Tribune 
Cassopolis -- The downpour didn't matter. Neither did their soaked-through clothing or the smeared writing on their signs.The dozen or so people who met outside the old Cass County Courthouse on Monday afternoon to remember their friends, Tom Crosslin and Rollie Rohm, couldn't have cared less that the skies had opened up to drench their outing.
"It's very important to remember," said Jacob Karr who came to Cassopolis from outside Traverse City, Mich., for the memorial vigil. "We can't forget; otherwise, they could do it again.""They" refers to the FBI or law enforcement in general, while "again" refers to the killings of Crosslin and Rohm after a four-day standoff at Rainbow Farm Campground near Vandalia over Labor Day weekend 2001.The two men -- seen by their friends as martyrs of the war on drugs -- had become outspoken activists for the legalization of marijuana.They often held pro-legalization festivals at Crosslin's 37-acre campground, which brought in thousands of visitors.Rainbow Farms ultimately caught the eye of local law enforcement, which saw the festivals as a vehicle for the sale and use of illegal narcotics.Police eventually gathered enough evidence to file criminal drug charges against Crosslin and Rohm, and the campground was eventually threatened with possible seizure.Both men were facing prison, and many believe that, combined with the potential seizure of the campground, is what led the men to engineer their standoff.The standoff became heightened after Crosslin fired shots at a WNDU-TV (Channel 16) helicopter, which was checking out a fire that had been started at the campground.According to former Cass County Prosecutor Scott Teter's report on the shooting, Crosslin thought the helicopter was law enforcement.There was round-the-clock surveillance and the property had been blocked off by the Cass County Sheriff's Office, Michigan State Police, FBI and other law enforcement.After four days had passed, Crosslin was killed Sept. 3, 2001, by an FBI sharpshooter, after reportedly pointing a rifle at him while walking to a neighboring home for food.Rohm was killed the next day, after setting the farmhouse he shared with Crosslin on fire and heading into an open area behind the home.Michigan State Police troopers in an armored vehicle moved in to arrest him, but he was shot when he reportedly raised a rifle and aimed it at the vehicle.But the friends who gathered Monday don't believe that account."It's straight up a murder," said Morel Moses Yonkers, who lived at Rainbow Farm for 10 years leading up to the standoff. "They have non-lethal ways to stop people from doing things."They didn't intend on using them. They flat murdered my friends."Yonkers, who runs the Hemp Center on West Marion Street in Elkhart, believes that more of his friends will die in the same fashion that Crosslin and Rohm did."For marijuana and $1,500 in taxes?" he asked. "We can find someone in every city in the United States that owes $1,500 in taxes and grows some weed. Are they going to kill them all? Where will we get our taxpayers from?"Despite the low turnout, Yonkers called the event a success."We expected our friends," he said. "People came from Detroit, Traverse City. They didn't just drive 30 minutes. They drove five hours to be here."James Parker, a Libertarian activist who often set up a booth at the campground, said he didn't know Crosslin well or Rohm at all, but the "unresolved questions" surrounding their deaths brought him to downtown Cassopolis."They've got to reopen the case," the Hillsdale man said. "They've got to release the full records of the autopsy and the full records of the state police report."And while those questions still seem unanswered to the friends of Crosslin and Rohm, the cause embraced by both men remained on display Monday.Cindy Binkley, of Bristol, said Americans should be able to legally use marijuana."There are people who are sick, who are dying and it's been proven to help," she said.Note: Downpour doesn't snuff memorial vigil.Source: South Bend Tribune (IN)Author: Jeff Romig, Tribune Staff Writer Published: September 7, 2004 Copyright: 2004 South Bend TribuneContact: vop sbtinfo.comWebsite: http://www.southbendtribune.com/Related Articles & Web Site:Tom Crosslin & Rollie Rohm Memorialhttp://freedomtoexhale.com/rb.htmFamily Files Lawsuit in Rainbow Deathhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17896.shtmlWe Will Not Forget, Rainbow Farm Supporters http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17217.shtmlFriends Remember Rainbow Farmhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17213.shtml
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Comment #7 posted by Hope on September 09, 2004 at 10:02:58 PT
E Johnson
I wonder if Moore even knows Rainbow Farms ever happened. Everyone I've ever mentioned it to here in Texas has never heard of it before...at all.
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Comment #6 posted by E_Johnson on September 09, 2004 at 09:11:56 PT
About Clinton's heart surgery
Every time I try to feel sympathy for him, I think of Peter McWilliams lying dead in his bathtub, and I just can't make it to the point where I feel anything at all for Clinton.
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Comment #5 posted by E_Johnson on September 09, 2004 at 09:09:36 PT
Why doesn't Michael Moore do a documentary?
Or someone!
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Comment #4 posted by Hope on September 07, 2004 at 19:38:56 PT
Tom and Rollie
I'm so grateful to those who kept the vigil and to those who reported and printed it.Thank you.
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Comment #3 posted by Virgil on September 07, 2004 at 18:55:19 PT
Serve and protect- Part 2
How did the authorities serve and protect Tom and Rollie? There intention was to see them Rested in Pieces. You should see what the police state plans now with a bogus war on terror. It is a treason against dissent if treason. From http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd09072004.htmlBut Wolfowitz did reveal one original twist in Bush's plan: targeting the Homeland itself as a "terrorist sanctuary." In addition to loosing his own personal Janjaweed on global hotspots, Bush is also seeking new powers to prevent anyone he designates a "terrorist" from "abusing the freedom of democratic societies" or "exploiting the technologies of communication"--i.e., defending themselves in court or logging on to the Internet. As AFP notes, Wolfowitz tactfully refrained from detailing just how the Regime intends to curb the dangerous use of American freedom, but he did allow that "difficult decisions" would be required. (Perhaps a stateside version of those rigged "military tribunals" now serving up prime kangaroo meat down in Guantanamo Bay?)
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Comment #2 posted by Virgil on September 07, 2004 at 18:15:00 PT
Serve and protect
When the helicopters and the black uniforms knock down the door, who do you think they are serving? In the case of MMJ, they are mostly looking after pill company profits, although cannabis is so interwoven into the War for Prohibition, that it is a matter of life and death to prohibition.Prohibition is mainly to keep the price of addictive substances up. There is no war on drugs as the CIA is the most global of players. The war is for prohibition itself. Of course if you are on our side, it is the War Against Prohibition.It is all a fraud and these few paragraphs from http://www.marijuana.com/420/showthread.php?s=73607af2b590f3ec56289f6448619f11&t=32390In late July, the National Institute of Health handed down a death sentence to AIDS patients on the drug Norvir when it refused to provide for cheaper generics. Abbott Laboratories, the manufacturer of Norvir, hiked the price of its drug 400 percent in December, from $54 to $265 per month. Outraged patients and activists begged the NIH to make available generic versions of Norvir, which was developed with $3.4 million in public funds. Under the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act, NIH has the authority to grant licenses to other companies for the manufacture of drugs developed with federal funds to assure access. But the NIH refused them in a July 29th opinion, explaining that providing medicine to patients with a life-threatening condition wasn't worth “alter[ing]” the “market dynamics” of the drug industry.Lending further irony to the FDA's insistence that its Canada ban is motivated by concern for the safety of the American people, the agency has begun intervening in injury lawsuits on behalf of the manufacturers of allegedly unsafe products. When a Pennsylvania man's heart pump fell apart inside his chest, allowing an air bubble to enter his brain and kill him, his widow sued the manufacturer. Instead of allowing a judge to decide the merits of the case, the FDA stepped in, arguing that it was the Alpha and Omega of product safety. Once the minimum standard, the FDA now says its own approval “sets a ceiling” for consumer safety conditions, and any product it has given the nod to is safe beyond question. Shockingly, the FDA claimed that threat of lawsuits against unsafe products "can harm the public health" because the manufacturers might withdraw their products, thereby causing the “underutilization of beneficial treatments.” A Third Circuit Court of Appeals judge agreed, dismissing the widow’s lawsuit in a July 20 ruling.The mutual back-scratching between government and health-industrial complex shows no signs of slowdown. On Aug. 11, the Ohio State Board of Pharmacy, the agency which licenses and regulates drug merchants in the state, teamed up with the Ohio Pharmacists' Association to launch an “educational campaign” to warn residents that Canadian-imported drugs are “unsafe” and illegal. The FDA and the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy are sponsor the campaign together, already active in 15 other states, in effect using taxpayers’ money to deny them affordable medicine.
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Comment #1 posted by FoM on September 07, 2004 at 07:39:41 PT
We're Still Fighting, Tom and Rollie 
We will never forget! 
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