Saturday afternoon Cleveland Police Department contacted the Liberty County Sheriff’s Office for them to meet someone reporting a scene outside the city limits. Units responded and soon called for the Crime Suppression Unit to respond to assist them. The person at the police department told CSU Deputies that he had come across what he believed was a marijuana field near SH 105 outside Cleveland.
Units went to the scene and discovered the second large marijuana growing operation in two weeks. What they found were several acres with over 1,000 marijuana plants. Most of the plants were over four feet tall with a few close to 9 feet.
Deputies spent Sunday assisted by DPS Narcotics and ICE digging the plants out. They were then transported to an open area where using self-contained breathing apparatus firefighters from the Tarkington Volunteer Fire Department spent over two hours burning the plants under the supervision of deputies.
Due to it being the weekend and manpower short Sheriff Henry Patterson also spent his day assisting in the disposal of the plants.
The Crime Suppression Unit being assisted by DPS ICE are actively investigating the scene in an attempt to discover who the grow operation belongs to. Captain Rex Evans of the Crime Suppression Unit said deputies also discovered a camp used by the workers and gardening chemicals. A pump was used to pump water to the plants using hundreds of feet of garden hose.
Captain Rex Evans said he would like to thank not just his men, DPS and ICE for spending a beautiful Sunday afternoon working but wanted to extend that thank you to the Tarkington Volunteer Fire Department for the manpower and equipment to dispose of the plants.
The exact location is not being disclosed due to the fact that the last field found had several people trespassing on private land in an attempt to see where the field were and one actually admitted to be looking for anything left behind.
Sheriff Patterson is determined and warns “no matter how difficult it may be, we will not stop, we will not slow down our advances in fighting against drugs and the damage they cause in Liberty County.”
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