Medical Marijuana Patient Murdered in Washington State

[Jim Finnel]

A Washington medical marijuana patient has died after being attacked by robbers who were after his pot crop, in what is believed to be the first ever medical marijuana related murder in Washington State.

When local police were called to the scene, rather than investigating the assault, they started questioning mortally injured Michael Shane Howard about how many plants he had.

The police told Howard, who had just been clubbed in the head with a crowbar, that the medics would "probably just put a big bandage on his forehead and leave him at the house."

Two days after the attack, as Howard lay dying, the police called his housemate, Renee, and asked when she was going to go visit him in the hospital. When Renee visited the hospital, Pierce County Sheriff's detectives began a raid on the home, still unaware of the severity of his injuries.

According to patient advocacy organization Cannabis Defense Coalition, Howard had been facing constant and continued police harassment in the small town of Orting, Washington. He was well-known to local law enforcement as "the medical marijuana guy" in town, and he was repeatedly pulled over, arrested, and put in jail because of his authorized use of medical marijuana.

Medical marijuana activist Steve Sarich -- himself the victim of a home invasion robbery Monday morning in Kirkland, Wash. -- had been working to publicize the Mike Howard murder over the weekend. Sarich suffered a shotgun blast to the arm and face, and returned fire with a handgun, critically wounding at least one suspect.


NewsHawk: User: 420 MAGAZINE ® - Medical Marijuana Publication & Social Networking
Source: Salem-News.com
Copyright: 2010 The Cannabis Defense Coalition
Contact: Cannabis Defense Coalition
Website: Medical Marijuana Patient Murdered in Washington State - Salem-News.Com

• Thanks to MedicalNeed for submitting this article

 

[Hieroglyph83]

If only you could put a restraining order on LEO.

 

[gromper]

The Sheriff's Department should be ashamed. Power corrupts ...

 

[trekie]

Were are the police when things like this happen... ? I would say out trying to fill their quotas of tickets for the month by patrolling the busier streets.... Police should become part of the community by walking a beat in our neighborhoods and getting to know the people. We should spend more money on police officers than police patrol cars or prisons... Give all the prison guards jobs as policemen patrolling our neighborhoods... This would be more protective and productive for us than putting people away for drug offenses , traffic tickets, or minor offense that hurt no one... People would be less incline to rob a household knowing that police could be walking and checking the neighborhoods anytime of the day or night looking for people who are doing harm against other people. Not using their resources' trying to arrest someone for growing marijuana that has never killed a single person from over use ...