2 dead in gunfight at marijuana site

[palmspringsbum]

2 dead in gunfight at marijuana site

BY ANDY DAVIS
The Arkansas Democrat Gazette

Posted on Monday, April 10, 2006


Two men were killed and two injured early Sunday in a gunfight near a building east of Mena where about 500 marijuana plants were being grown, the Polk County sheriff said.

The gunfight appears to have started when four men from Henryetta, Okla., went to the property at 118 Polk County Road 65 in an attempt to rob the owner, 40-year-old Bradley Webster, who lives in a house on the property, Sheriff Mike Oglesby said.

Two of the four, Chris Pangle, 35, and Thai Flores, 23, were killed, Oglesby said. A third, 18-year-old Waylon Null, was taken to a hospital after being shot in the face, Oglesby said.

Webster was also hospitalized after being shot in the stomach.

Sheriff ’s deputies learned of the gunfight after the fourth man, Preston Edmonson, drove Null to a nearby house on Arkansas 8, where he told the occupants he had run out of gas, Oglesby said.

Webster had driven himself to the Mena Regional Health System hospital with his wife, Oglesby said.

At the property where Webster lives, sheriff’s deputies found Flores’ body on the driveway. Pangle’s body was in the metal building where the marijuana was being grown, Oglesby said. He had fallen inside through a plateglass window, the sheriff said.

He said the men had been shot with a 9 mm “assault-type” weapon.

The men had apparently intended to surprise Webster, the sheriff said.

The building contained a hydroponics system that was “as elaborate an indoor growing operation as I’ve seen,” Oglesby said.

Webster was transferred to Baptist Health Medical Center in Little Rock, where he was in satisfactory condition late Sunday. Null, whose injury did not appear life-threatening, was taken to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Hospital in Little Rock where he was listed in good condition.

Edmonson was in the Polk County jail late Sunday, as was Webster’s wife, Amy, 19, Oglesby said. He said sheriff’s investigators will forward information to prosecutors for a decision on what charges will be filed.

The Websters’ 7-month-old child was placed in the custody of the state Department of Health and Human Services, Oglesby said.

[Womanofsteel]

So let me get this. The victims of the attempted burglary are now in jail and their child, seized by the Child Protective Services?

Their crime? Growing a plant.

[palmspringsbum]

I don't know Arkansas law well enough to really comment. Webster might or might not be charged with manslaughter. If they were stealing anything else it would, most likely, be considered self-defense. But since it was marijuana they could (I would guess) charge him with committing murder in the process of committing a crime (cultivation).