WSBTVCARTERSVILLE, Ga. — A Cartersville man is upset after he said investigators mistook a garden full of okra for marijuana plants.
The man growing the popular Southern food said a helicopter woke him up Wednesday and then he had deputies show up at his door.
“I was scared actually, at first, because I didn’t know what was happening,” said homeowner Dwayne Perry.
All he noticed was that there was a chopper sitting unusually low over his house, then Bartow County deputies and a K-9 unit appeared at his doorstep in minutes.
“They were strapped to the gills,” Perry said.
It turned out, that helicopter was from the Governor’s Task Force for drug suppression and they were out looking for domestic cannabis plants and spotted the tree and plants.
“Instead, it’s okra and maybe a bush on the end of the house,” Perry said.
Channel 2’s Carl Willis called the Georgia State Patrol, who operates the task force, for an explanation. They sent an evidence photo.
“We’ve not been able to identify it as of yet. But it did have quite a number of characteristics that were similar to a cannabis plant,” said Georgia State Patrol Capt. Kermit Stokes.
Perry said his plants had five leaves, not seven like on the cannabis plant. He said a mistake like this shouldn’t happen.
“Here I am, at home and retired and you know I do the right thing,” Perry said. “Then they come to my house strapped with weapons for no reason. It ain’t right.”
The authorities apologized on the scene and again when Willis called.
“If we disturbed them in any manner, that’s not our intent. Our intent is to go out and do our job and do it to the best of our ability,” Stokes said.
But Perry said he doesn’t think those words go far enough.
“The more I thought about it, what could have happened? Anything could have happened,” Perry said.
Perry said he’s still getting calls about all of the deputy vehicles that responded at his home. He fears his reputation has been damaged.
http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/okra-mistaken-pot-mans-garden/nhbHW/
The is the price we pay when Police recruitment’s are restricted to only accepting officers with low Intelligence Quotients. It appears that Cartersville, Georgia is scraping the bottom of the local Gene pools for their police recruits.
Cops use to “check out” my schefflera plants I had in my front window thinking they where pot. The pot was in the back bedroom growing.
So let me get this right ,“If we disturbed them in any manner, that’s not our intent. Our intent is to go out and do our job and do it to the best of our ability. So when a chopper is hovering overhead at your house and a bunch of pig thugs dressed in body armor come to your door their intent is not to disturb you. Does this f#@king idiot even believe that himself. I suppose if Dwayne Perry had accidentally been murdered for growing OKRA they would be deeply saddened by the event! Couldn’t possibly send by a squad car to take a look before deploying the gang of thugs in body armor. And these arrogant bastards wonder why they are being killed from time to time from feed up citizens. I guess its only appropriate for them to kill us! They absolutely deserve the hate that THEY have created by their own actions!
“I suppose if Dwayne Perry had accidentally been murdered for growing OKRA they would be deeply saddened”
no, they would have destroyed it and claimed it WAS pot.
because the “drug dealer” wouldnt be around to say otherwise.
It`s just amazing w/ everything that`s wrong w/ this country , & this planet , these pigs are so afraid of a weed .
Lazy pigs love an easy bust is what it really is and once a person is in the system the system can milk him or her dry. Oh and that ever important felony conviction and loss of civil rights!
Is Kermit a popular name in the US? Made me laugh.
Theodore Roosevelt named one of his sons Kermit. It became a family name, passed on through the generations. There’s one on the Penn Law faculty.
I’ve certainly never met anyone names Kermit. The name makes me think of the Muppets. LOL