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notesfromtheunderground1312 · 1 year

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The Emerald Triangle

Introduction:

In August of 2014, the US, experienced an unparalleled rebellion over the murder of Michael Brown, a Black man, by Darren Wilson, a white police officer. Like many cities, we had looted and rioted for weeks on end, searching for the limits of our revolutionary capabilities, which turned out to be a lack of imagination in the end. The same old tools, produced the same results, the talking heads “representing” the people gained a seat at the negotiating table of power, to produce several more black people being killed by the police over the next few years (Tamir Rice 2014,Eric Harris 2015,Walter Scott 2015,Freddie Gray 2015, Philando Castile 2016, Stephon Clark 2018, Breonna Taylor 2020, George Floyd 2020) without any significant consequence. This is one story among many that was never supposed to be told. It is about an exploration into the unknown, to build capacity for militant struggle against the US government.

Lex, Jessie, and Bronson aimed to leave town at 10:00am. Jessie borrowed a plain white van from a friend. Jessie was supposed to pick up Lex and Bronson who had gathered all the necessary tools: bullet proof vests, guns, bolt cutters, crow bars, drills etc. When Jessie finally arrived the two had stepped off the curb becoming more aware of the heavy weight of the bags, and got into the van. Jessie sat in the drivers seat, he was to take the first shift driving the 4 hours to the Emerald Triangle ( the US’s largest cannabis producer located in Northern California)

As the crew drove to the outskirts of the busy city, Jessie nervously chain smoked cigarettes with the window down, his hat which was covering his balding head, was fluttering with the turbulence of the incoming freeway air. While on the drive Jessie and Bronson debated philosophy as a way to pass the time, and to get to know each other, this was the longest amount of time the 3 of them would spend together. Bronson, had spent his teenage years in and out of incarceration, and had become an avid reader. He argued against any universal statements, proclaimed the fiction of race and gender as social constructs. Jessie didn’t really believe one way or the other, he was just driving, fascinated by the conversation.

Bronson and Lex were essentially hired thugs and tacticians for this operation. The two of them had worked together in the streets, organizing black bloc demonstrations, occupations, looting, rioting, and getting into street fights with the police. They where seasoned anarchists.

Jessie was a pot farmer, who had been cut out of a $100,000 grow operation. The season for harvesting weed in CA is in October, in early August the owner of the pot farm had let Jessie go, claiming the operation didn’t need him anymore. Jessie had managed the farm from start to finish, and was expecting around $50k when all the weed was sold. Instead the owner gave him $8k and cut him loose.

Jessie and Bronson had met at a party during the height of the Ferguson Uprising. Every major city in the US was on fire, and many seasoned street fighters had reached the peak of their skill sets. The horizon of the struggle was simply out of reach. It was in this moment as Jessie explained the debacle with his boss, that Bronson plotted on a simple experiment. If armed struggle was to become the next step, revolutionaries would need practice, what better than a relatively low stakes robbery, a dress rehearsal for larger expropriations. The weed farmers wouldn’t call the police, they might try an armed defense of the farm, but by being caught off guard they didn’t have much of a chance. The same organizing attention to detail and security could be used to plan the heist.

So there the 3 of them where, hurling down the freeway. The philosophical banter continued, “There is a kind of inherent, although unintentional, anti-authoritarian nature to oral histories” explained Bronson to the van of would be thieves. Lex jumped in to hammer the point home

“ Without a definitive reference point, social regulation becomes like a game of telephone, it’s harder to concentrate power, cause no one really knows exactly what the rule was, or how it should be interpreted. Hammurabi’s code was probably the first solidified reference for law, literally written in stone…”

the van began to slow as they approached the exit, the conversation fell to a silence as the gravity of the situation was beginning to be felt, and they awaited to stop exactly where they had planned.

The road off the exit turned to dirt, and continued toward the mountains. They winded through the steep alpine forest for what seemed like hours, taking deep breaths of the fresh air to calm the nerves . Finally the van stopped at an unused campsite a few miles from the entrance to the farm. So much planning and discreet meetings, the emotional preparation to possibly get into a gun fight, to shoot someone, or to be shot, in the backdrop of a looming revolution in the US.

They slide open the old van door and began ruffling through the large bags, found the bullet proof vests and began to put them on. Bronson was realizing that he had never put a bullet proof vest on before, it was a lot heavier than he thought. They began to load the ghost guns, clearly none of them had much experience, fumbling the bullets around before finding a rhythm of putting them into the magazines, they checked the tools, the last touch to make their fantasy into a reality was to dawn the black mask. The plan was to climb the mountain, a 6 mile walk along the ridge following the electrical lines that lead to the house, to avoid walking up the only road to the farm. This particular date was chosen by following the “Boss” on Facebook which indicated that they wold be on vacation during this time. No one in the crew could know for sure, so it was agreed that during the robbery if the “Boss” came up the dirt road they’d have no choice but take the “Boss” hostage to ensure a clean get away.

As they hiked, the sweat poured into Bonson’s face forcing him to stop every so often to wipe his eyes as they went up the dirt hill with 100 lbs of equipment and a loaded gun. The ideological reasons for being there didn’t exist in that moment, only the immediate physical reality was present, the sweat under the bullet proof vest soaking his shirt underneath, the slightest need to pee, the discomfort of his shoes. Jessie was getting further and further ahead, not only because he knew the route but also because he carried the least amount of equipment. He saw Lex and Bronson lagging behind, the plan needed to be altered, it didn’t meet the physical needs of the terrain. Jessie waited near one of the electrical towers sprinkled along the ridge line, as Lex and Bronson struggled to keep up the the sun started to go down. Jessie signaled for them to come in closer, he whispered “ I’m going to run up ahead and scout to see if anyone is there, you two keep coming, we are getting close. Just keep following the electrical line and stop at the tree line before the farm.” Lex and Bronson looked at each other panting and simply nodded their heads trying to catch their breath. Jessie had worked on the farm a year ago and knew where they might be storing all the weed, he was the best person to go ahead and scout it out.

As Lex and Bronson finally approached the tree line of the farm the sun had just began to set on the valley where the small house was located. Jessie snaked his way to the tree line to meet them he knelt closer “ I need you guys to aim the guns at the front door while I look in the windows to make sure no one is here before we crack open the storage unit.” Eye contact between Lex and Bronson was made and a quick nod, they carefully set down the tools in the darkness of the forest and crept up to the house to take their positions aiming at the door just in case anyone saw Jessie in the window and tried to come out. Jessie had started at the window closest to the door and worked around the building in a clockwise rotation. He slowly peeked his head up above the window sill like a cartoon bear trying to steal a freshly baked pie. As he ended his search he returned to the other two’s firing positions. “There is no one fucking here!” The excitement of the three of them noticeably lit up their faces even under the black ski masks. After retrieving the tools, they still moved cautiously together, guns drawn moving in a column towards the shed where the loot was hidden.

As they approached the door Lex and Bronson assessed the security of the door and the tools needed to open it. The door was held shut with a thick padlock on your basic barn door hinge. Bronson had always been amused at the logic of locks, even the strongest lock in the world can’t make a weak hinge stronger. The bolt cutters where taken out of the large black bag, and Lex and Bronson simply cut the hinge the lock was attached to in two cuts. The thieves swung the door wide open, the room was full of bags and two refrigerators. Jessie quickly rummaged thru the bags to make sure it contained what they where looking for. He stuck his head in and deeply inhaled, his eyes through his mask looked like he had reunited with an old friend. He simply said “ That’s it” Everyone readjusted their equipment and picked up two bags each. The bags themselves contained 20 lbs of weed each. They hauled them to the side of dirt road, Jessie again volunteered to run down the road to retrieve the van and drive it back up to gather them and the loot. Lex brought up the fact that the “Boss” could up the road at anytime and that we needed a plan on what to do if they did. Bronson took the radios out handed one to Jessie, “ At this point if the Boss comes up that road you need to fire a warning shot at them and radio us, we’ll take them hostage until we are done, and leave them tied up in the woods somewhere.” The risk was assessed by the group and the plan went ahead. Immediately after Jessie took a radio and a hand gun and began sprinting down the hill, leaving everything with the other two.

Lex and Bronson waited on the side of the dirt road for Jessie to return with the van. No words where exchanged between them, just the silence of the woods. Suddenly some lights came up the road, firing positions where taken until the vehicle could be recognized. It was Jessie, he found a place to turn the van around and the three quickly loaded all the equipment and the loot into the back of the van. All three got in the car and made their way down the dirt road, hoping that this wouldn’t be the moment that someone came up the road. The job wasn’t done until they made it home, they where now traveling with 120 lbs of weed which could still land them all felonies.

The trio made their way to a nearby hotel to check in and hold tight until morning. Jessie had moved weight before but not this much, the standard operating procedure was to travel with a “tail,” a separate vehicle that would trail the carrying car in case police tried to pull it over. They rented a box truck, and flipped a coin on who would drive the truck holding all the loot. Lex got the short end of the stick while Jessie and Bronson would follow in the tail van, now only carrying the weapons.

As the months went up by after the robbery the three had made an impressive selling operation. Weed sales in CA don’t yield as much profit as out of state sales, plus anyone who happened to sell the weed to the “boss” or their clientele could lead them back to the trio. Jessie knew real estate agents on the East Coast who could be hired to receive their mailed weed packages at empty homes they where selling, and could mail back the money disguised in coloring books with the pages cut out. Over a course of a few months the plan unfolded, and the trio made a good profit around $20k each. Lex and Bronson had agreed to use a certain percentage of the money for political causes to up the capacity for militant organizing. But what was specifically done with the money is a different story all together….

#expropriation #weed #anarchy #ferguson #crime #stories

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