Marijuana Discovery Preceded Deadly Tucson Shooting, U.S. Says



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First, came a tip. Then, not so quietly, investigators said, an Amtrak passenger tucked three bags into another row and returned to his seat just as drug enforcement officers boarded a crowded train on Monday. morning during a stop in Tucson, Arizona.

A search of these bags on the train platform revealed more than five pounds of “loose marijuana”, 50 packets of edible marijuana products (3.5 gram servings of “Gooberz”) and other products. cannabis base, according to a federal criminal complaint.

It was then that a “routine” sweep by a drug task force proved fatal: one federal agent was killed, another was seriously injured, and a Tucson police officer was hospitalized in a state. stable after a second suspect who had boarded the train opened fire. on them.

The lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Arizona on Tuesday, revealed new details about the sequence of events leading up to the shooting, including the name of one of the men, Devonte Okeith Mathis, who was charged with intent to distribute marijuana. .

The shooter was shot during the exchange with members of the task force, said the complaint, which did not identify him. He was seated across from Mr. Mathis and the two were traveling from California to Texas, authorities said.

It was not immediately clear whether Mr Mathis, 22, of Mesquite, Texas, had an attorney – none were listed in court records. He was scheduled to appear in federal court Wednesday afternoon in Tucson.

In Texas, Mr. Mathis had previously been charged with possession with intent to manufacture or deliver a controlled substance in 2018, according to court records, which showed his case was pending. Public records also listed a December 2020 sentence in a aggravated assault case involving a deadly weapon. The outcome of this case was not immediately clear.

While it is legal for people 21 and over to possess up to an ounce of recreational marijuana in Arizona under a law passed last November, possession of any amount of marijuana is a federal crime. Trafficking remains illegal both federally and in Arizona, where there has been tension over marijuana possession laws.

Valena Beety, a law professor and associate director of the Academy for Justice at Arizona State University, said in an interview on Wednesday that the disconnect between state and federal law had created confusion.

“You are in a state where recreational marijuana has been legalized, and yet there is still the impact of the DEA, you know, federal agents who can arrest you for breaking a federal law,” said Professor Beety. “It’s been a tension for years. These are the kinds of tragedies that arise because of this confusion.

But Prof Beety stressed that there is no ambiguity in the law regarding the amount of marijuana that has been seized and the charge of trafficking.

On Tuesday, the Drug Enforcement Administration identified the agent who was killed as Michael G. Garbo, a group supervisor who had worked for the agency for more than 16 years in the fight against drug traffickers, South. western United States in Kabul, Afghanistan. Authorities have not released the names of the other injured officers or given details of their conditions.

Federal agents said in the criminal complaint that they were investigating a tip they received from Amtrak when they encountered the two men on the train. The complaint did not specify the nature of the tip.

When an officer asked Mr. Mathis if the bags belonged to him, he denied it and raised new suspicions, according to the complaint. Inside a blue backpack, the officer found two packages of loose marijuana, investigators said, who said the gunman returned to the train as police dogs sniffed the bags. When the officers began to approach the gunner on the upper deck of the double-decker train, he opened fire.

The gunfire caused the evacuation of the Sunset Limited Train 2, which was carrying 137 passengers and 11 crew members at the time of the shooting. Everyone on the train, which was traveling from Los Angeles to New Orleans, was safely evacuated, an Amtrak spokesperson said.

Vimal Patel contributed reports.

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