Captain Luke Niles, Commander of the Morongo Basin Station of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department was the guest on last week’s Up-Close Show and outlined his department’s efforts to curtail illegal marijuana operations. With a breakdown of the interview, here is reporter Jef Harmatz.
Captain Niles explained that his department’s ongoing work to shut down illegal grows, called Operation Hammerstrike, has been successful. Though marijuana is legal at the state level, unregulated cultivators have come to the Morongo Basin, monopolizing resources and leaving harmful chemical waste. Niles credits members of the community for communicating the severity of the issue to the county, which provided the sheriff’s department with additional funding to address the issue.
“It was the local residents and community groups that really came to meetings and talked with the supervisors and the sheriff’s department and pointed out how big a problem it was.” – Capt. Luke Niles
The funding financed five four-officer teams focused on enforcing marijuana regulations, with one team dedicated solely to the Morongo Basin. Though criminal charges for the grows are light, Niles said that the disruption of an operation is often enough of a deterrent.
“If we can get in and legally identify that it is an unlawful marijuana grow, remove the product, ultimately we are preventing the flow of money, and operations are self-eradicating. They are not setting up shop out here anymore.” – Capt. Luke Niles
You can hear Captain Niles’ full interview by listening to the Up-Close Show as a podcast on z1077fm.com
