By By LYDIA GRIMES – features writer
Law enforcement officers had a ready-made trap for a drug suspect charged with growing about $10,000 worth of marijuana Monday, officials said.
Officers with the 21st Judicial Circuit Drug Task Force and Brewton Police Department were doing surveillance on a marijuana patch Monday when a suspect showed up in the wooded area off Alabama Highway 41, just outside of East Brewton.
Randall Allen Holley, 37, of Jay, Fla., was arrested and charged with unlawful possession of marijuana in the first degree for growing marijuana, Hutchins said.
Agents were in the process of changing the batteries in the surveillance camera when they witnessed Holley in the marijuana patch, Hutchins said. When the suspect saw the agents and they attempted to apprehend him, he fled through the woods and left in his vehicle, Hutchins said.
The film from the camera was reviewed and showed a suspect in the marijuana patch. He was identified as Holley and later captured and arrested by the 21st Judicial Circuit Drug Task Force, Hutchins said. Agents are investigating the identity of another suspect also involved in the cultivation of the marijuana patch, he said.
The patch had were about 10 stalks of the marijuana, which Hutchins said would be worth around $10,000 on the street.
The 21st Judicial Circuit Drug Task Force is comprised of the following law enforcement agencies: Escambia County Sheriff's Department, Atmore Police Department, East Brewton Police Department, Brewton Police Department, Flomaton Police Department, Escambia County District Attorney's office and the Escambia County Commission.
The Task Force receives 50 percent of its funding from a grant funding by the Bureau of Justice Affairs Division of the United States Department of Justice and which is administered by the Alabama Department of Economics and Community Affairs. The remainder of the funding is provided by the Escambia County Sheriff's Department, Atmore Police Department, Brewton Police Department and the Escambia County District Attorney's Office.