Posted on 07/09/2002 12:48:48 AM PDT by Alan Chapman
Trever Palmer, 17, says he felt nervous and slightly heroic the night he picked up the phone, dialed 911 and informed the King County Sheriff's Office that his father was growing marijuana.
Minutes later, when Aaron Palmer, a Covington computer programmer, returned home from an evening of swimming laps at the local pool, deputies arrested him. They later found more than a dozen marijuana plants growing in a hidden room in the garage and booked the single father of three into the King County Jail on drug charges.
Two months later, as Trever Palmer prepares for his last year of high school, the 140-pound wrestler is still grappling with the consequences of his actions and talked about them in an interview yesterday.
Although police lauded him for doing the right thing, he says half his relatives are mad at him. He's "found out who my friends really are" while trying to avoid Kentwood High School classmates who scorned him, calling him "a weasel" and names much worse than that.
Palmer made the 911 call largely because of a lesson he learned in a Junior ROTC ethics course: "Stand up for what you believe in, don't follow the crowd and be your own person."
He still thinks he did the right thing.
"I felt like I was saving my sister and brother from this guy," he said. "You can only put up with so much."
But his family is torn apart, and his 15-year-old sister may not see the 911 call as such a brave act.
The night her father was taken away, "she really didn't speak much to me," Palmer said. "She was crying and trying to get her stuff together."
Today, she "just kind of avoids me," he said.
Palmer said his 7-year-old brother didn't know what was going on.
Palmer, who is spending part of the summer with his grandparents in Pennsylvania, plans to live with his best friend's family until he graduates and joins the Air Force. His sister and brother are staying with a cousin. Their mother, who is divorced from their father, is unemployed and "doesn't have room for them in her apartment," Palmer said.
Palmer's sister could not be reached last night, and Palmer's father did not return phone calls. Aaron Palmer, 38, was released on $5,000 bail shortly after his arrest and pleaded not guilty last week to a felony charge of drug manufacturing, the South County Journal reported. He faces up to five years in prison.
The boy said many of his relatives can't comprehend his motives for calling police.
"It sucks," Palmer said last night. "I was really hoping that they would understand. It's kind of like that hole in (me) that needs to be filled."
He has tried to explain himself to his father's parents, who "kind of understand, but they are upset."
When he called police, he said, he wasn't considering what would happen to his family. "I kind of figured that would fall into place."
What went through his mind?
"I thought: no guts, no glory," he said.
He thought marijuana growing was taking over his father's life. Instead of spending time doing things with the family, his father tended to his plants -- moving the pots around and watering. He said that on two occasions, people visited the house on account of the marijuana.
Living around drugs is "the part that no kid should have to go through, and I didn't want (my younger brother) to go through it."
There were other conflicts. He thought his father paid attention to his sister's accomplishments, while ignoring his own. And he thought his ROTC courses, which were based on Marine Corps leadership training, put him at odds with his ex-Army father "on different military perspectives."
The "stand-up" message from his ROTC course echoed in his head.
"That set it straight, why I should do it," Palmer said. "For one thing, it's illegal."
He said another factor was the emotions stirred by reading "The Red Badge of Courage" for an English class. He said he was impressed by how a character in the book, a soldier named Nick, discovered his own bravery.
"He stood up for what he believed in," Palmer said.
'Nuf said. And, BTW, doesn't Washington have a Medical Marijuana law? So the dad is growing LEGAL MEDICINAL HERBS? Truly, the kid is a f'n idiot.
If Congress does something which they have not been empowered to do would that not constitute an unconstitutional act?
...this is too typical of the problems with america today...the greatest act of freedom is to just do what you think is right...
I think America's greatest problem is widespread misconception about rights. Violations of liberty and property abound as a result. But, because they are done under the auspices of jurisprudence they are erroenously thought of as right and just.
I am sorry, I had meant to say sorry, I got called away for a minute, and when I got back I had lost my train of thought. I am sorry.
Now, do you believe you may have been harsh in saying I needed to check into a treatment center? If so, I would like a retraction to that statement.
Impossible? You haven't read the "USA PATRIOT Act." Wherein the Fourth Amendment has been effectively abolished. Nor noticed how U.S. citizens are now being held incommunicado, without being charged with a crime, without attorneys, and without allowing habeas corpus.
With how D.A.R.E. encourages kids nationwide to inform on their parents, even when they are acting in ways that injure no one (and growing marijuana plants in the basement qualifies), what makes such an atmosphere different from that of what was impressed upon the Hitler Youth? Absolutely nothing.
This boy is a budding authoritarian, the perfectly formed product of the government schools, who isn't wasting any time putting his training into practice.
And you're SO cute when you're mad. ~g~
I had not really thought about that until I read your well-written post.
Heh heh heh....
You are a drug dealer and I'm a doofus? LOL Your family didn't know that you were the scum of the earth so it's OK? LOL
I was also not dumb enough to get caught.
Oh no, your'e not dumb, but you can't earn a living without dealing drugs. LOL
Nor did I deal to or around children.
What a great guy!!!! (like kids didn't get your goods)
The reason I quit is that the risks outweighed the rewards,
Not because it was wrong, but because you didn't like the risk reward ratio. LOL
meaning the longer I continued to deal, the more likely it would be that I would be caught, so I quit.
Great guy! He didn't quit for any reason other than he didn't want to be caught? Same reason you don't steal cars or rape little girls?
Tell me, Tom, do you buy your dope in the middle of a shopping center, or do you do it in a more out-of-the-way place?
I have never used an illegal substance in my life, and the fact the lowest scum on the face of the earth doesn't believe it doesn't matter one tiny bit.
Now I suppose you are in favor of the WOD and incarcerating those who did precisely as you have done. Amazing what turns up on this conservative forum. Climb back under your rock you despicable swine.
You must be a very angry person to feel the need to bring everyone else down to your level.
I will not answer to any other flame post you put out to me. I hope you have a pleasant night, maybe you will wake up tomorrow in a better mood.
I did not go in to moralizing about how dealing or doing drugs is wrong, and I know it is, believe it or not I'm not the same person I was at 19 that I am now---for example, I voted for Dukakis. The morality argument doesn't go very far with most libertarians.
Same reason you don't steal cars or rape little girls?
What a sec... you have to make up your mind---are drug crimes "victimless" or aren't they, Dane? You're so full of s*it---you can't even stick with your own argument, instead you sound like the worst kind of statist. Oh, don't bother to respond, you've already shot your own credibility.
Signed, "lowest scum on the face of the Earth and despicable swine", but at least I'm not some pie-in-the-sky libertarian who doesn't live in the real world---
Anyone who doesn't toe your line is demonized.
You just don't get it!
I have never said that drug use is victimless. I have said that what someone puts in their own body is their business, not yours. People who make money by dealing in human misery are the worse possible scum. You made it clear that you see nothing wrong with drug dealing despite your new found morals. You said quite clearly that you stopped dealing drugs to avoid punishment. You are a low life.
Oh, don't bother to respond, you've already shot your own credibility.
I don't seek credibility with criminals and other low lifes.
Signed, "lowest scum on the face of the Earth and despicable swine",
I'll give you credit for admitting what you are.
but at least I'm not some pie-in-the-sky libertarian who doesn't live in the real world---
I live in the real world, where scum who deal think it is OK as long as they don't get caught. They advocate prison for others for the same crimes they have committed. Until you report to jail to start your term, you have nothing whatsoever to say on the subject.
You wear your drug dealing as a badge of honor, mentioning it at every opportunity.
Now you have an immoral slob taking your side, someone who has admitted that she would turn in her own blood to the feds, but now she embraces you, someone who she should be turning in, because you have a common enemy, me.
So you are saying that Jesus would tell people to turn their family in to the authorities?
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