State and local law enforcement officers “eradicated” 40 clandestine marijuana grow sites in Las Animas County this summer by seizing and destroying nearly 6,000 pot plants with a street value of nearly $5.8 million, authorities said.

















Agents and deputies involved in the widescale operation, led by the Las Animas County Sheriff’s Office, seized six guns and 5,904 marijuana plants, and arrested five suspects, according to a Monday news release by Phil Martin Jr., a spokesman for the sheriff’s office.





The dragnet for illegal grow operations grew out of a shooting complaint in the spring.





On May 26, a rancher reported to the Otero County Sheriff’s Office that unidentified suspects shot at his 13-year-old son while he was rounding up cattle on leased grazing property in the county, the news release said. The shooting occurred near a suspected illegal marijuana grow operation, it said. While investigating the report, deputies tracked down two suspected illegal marijuana grow houses, the news release said.





Authorities from numerous state and local law enforcement agencies arrested Ronnie Thursby, 40, Deven Thursby, 23, Denis Street, 34, and Christopher Huxtable, 31, in connection to the alleged illegal grow operations.





The four are all being held in the Las Animas County Detention Facility for investigation of drug cultivation and distribution charges, Martin said. Bond has been set at $50,000 for each suspect.





Investigators subsequently broadened their investigation of suspected grow houses in Las Animas County, according to the news release.

Deputies from Las Animas, Pueblo, Bent, Baca, Huerfano counties, along with agents from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and officers from Colorado Parks and Wildlife, participated in the raids of dozens of suspected black-market grow operations, the news release said.

Authorities also arrested Heath Rigmaiden, 40, for investigation of drug cultivation charges in a separate alleged black-market pot operation, the news release said. Rigmaiden has been released on $45,000 bond, Martin said.

One of the grow sites, which had between 5,000 and 15,000 pot plants, had been sprayed with a toxic pesticide, Carbofuron, he said. Authorities won’t cut down and destroy the plants until after environmental experts offer instructions on how to safely do so, Martin said.