Jim and Lynn Wood, pet Cheyenne: police kicked in door and shot dog without IDing themselves.Police across North America are recklessly shooting rounds of ammunition as though they were competing for prizes at a caravel shooting gallery. In the line of fire are children, innocent bystanders, mistaken targets, medical marijuana users and family pets.
On August 9, 1998, police bashed in the door of Jim and Lynn Wood of New Brunswick. Jim grows and uses cannabis to dull the pain of crushed vertebrae from two motor vehicle accidents.

According to the Woods, police kicked in the back door without identifying themselves, and began firing rounds into Mr Wood"s German Shepherd, Cheyenne. Jim and Lynn were upstairs, resting in bed.

"We heard a man's voice roar 'arr' and 3 shots in the dining room. One ricocheted up into the ceiling," recalls Jim. "But it could have hit the officer, or one of us. Cheyenne came running back up the stairs, blood spewing out both sides. Fearing for our lives, I grabbed the shotgun and unlocked it."

The officers then identified themselves, and Jim had time to put the weapon away before police made it to the upper-floor bedroom.

"I mopped up the blood afterward," says Jim's wife, Lynn. "It was horrifying. I couldn't get Dallas [their other dog] back into the house for over an hour. They had ransacked the home, taking all of our Cannabis Culture and High Times magazines."

Police also cut down 57 medicinal cannabis plants that the Woods had growing in their backyard and charged them each with two counts of possession, cultivation and cultivation for the purpose of trafficking for which they will receive a verdict on their pleas of medical necessity on October 5.Jim and Lynn Wood, pet Cheyenne: police kicked in door and shot dog without IDing themselves.

* Jim and Lynn Wood at their store, Hemp NB: 86 Princess St, St John, New Brunswick; tel (506) 652-4367; hempnb@hotmail.com