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8:56pm, August 24, 2003
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[Delete] | Marijuana crop found in NYC park
By Associated Press, 8/23/2003
NEW YORK -- More than a tree grows in Brooklyn: There was a whole crop of marijuana growing in a national park.
Two men were arrested Wednesday after they were caught tending to more than 200 plants in the northern section of Floyd Bennett Field in the Gateway National Recreation Area, Capt. Martin Zweig of the U.S Park Police said Thursday.
The U.S. Park Police got a tip about the plants about a week ago, he said. They were between 8 feet and 10 feet high, and he estimated the street value in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The suspects, whose names were not released, were charged with felony marijuana possession and criminal trespassing. One man was taken into custody, while the other tried to hide and flee but was caught about 35 minutes later, Zweig said. The second man was also charged with resisting arrest.
The field was the city's first municipal airstrip, but is now used for recreational purposes.
Zweig said the plants were uprooted and were being held as evidence.
"We had to use a front-loader to actually eradicate all the plants that were back there," he said.
While there have been other instances of marijuana cultivation in other parts of Gateway, this was the largest, Zweig said.
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