Tulsa Woman Sues City of For Destroying Her Edible Garden
Jun 21st, 2012 | By Tim George | Category: Today's Off The Grid News | Print This Article
TULSA, Oklahoma – Denise Morrison is suing the city of Tulsa because she says code enforcement officers destroyed her much needed garden without cause. Morrison said she had over 100 hundred varieties of plants in both her back and front yard. All were edible and had specific purposes. Now, these much needed plants have all been cut down by overzealous and insensitive city workers.
Because Morrison had issues at her last property over code enforcement she says she had been careful to learn what the ordinance calls for. The city ordinance in question stipulates that plants cannot be more 12-inches tall unless they’re used for human consumption. She says she was careful this time to make sure everything she grew was edible.
Before the city workers cut down her plants, Morrison’s front and back yards were filled with flowers in bloom, lemon, stevia, garlic chives, grapes, strawberries, apple mint, spearmint, peppermint, an apple tree, walnut tree, pecan trees and much more. She said she knows which ones will treat arthritis, which will make your food spicy, which ones keep mosquitoes away and treat bug bites, but she said none of that matter to city inspectors.
After receiving a letter from the city saying there had been a complaint about her yard Morrison sought to explain the purpose of her plants. She took pictures to meet with city inspectors but said they wouldn’t listen. Her next step was to invite them to her home so they could point out the problem areas.
“Everything, everything needs to go,” Morrison said they told her. When she heard they wanted to cut everything down, she called police. An officer then issued her a citation so it could be worked out in court. She said she went to court on August 15, and the judge told them to come back in October.
One day after receiving the court date, city workers began cutting down Morrison’s plants. They even cut down some of her trees -– ones that bore fruit and nuts -– and went up next to her house and basically removed everything in her front flower bed. The homeowner protested but said “every word out of their mouth was, ‘we don’t care’”.
“I came back three days later, sat in my driveway, cried and left,” Morrison said.”Not only are the plants my livelihood, they’re my food and I was unemployed at the time and had no food left, no medicine left, and I didn’t have insurance,” Morrison said. “They took away my life and livelihood.” Morrison said she used many of the plants that were destroyed to treat her diabetes, high-blood pressure and arthritis.
When Morrison had her court date for the citation she received last August at another property, it was dismissed. She filed a civil rights lawsuit this week, accusing the inspectors of overstepping their authority. The City of Tulsa said it hasn’t received the lawsuit yet, so it couldn’t comment.
©2013 Off The Grid News
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This is ridiculous!! You’re going to destroy some woman’s garden just because the city said she was wrong? What the heck ??? She went through the codes and requirements and made SURE she complied and they still decided to trash her garden and fruit and nut trees. It’s just another sign of the gov’t employees getting power hungry and abusing their power to destroy someone’s life.
I wish I had the garden she did! I’m on pain meds and anti-depressants because of being disabled and to have the ingredients she had would have probably helped me cut back on my meds if not get rid of them entirely. I hope she wins her case – they were definitely overstepping their boundaries by destroying her crops before she was able to go to her court date. It’s funny that they were there one day after she received the court notice.
Hard to believe that a city like that is in Oklahoma. Must just be the misfits in the city government a work.
She needs a gun.
And friends with guns, and pitchforks, and torches. They needs to visit the code department and ask them politely and inquire for the code department intends to make this woman whole and properly compensated. Time to take our freedoms in hand, and corrupt governments and minions by the throat.
You better believe she needed a gun…..shoot the worthless , arrogant a s s h o l e s…and their cohorts in crime would think twice about flaunting authority they don’t have in the first place! Punks…thanks to the punk in the white house and the excuse the expression, punk atty gen!
And a big ass gun at that!
There has got to be a Conservative Attorney (friend) somewhere within our network here- who can help this woman “pro-bono”…!!!
This is happening too often, via our own personal & private family food supplies–like (raw milk, veggie/fruit/nuts trees/gardening, & legal medicine type plants) that we grow & use each day to stay healthy. Their aim is 100% for Agenda 21. Cut off a nations food and medicine supply and you can control the people! Its that simple…
We the People– NEED to rise up & sue as many of these overreaching government types as possible to STOP this crap from happening over and over again… Its what they did to turn the tables on us while we were sleeping… Fair is fair… Am Praying for this woman.
Yes, The food gestapo is in full force, as the medicine SS, and the science KGB.
We are in a hell of a mess.
That just makes me want to cry. How sad they feel they have the right to do that to another person. Who in the world made such a stupid law to limit plants to 12″??!! What if it was 13″ or 24″? What if she wanted a bush? Who is the person who complained. What is there to complain if it is in someones yard, was it threatening them? My goodness people need to mind their own business!!
It makes me “madder than hell”!
I just read that OK has the highest rate of child abuse and neglect. Maybe the state should reroute funds to assist CPS instead of destroying this womans way of survival!!!
If they came in my yard they’d still be there the next morning.
couple questions here….
WHO complained? She should sue them as well.
Even tho the workers kept saying “we dont care”… she should also sue them. being innocent because you are following orders no longer works. THEY are just as guilty!
Where was she for 3 days? It sounded like she was there for the cutting down…
What was the reasons she was cited for at the other property?
Granted, heads do need to roll for this….
no…and it didn’t work for Hitlers scum either…..”just following orders”! no more, not on “their” life!
Government is scared to death that we will become self sufficient and won’t need them. She should go to those officers’ houses and see if they are truly in compliance in the same way, then get petitions if necessary to destroy their yards.
How can plant,s hurt who ever complaind this is out raguis, your property is yours, The cite workes are out of hand, it,s geting worse and worse, with the goverment controling us, is some one from the city paying for this lady,s food and medicen now, not Tulsa
Its not about plants…its about control, about fear, about making you totally dependent on a s s h o l e s that can’t even tie their shoes!
Desert, all I can say is Amen! It’s all about countrol.
No matter the wussification that is being sprayed at us day in and day out, the proper response would be to calmly confront the whining neighbor and KICK THEIR ASS.
Keep on voting for democrats and it will be illegal to even have a garden!
If Im not mistaken in dec 11 obama signed into law and it states that growing a garden is illegal but they are keeping it on the low low because they have said that it is not enforceable because people would riot in the streets. Get the king out of office and all the low lifes that support monsoto
That is so ignorant of you to say that. The first Lady grew a garden on the White-house lawn for chrisake! Grow up!
the obama’s rule by “do as I say…not as I do”…dictators all the way!!!!
It’s pretty ignorant of you to actually believe Michelle got down on her hands and knees and planted a garden. She just showed up to hold the basket for the photo-op.
WOW… you REALLY don’t get what’s going on!
You are the ignorant one.
Immediately if not sooner!
We don’t call them Monsanto any more—the name is now Mt. Satan!
A crowd-sourced fund has been set up to help Denise defray legal expenses:
http://igg.me/p/128053?a=736954
Every bit helps…so please help!
EVERYONE must demand sovereignty. record your sovereignty with the county records. DEMAND allodial title for your lands. SHUT these creeps down. Take your freedom
Enough is enough people are going to have to stick together and put these people ( that think just because they work for the government they can do anything they want) in their place. Its only going to get worse and we better stop it now or welcome the socialist, marxist, and facist government that will destroy our constitution. I hope Ms Morrison takes the Communist Tulsa government to the cleaners.
well, these govt morons, and thats exactly what they are, they are so freaking stupid, they don’t realize that what they are doing is going to jump up and bite them in the butt…! when it comes to their house, watch them scream!
Just wait until Agenda 21 takes over!
I want to know how the UN can dictate the use of American private property???? Absolute destruction of our rights. This administration has done so much damage. I pray we will be able to recover. God help us.
This administration? I hate to tell you this, but it was Bush that signed on to Agenda 21. Don’t get me wrong, I’m neither a Democrat nor an Obama apologist, and Obama DID make matters worse with signing the so-called “Food modernization and safety act” of 2010. However, people need to realize that BOTH the major parties are EQUALLY culpable, and both bought and sold by the SAME people. Those who support EITHER the republicans OR the democrats… or blame one more than the other, are EVERY BIT as much to blame for our descent into tyranny as the tyrants themselves.
To the pathetic neighbors of hers that called the Code Enforcement division: You are despicable.
To the City of Tulsa: You thugs are dangerous. Why anyone would want to have anything to do with you is beyond humanity.
“It’s dangerous to be right, when the government is wrong.”
And of course the police were no help at all. She should press charges of trespassing against every last person that set foot on her property and vandalism charges/destruction of property charges on every last one of them that cut/mowed her trees & plants.
Sad that this gal was treated this way. City codes are usually setup as ‘one size fits all’ and do not take individual needs into account and are almost never revised. In these horrible economic times, citizens should be encouraged to garden all they can and hopefully share or sell their extra produce. Tulsa will probably toss her some kind of bone to keep her quiet, but the problem won’t be fixed.
We should all submit public disclosure requests to find out THE RESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES OF ALL CITY WORKERS, THE MAYOR, ALL CITY & COUNTY COUNSEL, THE JUDGES, PROSECUTORS or CITY ATTORNEYS!
Next time some bullshit bureaucrat pulls this stunt, we just send a bunch of street gangs to their house and destroy their gardens at their houses and see how they like it!
Tit for tat!
Sincerely
Luis Ewing
Welcome to the NEW AMERICA under Agenda 21.
This is the New World Order folks.
Denise, I hope you sue the living ____ out of all of them. This is insanity taken to the extreme.
I am so sorry for your troubles and heartbreak.
The judge should demand that the same city workers come back…till up the garden areas, and replant every single species and plant that was in their before, including the trees, at NO expense to the lady. This would be in addition to a decent cash settlementfrom the City. But, being a ‘governmental entity” it is even more difficult to sue them. I have now heard that in Colorado, one cannot catch and store rain water for irrigating a garden, because “it will deplete the underground aquifers”. How rediculous. After irrigating a gardens it’s on it’s way to the auqifer just the same as if it ran down the street and out of town. In ND we have a state law that prevents the raising of even ONE chicken ‘within the boundaries of any governmental entity.’ So that means, if taken literally, that if you live in a township (outside of city limits) they COULD enforce this if they cose to. Stupid idiotic government.
How INFURIATING. Those idiots truly deserve what they have coming to them, but that move would just create terrible consequences for her. She needs to organize a citizens’ group to go after the local government. She needs to get this story in all the papers and media. She needs to take this case to her representative for her district. Take it to the governor. She needs to sue and not give up until they change their stupid ordinances and until she is fully compensated and her garden is completely restored. I feel for her so much. It’s horrible.
“The city ordinance in question stipulates that plants cannot be more 12-inches tall unless they’re used for human consumption. She says she was careful this time to make sure everything she grew was edible.”
Puts a major limitation on what kind of flowers you can grow!! I’m guessing that Trees are exempted from the 12″ plant rule?? Sounds like she was careful to follow ordinance and had photo proof of her ‘edible’ plants. Assuming that she kept the weeds removed. Without knowing all the facts & laws, as a jury member I would likely support a huge settlement.
Except for herbs and strawberry plants, my garden is contained in my back yard for ‘security’ purposes.