Marijuana Forced On Undercover Pair At Gunpoint

Two Ann Arbor police recruits, working undercover on a narcotics investigation which eventually led to 15 arrests, were forced at gunpoint to smoke marijuana, it was learned today. The recruits had been assigned to check the use and sale of marijuana and heroin in campus areas at the University of Michigan and at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti. Their undercover assignments ended abruptly last week when four men later arrested for kidnaping and robbery accused them of being police informers and at gunpoint forced them into a downtown apartment. Neither Prosecuting Attorney William F. Delhey nor Acting Police Chief Harold E. Olson has provided details of the undercover work but The News learned today that the abductors had planned to force quantities of "LSD" into the recruits. However, the men were unable to obtain enough of the hallucinatory drug and so under gunpoint the recruits were forced to smoke marijuana, a source said. The rookie officers were held in the apartment for four hours before they were released. While neither officer carried police identification on his person, one of the men who captured them found a city pay stub in one of the recruit's pockets, it was learned. When the four men abducted the recruits they at first believed them to be only police informers but later became convinced they were actually police officers, the source said. The recruits have been taken off the undercover assignment. Neither man reportedly suffered injury.