Police chase stories usually involve screeching tires, high-speed cars, and tense stand-offs—not bulldozers carving paths through brush to find a guy with a few pot plants. But for 51-year-old Gregory Longenecker, his attempt to escape authorities went from ridiculous to tragic as Pennsylvania police decided that his little grow operation warranted an all-out manhunt, complete with a helicopter and a nine-ton bulldozer blazing through the woods.

It all started on July 9, 2018, when a Pennsylvania Game Commission worker discovered a small grow site on state game lands near Bernville. The worker spotted two men near a cluster of marijuana plants and immediately called local police. When officers arrived, one man quickly surrendered, but Longenecker—a chef and gardener with a passion for the Grateful Dead—darted into the dense underbrush.

The area was nearly impenetrable by foot, so police called in a Pennsylvania State Police helicopter, which hovered above, tracking Longenecker’s location and radioing guidance to the ground team. As State Police Trooper David Beohm described, Longenecker “took off into the very heavily wooded—the underbrush, very thick—ran into that location” (Channel 69 News).

To help navigate the thick vegetation, a state trooper climbed aboard the bulldozer alongside the Game Commission worker, and ordered him to “blaze a trail” through the brush. Flying overhead, helicopter pilot Cpl. Edward Stefanides was taken aback by the approach. “Holy (expletive), they’re sending a bulldozer in,” he said later, as quoted in the lawsuit (Associated Press).

From above, he could see the bulldozer approaching Longenecker’s location and tried to warn the ground team to stop, saying, “I got to say something, because they aren’t stopping… so at that point, I was like, you know, ‘stop the bulldozer!’” However, communication problems prevented his warning from reaching the trooper or bulldozer operator in time.

What happened next is still disputed, but the official report claims that Longenecker approached the bulldozer and hid underneath it while it briefly stopped. Authorities allege he was crushed when it moved again, but even Stefanides doubted this version of events. In a deposition, he stated that he had Longenecker “in view the entire time” and that “it would be impossible for Mr. Longenecker to crawl under the back of the bulldozer before the bulldozer turned left.”

The officer supposedly in charge of the search was quoted in the family’s lawsuit saying, “It is my opinion that he didn’t crawl under there from the back, because I had guys walking down behind it.”

Longenecker’s family has called the entire incident grossly excessive and filed a lawsuit against the Pennsylvania State Police and Game Commission. Their attorney, Jordan Strokovsky, argued that “the state police and the Pennsylvania Game Commission worker ran Greg over with a bulldozer, crushing and killing him, all over some pot plants” (NBC News). The lawsuit contends that police had “no visibility” and ignored communication problems throughout the pursuit.

Sure, Longenecker was evading arrest. And that is a crime. But it is not a crime punishable by the death penalty. And even if it was, the state police can’t act as judge, jury, and executioner.

At the end of the day, the Pennsylvania police’s response seems more fit for a major bust than two guys growing a handful of plants in the woods. The tragic death of Gregory Longenecker—over allegedly growing 10 pot plants—feels all too preventable. This incident is a sharp reminder that even minor infractions can lead to serious consequences when the law’s heavy machinery is deployed without restraint.