In the deepest, darkest woods of California.

One armed man was shot and killed and two others escaped on foot into the brush during a raid this morning on a marijuana patch in the hills south of Saratoga, a Santa Clara County sheriff’s lieutenant said.

The shooting happened when five deputies and 15 other officers confronted the men at the patch around 7:30 a.m., Lt. Ed Wise said.

It was not immediately known if the men fired at officers or how many shots were fired, or by whom, Wise said.

“The deputies started to enter a large marijuana garden and encountered three subjects armed with guns,” Wise said. “During the encounter, shots were fired. One subject was shot and fatally wounded and two others fled on foot.”

To point out something obvious to everyone but agents who killed this guy, pot growers like these ones are armed so they can defend themselves from agents who shoot first and face a press that doesn’t ask questions later. That and the black market for pot creates 1920s style turf wars, which drives gangs to grow it in secluded woods instead of the fields of the Napa Valley, where the pot should be grown, next to the grape vines. Then we could have wine and pot tours…