The drug raid by Prince George’s County law officers on the home of Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo last week was a Keystone Kops operation from start to finish.
Understand from the beginning, there was little or no investigation, the mayor and his family -and their dogs – were innocent, the Sheriffs who invaded the mayor’s house did not have a no-knock warrant.
Acting on a tip that a 32-pound package of marijuana had been sent by Federal Express from Arizona to Mr. Calvo’s home (addressed to his wife, Trinity Tomsic), Prince George’s police swung into action. Which is to say they got on the phone, calling law enforcement agencies to see who might have a SWAT team available to bust the unsuspecting Calvo family. (It seems the police department’s own team was tied up.) After being turned down at least once, they finally struck a deal with the Prince George’s Sheriff’s Office, whose track record with domestic disputes is extensive but whose experience with drug busts is slight. And it showed.
Without bothering to alert Berwyn Heights police, sheriff’s deputies moved into position. Posing as a deliveryman, a deputy took the package to the family’s door. After Mr. Calvo’s mother-in-law initially refused to sign for it, the package was finally taken into the home, where it sat, unopened, on the living room floor. Whereupon the deputies, guns drawn, kicked in the door, stormed the house and shot to death the Calvos’ two Labrador retrievers, one of them, apparently, as it attempted to flee. The canine threat thus dispatched, the mayor — in his briefs — and his mother-in-law were handcuffed and interrogated in close proximity to the bloodied corpses of their dogs.
Read the rest if you can stomach it. Lousy police work by incompetent coppers.
Why do we keep voting for morons who support a “war” upon their own people?
This man has done something to piss off the powerful people in his county.These cops were not local so it sounds like a setup by the chief of police.Swat teams are not normally “busy”in a town that size.From the lack of an apology by the Chief of police to him blaming the dogs and the older woman in the home for screaming when she saw armed men dressed in black in her front yard tells me this story isn’t over yet.The swat team was probably set up just like the mayor was.BTW for gods sake it was pot its not like they were going to flush 30 pounds down the toilet.
I’ve got a great idea lets get all of the potheads you know to send a joint or two to the chief of police in question.Sounds like he could stand a little of his own justice.
#28;
Guilty as charged.
#29, Freyar;
You raise a good point.
We’re missing the forest for the trees…
The local sheriff is elected to office and normally speaking is fired or as well as hired by the voters.
If that is true in this case this event was not good for his odds of staying in office.
The excuse, “I was only following orders” has been used too many times. The most popular use was during WWII by the Germans. “I was just following orders when I put those Jews in the gas chamber.” “Thanks for the confession!” BLAM.
I reject any excuse that blames the leadership alone. If you are given license to use lethal force on a civilian population, you better be DAMNED sure you know which way to point the business end of your weapon. IMNSHO, you get one ass-play when it comes to crap like this.
#37 TomB
There’s a difference between “I put them in a gas chamber when they had no direct threat to me and under the orders of my superiors.” as opposed to “As far as my knowledge was concerned in this matter, the actions of my SWAT unit were within the boundries as to what we can or cannot do.”
Remember we are only hearing the report of what happened from a third hand, we were not there to begin with, we do NOT know exactly how the orders were handed out.
If you are told that you are doing a warranted search on a possible drug house, you have animals there that CAN and most likely (in an environment involving drugs) WILL attack the officers.
My sympathies to the family for the loss of their dogs, but the guys who sent the package in the first place ought to be the ones behind bars, and the leadership that put this plan together.
Officers have a hard enough time as it is trying to deal with things like this as criminals (the people that the Sheriff’s department is likely used to dealing with) get more and more organized and well-armed.
The confusing part so far is that I’m seeing two different arguments. One about how “shooting at the dogs was wrong in every way” and the “Everyone in the SWAT unit is a horrible officer and ought to be fired/jailed/shot/etc.”
I understand when it comes to dealing with PEOPLE and shooting PEOPLE. PEOPLE you can reason with, and converse with, dogs are trained and act in accordance with that.
I blame Michael Jackson!
/what? that’s the sheriff’s name.
/RTFA
What bothers me is what is legal in this situation. “A tip” is all it takes to get your house raided? That is all it took in Texas to raid the polygamy compound–so it looks like that is about it.
I suppose it comes down to degrees of apparent justification, but I would hope (but doubt) the full chain of development would be subject to court review. Who gave the tip, how was the tip confirmed etc.
Now, if the mayor had a gun to protect himself, he and his entire family could be dead too.
#39 – gigwave – …Michael Jackson… that’s the sheriff’s name…
And his deputies are Pee Wee Herman and Gary Glitter.
# 27 sam said, on August 7th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
I concur black labs are the nicest breed of dog on earth. Now if it would have been pits I could understand shooting them. I wish they would all get fired and maybe a couple in prison for this I’m sure they broke some law.
As the owner of a 12 year old pit bull, how dare you say “if it would have been pits you could understand shooting them?” Lets not forget that the world’s first face transplant was given to a woman who was attacked by her own black lab…..
The fact that *any* dog has to die because of human ignorance is unforgivable.
#38, Most of my family was either a cop or is currently a cop. They find it funny this highly trained SWAT team sat outside a nice house for such a long time and didn’t question the intelligence. They did no research on the supposed owner of the house. It wasn’t hard to figure out who it was — it was on the package.
Somebody should have questioned the orders.
I’m mad because of the attitude, “Oh, well, bad intel.” It’s that attitude right there that is giving bad press everywhere to guys who are trying to do the right thing. I stand by my statement — everybody involved should be fired and brought up on charges of malfeasance.
It’s good to see the mayor get a taste of the drug war. F him. He most likley was a tough on crime guy. He’s lucky they didn’t shoot granny.
F the DEA !
lETS DO ABIT OF math…
30lbs of POT..
TIGHT PACKED, to save space..
Something the size of a LARGE computer case, BOX..
TIGHTLY WRAPPED..
Dont want to ADD WEIGHT, so its probably NOT metal REINFORCED..
Did ANYONE INVOLVED, sample this package??
A #12 needle could have given them ALL the info they needed.. Then Squeeze the box to get a whiff of AIR out of the box..
WITh DHS, dont they get to READ OUR MAIL, anyway??
Something is REALLy wrong here.
Lots more detail at
abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/wireStory?id=5536184
also
http://www.berwyn-heights.com/
and the police department’s own website
http://www.berwynheightspd.com/
Berwyn Heights is a small town, population less than 3000, with a 7-person police force. It is in Prince George’s County, MD, population 800,000. The county has a 1400-person police force.
Even though the package was addressed to the mayor’s wife (whose last name is not the same as his), it seems inexcusable that the local police didn’t realize who the addressee was. As #43 TomB said, the county police also should have found out just whose house they were raiding. In fact, the mayor (who found the package on his porch when he arrived home from work and took it inside, then went to change clothes) said the raiding officers didn’t believe him when he tried to tell them he was the mayor.
A FedEx delivery driver and another man have been arrested. The theory is that the packages would be sent to random innocent people, the driver would leave them outside and the other man would come later and take them.
The mayor has asked for a Federal probe into the incident. Let’s hope any officers (and management) who still have a job after this will look into such things a little more deeply before going off half-cocked in the future. In fact, I believe a detailed study of the incident should be part of the training of every law enforcement officer in the country.
You wouldnt NEED to have anyone sign for it.
Just TAKE it out of the truck, and have your friend FAKE the signature..
Who’s looking for it?? NOT the Mayor or his wife..
A 30lb Package of MJ??? THIs is not a small package.
IF someone SIGNED for it, then they will EXPECT it..
If it GETS to the DOOR, UNSIGNED, then no one is looking for it..
Sounds like the cops are TRYING to make things ADD UP…and they are ALL WRONG.
All they have to do is label the package as coming from NewEgg. Fed Ex drops those packages off and run away before I can inspect the packages, and never want a signature. What happens when I file a claim that the package never arrived?
The no-news part is this was all legal. Perfectly ok cause we are in a WAR. We have to do what ever it takes to end this scourge on our nation. The law enforcement people were only doing the job we ask them to do. Drugs are bad and they kill. We have to do whatever it takes to stop them. A few innocents will die but that is the price we will have to pay if we really want to win this WAR. We do want to win this war don’t we?
49,
That was also the rationale for dropping white phosphorus on residential communities.
I have to go with #49, Eddie. Even as I was reading these posts I was thinking this.
The Supreme Court recently ruled that the police are not committing a crime if they take down the wrong person if they use good faith. The victim may still sue, but even that has its own police protections.
Why? It isn’t because the police are all assholes. That is a separate issue. Its because we allowed the government to slowly remove and reinterpret our rights, bit by bit.
We allowed them to classify marijuana the same as hard, killer drugs. We allowed movies like Scarface and all those Glover / Stallone pieces of shit to shape our psyche. Movies where every drug dealer is surrounded by henchmen with uzis and mac-10s who aren’t afraid to use them. Of handling cocaine in the hundreds of pounds.
How will we get our police under control? After a high ranking member of the federal judiciary is caught. When someone like Clarence Thomas gets busted for driving while black and ends up with his nose broken and his car ripped to shreds. Or if Antonin Scalia’s daughter is roughly arrested for soliciting and resisting arrest.
Larry Craig had a perfect chance to challenge abusive police procedure. Instead he hid from embarrassment. We have a 16 y/o kid with a broken back tazered up to 19 times and there are people defending the police action. If we elect McCain we will get four more years of the same. Victims of police abuse powerless and police denying they erred.
#51 Mr. Fusion – here! here! Very eloquent. I agree. We have allowed ourselves to become the victims of our supposed protectors. My view of police used to be one of trust and respect but gradually changed to suspicion and fear. When ever I happen across a police or police car I take an inventory of what I’m doing and all my surrounding to be sure I can not be accosted for anything. It’s subliminal but palpable. It use to be I could pass by a police without a second thought.
My parents have two labs and they are perhaps the best mannered dogs I’ve seen in awhile. But I can tell you what that they’d go F’IN spastic if someone kicked down my parents door. They probably wouldn’t try to attack, but they’d sure as hell sound like they’d take a leg off.
I’m not defending the shooting of the dogs, just saying I can imagine someone getting their panties in a bunch at two nice sized dogs barking all crazy like.
#51 Damn good post.
#46, Patso;
Wait, so just because of who the person is makes this inexcusable? So much for all people being treated equally.
The mayor shouldn’t have gotten any special treatment, and indeed, he didn’t. Which is a good thing, because now politicians are starting to see what it feels like to live under the jackboot of the police forces they built-up.
#49;
I hope that’s satire.
If not, you need help. Ever hear of a thing called civil liberties?
Tax drugs and let people kill themselves if they want. We do it with alcohol and cigarettes already.
#56, Nate.
Tax drugs and let people kill themselves if they want. We do it with alcohol and cigarettes already.
No we don’t. Both alcohol and tobacco are heavily regulated. Besides the tax, restrictions include where you can purchase either, the age of the user, where they may be consumed, and even how much alcohol one can have in his blood when driving.
In fact, there is a whole Federal Government department solely to enforce those regulations. They are called the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms or ATF. (now a division of Homeland Insecurity)
If the dogs aren’t aggressive why does the photo show the dogs wearing muzzles when
being walked in public? I usually only see
these on videos of animal control officers
taking away aggressive dogs.
Those aren’t muzzles, they are training collars that put pressure on the top of the nose, forcing the dogs to heel.
It’s really helpful if you have a large dog that likes to run after rabbits and such. They can open their mouths with perfect freedom. . .
48,
If the person wasnt expecting it…WHO cares.
If i send a package to your address, and you dont know its coming, and its intercepted in the MIDDLE of delivery… YOU wouldnt know/care. The person in the truck could have anyone pick it up. Or someone could be standing OUTSIDE and say “Im THAT person” and delivery is made. And the HOUSe owner dont know anything.