Police in Prince George's County, Maryland, are conceding that, just maybe, last week's violent raid on the home of Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo, during which officers killed two dogs, was a mistake.
Police raided Calvo's home after he took delivery of a package containing 30 pounds of marijuana.
The package was addressed to Trinity Tomsic, Calvo's wife. But law enforcement sources said last week that they are now investigating the possibility that the mayor and his wife were unwitting recipients and that a deliveryman might have intended to intercept the package as part of a drug smuggling scheme.
The package landed on Calvo's doorstep after police posing as deliverymen brought it to the door and Calvo's mother-in-law asked that it be left on the porch. Police recovered the unopened package from the home Tuesday night but made no arrests. Calvo has said he was interrogated for hours while handcuffed and surrounded by the bloody bodies of his dogs.
OK, let's back up here. Police burst into Calvo's home with guns blazing because ... he took delivery of an officially disfavored intoxicant. There was no hint of violence, no hostages or threats -- just a lot of wacky weed.
So why the "Raid on Entebbe" tactics?
The fact is, the results could have been a lot worse. I'm not trying to minimize the slaughter of the dogs here -- I'm a dog owner myself, and I'd be driven into a murderous rage were anybody to gun the furry beasts down. But if animals died, people could have died too -- they often do in these violent drug raids. Just today, a Lima, Ohio, police sergeant was acquitted of criminal charges stemming from his killing of an unarmed woman and shooting her one-year-old son during a botched drug raid. Cory Maye is currently serving life in prison for killing a housebreaker who turned out to be a raiding police officer acting on bad information.
Violent police raids are dangerous. But marijuana, in and of itself, is not. Even if Calvo was the intended and willing recipient of that package, there's no excuse for enforcing the laws against marijuana by knocking his doors in and shooting his dogs.
As of now, the definitive study of violent, militarized policing in this country is Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America (PDF) by Radley Balko, formerly of the Cato Institute, and now of Reason magazine. The study is accompanied by an online map detailing some of the raids researchers have looked into, and their results, including the deaths of innocent people, deaths of police officers, deaths of nonviolent offenders and raids on innocent suspects. (Dogs, sorry to say, are not included).
As of 2006, Balko estimated that as many as 40,000 violent raids of the sort suffered by Calvo and his family take place every year in this country, although not all of them end in blood and tragedy.
I wish Cheye Calvo the best. But I also wish as much attention were paid to the regular people -- non-politicians -- who are usually on the receiving end of these raids.
Comments
Labs. They shot Labs. Big puppies are all they are.
They love killing dogs. Pigs.
Radley Balko wrote an article for Reason about the dogs that have been harmed in these paramilitary raids on our neighbors. It's available at http://www.reason.com/news/show/33289.html
I can't get this story out of my head. This is ridiculous. It's hard to imagine the use of that kind of force, shooting dogs, etc., especially over marijuana?? Not to say that marijuana is okay by any means, but don't we have much larger problems today than marijuana?? Sometimes you give the wrong folks a gun and they think they are Rambo. I think they should release the cops that shot the dogs names and let Peta take over!!!!
Better get used to it, it's the new freedom. Police have been being militarized for years, you people just figure this out? And chief Jody wants to give the cops assault rifles and nobody bats an eye. Militarized police and surveillance cameras all over the streets. And this done by liberals, LOL. SUCKERS!
By the way, this is what happens when the police are federalized and then brainwashed that citizens are "civilians" (as I heard the old chief refer to us). And Weiss is an ex fed. hmmmmm go figure
What, so far, I'm missing is any OUTRAGE by the "mayor. What we see is his "honor" in a suit and tie talking to the media - he outa be in his underwear. And he wants the Feds to look into it? He is as dumb as a stump, I guess you have to be in order to be a mayor.
Reminds me of the time Halliburton killed all the pets in the Green Zone.
I would be inclined to shoot and kill anyone who is entering my property in this fashion. Shoot my dogs or my kids, I will do my best to kill you as well. The day criminals had no rights is the day the rest of us needed to begin to worry. These people doing this kind of assault on our privacy and liberty are not public servants but personality disordered miscreants with badges and guns. We are being assaulted by our own goverment - this leads to revolution and anarchy. And please spare me - marijuana is nothing but a mild intoxicant. Get over it.
The entire tenor of the article and the responses to it read like an example from a book on psychiatry regarding paranoia.
This is why you have to start shooting the cops back. I bet if you kill a few cops right after they do something like this, this would stop.
I was reading this story because I thought it might be about these kids I met while driving across the country that were nursing 11 , 5 day old puppies, because a cop had shot the puppies mother. They were in a Wal-mart parking lot, and the cop walked by and the mother just stood up and barked at the cop and he shot her. She was just defending her babies, which were just 3 days old.
I am glad to see this article and that other people are getting more informed on what is really happening.
It would be great if more of us could come together, join groups that support peace and watching over on police.
We can do more to make sure that the police stop becoming more militarized. We can also do more to legalize medical marijuana so that the police don't have an excuse to mess with people that aren't hurting anyone. I have also seen a great movie called Run From the Cure that shows how you can cure cancer with it.
And if we do nothing right now... what do you think will happen?
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