Md: The Cheye Calvo raid...

[alan]

shortwave writes:

I hope people continue to have a respect for the law. As stated before"there are literally thous. of "warranted "warrants served everyday without a problem. IMO, LEO in most states has a pretty good record. As Socrates stated, theres a system in place to obtain a warrant as well as in most cases,serve the same. Mistakes or "bad" actions altering the whole system can and do happen. The problem is when those bad actions do happen to many times it is swept under the rug right in the noses of the public. Many times for political reasons (FOP being 2nd largest lobbying group in state I live in) an embarrasing situation such as this one doesn`t stay in headlines to long. Usually offended party settles out of court and state or city pays costs. Then the "hand slapping" is done. To many times thats the end. Nothing added or taken away from that above mentioned system to keep things from going bad the next time.

Pay particular attention to his last sentence, where he makes mention of "to keep things from going bad the next time".

If I may, how about the following. To Keep Things From Going Worse The Next Time. By the way, there will likely be that "next time", and times after that too.

 

[hammer4nc]

John Danforth redux?

Killing of Mayor's 2 Dogs Justified, Pr. George's Finds
Officers in Raid Threatened, Sheriff Says

By Rosalind S. Helderman and Aaron C. Davis
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, September 5, 2008; Page B01

The Prince George's County Sheriff's Office has concluded in an internal review that its deputies were justified when they shot and killed two dogs belonging to the mayor of Berwyn Heights during a July drug raid, Sheriff Michael Jackson said yesterday.

The sheriff said that one dog was engaging an officer and that the other was running toward a second officer at the time the black Labs were shot, but the ruling did not satisfy the mayor, who said the inquiry was incomplete and misleading.

Jackson released the results of the review in response to a scientific examination of the dogs' carcasses by a veterinarian with the Maryland Department of Agriculture at the request of Mayor Cheye Calvo. The necropsy concluded one dog was shot four times and the other twice, including once in the dog's back legs.

Calvo said the necropsy has bolstered his contention that neither dog was threatening law enforcement officers during the raid and that one dog was shot from behind as he fled into a back room.

A sheriff's department SWAT team and county police narcotics officers burst into the mayor's home July 29 after police intercepted a 32-pound package of marijuana addressed to Trinity Tomsic, Calvo's wife.

Police cleared Calvo and Tomsic of wrongdoing, saying they were victims of a drug smuggling scheme in which drug-filled packages addressed to unsuspecting recipients were intercepted by a FedEx deliveryman.

Jackson said that the county attorney and the Sheriff's Office's internal affairs division are reviewing the department's internal findings in response to a formal complaint lodged by the couple and that he would provide further details when those reviews were completed.

But, he said, the investigation has concluded "the guys did what they were supposed to do."

"They had a legitimate court order to be there," he said. "Unfortunately, we had to engage the animals, but that engagement was justified."

Calvo rejected Jackson's conclusions yesterday, saying sheriff's deputies have not interviewed him or his mother-in-law about their accounts of the incident. Both were home at the time of the raid. Their arms were bound behind their backs, and they were questioned about the package while the body of one dog lay nearby.

"The fact that they've done an internal review without contacting the victims of their raid, the people whose house they stormed through, shows they're not very interested in the actual facts," he said.

The necropsy was performed by Kathryn Nepote, acting director of the state's College Park Animal Health Diagnostic Laboratory and paid for by Calvo. An attorney for Calvo said the necropsy and cremation cost $360 for each dog.

According to the necropsy, 7-year-old Payton was shot four times, twice in the chest and twice in the head. One of the shots entered through his mouth and lodged in the back of his neck.

Four-year-old Chase was shot twice. One bullet entered the dog's back left leg, then lodged in his right back leg. The other entered his side and passed through his chest.

"The report confirms what me and my family saw, heard and lived and makes it clear the sheriff was not telling the truth," Calvo said.

He said the number of gunshot wounds to the two dogs indicates that the violence used in the raid was "unbelievably excessive."

Jackson said the department looked at each shooting in detail. The first dog was engaging officers near the front door, he said. The second was shot, he said, as it ran away from the deputy who fired and toward an officer standing in an adjacent hallway with his back turned.

Calvo said there was no way a deputy shooting from the kitchen could have seen another officer in the hallway as Jackson described. He called on the sheriff's department to release photos taken of the dogs the night of the raid, which he said will prove the point.

Calvo said he hopes an FBI investigation into the raid will examine other issues, including why officers did not know they were raiding the home of a mayor and why Prince George's police said at first that they had been given a "no knock" warrant to enter the home without announcing their presence but then that they had not.

"This doesn't speak only to our incident. It speaks to: What is standard operating policy in Prince George's county?" he said.

Calvo and his wife have meanwhile adopted a 14-month-old black Lab and named him Marshall, he said.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Comment: Yawn...officers acted in policy. Not surprised. On a related topic, look for this on Sept. 11:

Cato to Host Forum on No-Knock Raids With reason's Radley Balko; Berwyn Heights, Maryland Mayor Cheye Calvo, and LEAP co-founder Peter Christ

http://reason.com/blog/show/128437.html

 

[GalilARM]

THAT is why I'll always own high capacity, semi automatic, armor piercing weapons. I probably wont last long but at least some of them wont either.

 

[FireMax]

Cliff notes summary: A 30 lb package of marijuana is intercepted by drug agents in Arizona; addressed to the wife of a small-town mayor in Maryland. Police posing as deliverymen drop the package off on the mayor's doorstep, then execute a swat raid as soon as the package is brought in the house. The mayor's two labrador retrievers are killed by police during the raid. Now, police theorize that the package was part of a scheme involving parcel delivery personnel, and the addressee had no knowledge of the illegal contents. At this point, the victims of the raid appear squeaky clean, and are both "civil servants". They're calling for federal civil rights investigations into several aspects of the raid.

Put the thugs who were involved in the raid in jail. Of course, we all know that they are more likely to be promoted rather than jailed.

I hope people continue to have a respect for the law.

The "law" enforcers arms themselves like soldiers, execute increasing number of "no knock" warrants on civilians and sweep up innocents in the process of their fanatical aggression.

No, not likely that people will continue to respect the law.

 

[shortwave]

Firemax,And I bet you can find bad people in your line of work also. Crooked doctors,lawyers, plumbers,mechanics,cops, name it theres bad people in every job out there including your line of work. That doesn`t mean you should lump them all in one category. I personally know a few cops that should be behind bars themselves but the # of good cops sure outweigh the bad. Also,IMO, when a cop is found to be a bad cop, his punishment for whatever he`s guilty of should be harsher than a regular civilian. He`s taken an Oath to serve and protect. Start setting an example out of some of these bad cops by sentencing them harshly enough for the things they`ve done that the $60,000/yr. job will not be worth going to the pen. The many good cops I know earn every dime they make and I`ll repeat my statement of the respect they deserve.

 

[Socrates]

Odd. I get more upset, actually furious, about this then just about anything I've scene in a long time. See my sig...

 

[Erik]

So... Apparently the shooting of the dogs was vetted by the SO and the various lawyers who weigh in on such things as good per department policy and laws of Virginia. Vetted with the knowledge that they're under the feds' microscope. We'll have to see what they (the feds) make of it. (Note: The feds allows for the shooting of dogs.)

Keep us posted on the facts as they become available.