Police raid Md. mayor's home and kill his dogs

[tblue37]

BERWYN HEIGHTS, Md. - Mayor Cheye Calvo got home from work, saw a package addressed to his wife on the front porch and brought it inside, putting it on a table. Suddenly, police with guns drawn kicked in the door and stormed in, shooting to death the couple's two dogs and seizing the unopened package.

In it were 32 pounds of marijuana. But the drugs evidently didn't belong to the couple.

Police say the couple appeared to be innocent victims of a scheme by two men to smuggle millions of dollars worth of marijuana by having it delivered to about a half-dozen unsuspecting recipients.

<snip>

Calvo insisted the couple's two black Labradors were gentle creatures and said police apparently killed them "for sport," gunning down one of them as it was running away.

Much more at link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080807/ap_on_re_us/marijuana_packages

I swear to God, I am way more scared of cops in America than I am of possible terrorists!

[LisaM]

1. There are no words

What an awful story. I hope they have an animal abuse law in place.

[Truth4Justice]

34. What about a law for cops abusing people?

[LisaM]

56. Well of course.

I just meant that animal abuse laws (like hate crime laws) allow for easier prosecution in cases like this.

[az chela]

2. ThEse stupid ass murdering cops and their drug wars!!!!!!

What a sick country this has become.My heart aches for those people and their 2 precious dogs.They better prosecute those gun crazy bastards

[renie408]

3. They would have had a reason to arrest me after that. Sick fucks. n/t

[sasquatch]

4. That's why I try not to call the police

Hell most times they're worse than the criminals they're supposed to be stopping.

[Truth4Justice]

18. If the cps are worse then crimials, then they ARE criminals....

anyone shooting dogs like thst would be arrested by the police.
.

[lonestarnot]

5. Fucking A why do we have to keep tolerating such ignorance?

[Carolina]

6. Bush brand lawlessness

I am beginning to believe in the 2nd Amendment!!!

[Truth4Justice]

45. Point and click reset for the constitution.

[electropop]

50. Funny, I was just saying that (2nd amend.) to an RW co-worker the other day.

His reponse "Now you're getting scared eh?"

Damn straight I am.

[beam me up scottie]

7. Revolting.

I cannot imagine how awful it must be to see members of your family gunned down in front of you.

They did it for one reason, because they could.

[tblue37]

10. Exactly. The mayor said that one of the dogs was running away--and the

cop shot him for "sport." I don't doubt it. Cops in America are gun happy, Taser happy thugs.

[beam me up scottie]

16. This isn't the first, and it won't be the last.

They can always claim the dogs were "threatening" and they had to shoot them in self defense.

fuckers :mad:

[Truth4Justice]

37. I dont understand why people trust the police these days. They will say or do anything and walk.

[beam me up scottie]

41. Many don't.

They also kill people unnecessarily.

[Truth4Justice]

42. Yes, they kill with impunity, knowing that they wont be charged. They will lie about the reason....

and walk away scot-free.

[ekwhite]

65. I've already seen one troll on Huffpo claiming that

He said it was "standard practice" for police to shoot dogs so they couldn't come back and attack them. I guess it is "standard practice" to break down doors of innocent victims also. That doesn't make it right, by a long shot.

[bdamomma]

17. and no one is stopping their madness.

[beam me up scottie]

19. I'd sue their asses off.

I wouldn't stop until those cops were out of a job.

Monetary reparations will no doubt be offered, but how much is your dog's life worth?

[ekwhite]

66. I'm sure there will be a lawsuit involved

I hope the Prince George's county police gets their butts handed to them.

[Truth4Justice]

35. No one is stopping *'s madness either.

[Junkdrawer]

8. Baghdad rules coming home to roost...

"We're bringing the war back home."

[Truth4Justice]

36. If you think its bad now wait a few years..YIKES!!

[GreenPartyVoter]

9. *crying* Are there no standards for law enforcement officers anymore?

[Truth4Justice]

46. Nope. They make the laws on the spot, now.

[muntrv]

11. Blackwater again?

[sasquatch]

12. Jesus the Prince George County cops are really sick fucks

[underseasurveyor]

13. For pot fer christsakes

For... fucking... pot!

Somethings gotta change with many of these cops and the marijuana laws in America, and soon.

Outrageous:mad:

[Liberal In Texas]

14. Bastards.

Firing them should be the least of their punishment.

[Truth4Justice]

43. Fired is too for these thugs. A firing squad would be appropriate.

[TornadoTN]

15. So, all a cop has to say is "I felt threatened" and all is forgiven

There's an obvious disconnect here - the officers claim they had no idea whose home they were raiding- which is a big red flag to me. Being familiar with Police procedure and laws, I can vouch that since there was a vice squad and a SWAT team present, they would have already check the residency and determined whether the owners had a security system, owners had registered weapons, convicted felons, etc. All good police departments will check this first so that they lessen their risk and the publics risk. Since they were watching this package, they had time to do their due diligence. Their story is bullshit.

I'm just glad I'm no longer in the field, although I find it fascinating. Things have changed so much and not for the better.

[razors edge]

20. Pretty much.

Feds look at fatal shooting in Lima

Acquittal of officer does not close case

LIMA, Ohio - The U.S. Justice Department yesterday confirmed that the case of a Lima resident who was fatally shot in her home during a police raid seven months ago while she held her infant son in her arms is far from over.

Tarika Wilson, 26, who was black, and her 13-month-old son, Sincere Wilson, were shot in her bedroom in front of her five other children by Lima Police Sgt. Joseph Chavalia.

Sergeant Chavalia was acquitted Monday by an all-white jury of misdemeanor negligent homicide and negligent assault charges.

"In light of the acquittal of the Lima police officer on two misdemeanor charges relating to the January death of a 26-year-old Lima woman, the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Ohio, and the will conduct an independent review of the facts and circumstances surrounding this incident," Justice Department spokesman Jamie Hais said yesterday.

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080807/NEWS17/808070383


He will walk. All the cops testifying said he should have fired sooner. He heard his partners shooting two pit bulls and thought it was time to light up anything that moved with his fully auto M-16.

[Leopolds Ghost]

68. Cops kill black mother and infant, acquitted by all-white jury in Lima Ohio?

Isn't that the "Heartland" where 9 out of 10 people interviewed
"just couldn't bring themselves to vote for Obama?"

Let me guess, Obama will say nothing about this. He doesn't
want to be associated with people like this mother and child
in the popular mind in places like Lima.

[LisaL]

26. How would the cop feel threatened if the dog was running

away?

[Truth4Justice]

44. Pretty soon the cops will be shooting kids with cap guns, if this continues unabated. No guts cops!

[barbtries]

53. plus he was the mayor!

that's a fairly high profile position in most towns. SOMEONE should have known it.

[arikara]

54. Known it? You bet someone knew. Someone was in on it.

And you can bet dimes to dollars that it was a political opponent. Police raided the home of our previous premier over bogus charges although there wasn't gunplay. It turns out the police chief had something sweet happening with the current premier. It vaguely came out but nothing ever came of it. I sincerely hope that it isn't over with,I can't stomach the boozing neo-con lying crook we have in power here.

[Pushed To The Left]

21. I absolutely despise the drug war! I think it's insane that even marijuana legalization is still

considered controversial in America in 2008. Now an innocent man has been traumatized and the pets he loved killed. All in the name of fucking marijuana laws..not crack, not PCP, not ecstacy..marijuana! Yet another reason why the hardcore conservative movement...ESPECIALLY the social conservative "culture warrior" crowd..needs to be destroyed and taken completely out of power.

[tblue37]

24. Exactly! Marijuana has a number of medical uses, and as a recreational

drug it is far less harmful than alcohol or nicotine. But a lot of people make a lot of money because of our marijuana laws, which is why they are not being repealed. The main reason for the growth of the prison-industrial complex is the incarceration of low-level pot users.

[Fumesucker]

25. How many Democratic politicians are on record as being against the drug war?

The drug war is by no means entirely the fault of so called conservatives, Democrats too vote for the drug war almost unanimously.

This crap goes on every day in America, the only reason this story made the news is because the subject of the raid this time happened to be a person of consequence. If it was Joe Dirt or Jane Q Public no one would notice and no one would care.

[Liberal_in_LA]

22. sick.

[book_worm]

23. What is wrong with these cops? The Mayor should sue

[LisaL]

27. He asked for a federal investigations.

By all means he should sue, but that is not going to bring these poor dogs back.

[Truth4Justice]

33. One pack of dogs killing a few strays, thats all.

[csziggy]

28. I wonder if the police are pissed that he opposed the Real ID Act?

He was a speaker at the National ID at the Crossroads: The Future of Privacy in America conference. Here is the blurb about him from their site:

Cheye Calvo
National Conference of State Legislatures

Cheye (pronounced "shi") Calvo directs the National Conference of State Legislatures' (NCSL) transportation and financial services committees and represents state legislatures in our federal system of government on banking, insurance, securities and transportation issues. Cheye played a leading role in efforts to create state-friendly federal driver's license standards as part of the intelligence reform in December 2004 and more recently in opposing the driver's license provisions of the REAL ID Act. Cheye has spoken, testified and written extensively on a wide range of public policy matters, and has co-authored and co-edited studies on human genetics policy, genetic privacy, and auto insurance ratemaking. He also serves as the part-time, elected mayor of the Town of Berwyn Heights, Maryland.
http://epic.org/events/id/speakers/#calvo

Yeah, he really looks like a drug smuggler:

[LisaL]

29. They claim they didn't even know they were raiding the house

of a mayor.

[csziggy]

32. Yeah, though they had been tracking the package for days apparently

No one ever looked up the damned address? Yeah, right, sure.

This whole story stinks to high heaven.

[LisaL]

48. They never contacted the local police chief who would have

told them the guy was a mayor. To me, it sounds like they did not do the most basic investigation of who lived in that house. They knew about the dogs, though. They saw the mayor walking his dogs just before the police broke into his house. One dog was, according to the mayor, scared and running away. The other was shot, according to the mayor, immediately upon entry by police into the house. Mayor says neither of the dogs engaged the police. What about charging whoever shot the dogs with animal cruelty?

[Truth4Justice]

62. Cops are immune to most laws that the people have to obey, including shooting dogs.

[Blue_Tires]

60. could be

having once lived there (and worked closely with the county government and schools), i keep saying in these threads that the county government is corrupt, inept, petty and vindictive...and the whip gets cracked on anyone who might interrupt 'business as usual'...

i bet anyone dollars to yen that this bust was a purely political move...it may or may not be because of the REAL ID act, but this was to send a message...

[Booster]

30. What kind of fucking cops wouldn't know who the mayor was?

This story smells to high heaven and I hope they sue the shit out of the cops.

[LynnTheDem]

31. USA1! USA!! USA!1

WTF.

[DFW]

38. This is how they create terrorists--by terrorizing people

And then they tell us how much we need them to protect us from terrorists......

[TheKentuckian]

40. Hey, you knew it was a boondoogle brewing

as soon as the private prisons starting going up. I mean anyone with the least vision would have seen before that but how crystal clear need a situation be?

Crime of the don't tread on me variety goes down but so many people are incarcerated that big business has to get a piece. I think here in Kentucky we have equal or more private prisons as we do state facilities. As far as I can see it, we have plenty of laws for creating actual harm to someone else. If you're not bothering anyone else then our resources are too limited to wasted on playing the stern father.

I don't care if the guy that robs my house was cracked out of his mind or not, my concern is he stole my shit and invaded the sanctity of my home. I don't particularly care about what was going on with your chemistry if you run me over. Texting, thinking about an argument, being excited, drunk, stupid, stoned, yelling at your kid. It's all the same to me when I get plowed into or randomly cracked in the jaw.

All of this nonsense to create an economy for a hick town is ridiculous to the extreme. Inventing crimes to build and maintain prisons and courthouses is not an investment in the economy, it is plain stupid. It would be better and less costly to just give the 500 people 30k and be done with it. If it's important they earn it, give them some envelopes to send out or something.

The national and almost every state budget is out of control and we can still flush money down the toilet over nothing. The resources put into this utterly foolish War on Drugs is staggering.
Not to mention the evil involved with destroying lives, the impact on the children, and creating rightfully angry real criminals to prey on the rest of society.

[tblue37]

39. One thing I might mention: I am sure that there are more decent

cops than bad ones. But just as people say that the moderate Muslims who don't believe that Mulims should blow up innocent people have a responsibility to make their disapproval known, and the moderate Christians who don't approve of the excesses of America's Christian Taliban should make their disapproval known, similarly, decent cops who don't want the good name of the police sullied and dragged through the mud need to step up and loudly deplore thuggish and unconstitutional police tactics. Instead, though, we get the constant covering up or justifying of criminal police behavior by other cops, even those cops who would never themselves cross over that line. They have an "us versus them" mentality, and the enemy captured in the "them" concept is us.

Even here on DU, how often to we see otherwise liberal LEOs arguing that some brutal police action was justfied, even "necessary," no matter how outrageous it is. I have a lot of articles saved from the past three years or so about brutal police tactics, almost all from here on DU. Soem of them are so outrageous that there is no way to imagine a situation that would justify the police behavior. And in every single case, the threads that called the incidents to our attention were filled with comments from cops and former cops defending the police actions.

Bad cops need to be exposed and forced out, but instead they are protected and excused by their "brothers in arms," no matter how bad they are. As a result, even the good cops are tainted by the behavior of the bad ones.

It's like what happened with the Catholic Church. Because the Church insisted on covering up the bad behavior of priests, all priests and the entire Church itself are now sullied with the taint of sexual abuse of children. Every priest ends up under cloud of suspicion, no matter how good and kind and honest he is.

As I said in my OP, I am way more scared of cops in America than of possible terrorists, because we Americans are far more likely to be attacked by cops than by terrorists. This has always been true for African Americans, of course, and now it is true for everyone.

Many of the articles I have collected involve butality against very old, often handicapped, women, children, elderly men, and sick or handicapped men. Race is sometimes a factor, but often it is not. Sometimes now even people with money and conenctions are brutalized.

In a way, maybe this is a positive development, because now that we are all subject to the same sort of police brutality, regardless of race, age, physical condition, etc., maybe more Americans will begin to see such tactics for what they are.

[Truth4Justice]

47. It takes a raid n a mayors house and two dead dogs to put a spotlight on the police?

[RedLetterRev]

49. Kick again, cuz I'm mad as hell

and more determined every day not to be terrorized by my own fellow citizens, uniformed or not.

I don't give a big fat gddamn what badge or uniform they're wearing, they live under the same constitution as I do, and they will respect it.

OP, don't you be scared, not one bit. Do whatever it is to keep your nerve and your wits about you. Know your Constitution, know your rights and know your laws and be prepared to defend them at any moment.

Being afraid is what they want. I'll be damned if I'll give them the satisfaction. I am a law-abiding citizen who will do whatever it takes to remain a free man on my feet. I will not live on my knees.

Hold your head up.

[blueraven95]

51. since I am a MD resident

I am writing a letter to Governor O'Malley right now. Are there any ideas of who else specifically I should contact?

[barbtries]

52. that is shocking.

trigger happy cops - yeah, i agree. it's a lot more likely that we'll run into some trigger happy cops over here.

[devilgrrl]

55. All that over MARIJUANA!!!!!

It's so dangerous!

:sarcasm:

[crimsonblue]

57. why not just take the drugs on the porch?

is it really necessary to wait for him to take the package inside and then storm the house?

[LisaL]

58. The police are the ones who delivered the drugs to his porch.

They specifically waited for somebody in the house to pick those drugs up, so I guess they could charge them with the possession of the drugs.

[crimsonblue]

59. seriously?

That's entrapment.

[LisaL]

61. The drugs were send to his wife.

The police delivered them to his house and it was left outside. He came in and picked the package addressed to his wife and brought it into his home. Apparently his wife was a victim of identity fraud and had no clue drugs were sent to her.

[kwassa]

63. This is about the well-known incompetence of the Prince George's County Police

there have been an unending series of scandals with this force.

The biggest one, most recently, was a suspect in the murder of a policeman was murdered himself in a solitary holding cell. The only people with access were law enforcement.

Another cop killed a delivery man who came to his door.

Another got into an unauthorized high-speed chase on a busy freeway and caused a massive accident that killed several people unrelated to the chase.

[Danger Mouse]

64. What scumbags.

:puke:

[BreweryYardRat]

67. Gross corruption.

This almost has to be a politically-motivated attack. The mayor didn't even have a chance to so much as OPEN the goddamn package, going by the article. There's no way he could have known it was pot, much less done anything about it before these bought-and-paid corrupt cops hit him.

If these slimy bastards walk, the honest citizens of Prince George County really ought to take matters into their own hands.