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| -Lurid Crime Tales- |
| Prince George's raid prompts call for probe |
| 2008-08-08 |
| Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo and his wife Trinity Tomsic talk during a news conference outside their Prince George's County home, which was raided last week. When the shooting stopped, two dogs lay dead. A mayor sat in his boxers, hands bound behind his back. His handcuffed mother-in-law was sprawled on the kitchen floor, lying beside the body of one of the family pets that police had killed before her eyes. These types of raids are becomming more common and sometimes end in tragedy. It's outrageous. After the raid, Prince George's County police officials who burst into the home of Berwyn Heights' mayor last week seized the same unopened package of marijuana that an undercover officer had delivered an hour earlier. What police left behind was a house stained with blood and a trail of questions about their conduct. No other evidence of illegal activity was found, and no one was arrested at Mayor Cheye Calvo's home in this small bedroom community near College Park. Just out giving the SWAT Team a bit of a workout. This week Prince George's police arrested two men for orchestrating a plot to deliver marijuana to the addresses of unsuspecting recipients -- among them, Calvo's wife, Trinity Tomsic. Yet neither county Police Chief Melvin C. High nor Sheriff Michael A. Jackson have apologized to him, his wife or her mother, Georgia Porter, for the raid that traumatized the family and killed their black Labrador retrievers, Payton and Chase. Thursday, Calvo called on the U.S. Justice Department's civil rights division to investigate the raid and other similar actions by Prince George's law enforcement. He said officers burst into his house without knocking or announcing themselves, in violation of the warrant they had. "Trinity was an innocent and random victim of identity theft. Apparently, so were four or five other county residents whose names and addresses were stolen and used as addresses on drug packages," Calvo said at a news conference outside his house, near a garden of tomatoes and strawberries. "However, Trinity and our family have not been treated as victims of a crime. Instead, our home was invaded. Our two beloved Labrador retrievers are dead. My mother-in-law and I were tied up for nearly two hours," he said. "We were harmed by the very people who took an oath to protect us." Berwyn Heights police Chief Patrick A. Murphy appeared with the mayor Thursday and said his agency was never informed of the investigation, despite an existing memorandum of understanding to work together on such operations. He said not knowing about the raid could have led his officers to fire upon the sheriff's SWAT team because its members were wearing street clothes, masks and carrying weapons as they approached the mayor's house. An excellant way to get shot, by the way. If I saw a man in street clothes, a mask, and carrying a weapon I'd shoot first and ask questions later. "What about the safety of my officers?" Murphy said. If consulted, he added, "We could have gotten the mayor to put the dogs away and consent to a search." Police officials in Arizona first intercepted the package when a drug-sniffing dog alerted them to the presence of marijuana. It was addressed to Tomsic. An undercover officer in Prince George's delivered the package near 6 p.m. and was told by Calvo's mother-in-law to leave it on the porch, according to Calvo's attorney, Timothy Maloney. Prince George's County police arrested two men involved in a scheme to transport marijuana. Once packages were dropped off by a deliveryman, a suspect would pick them up -- with the addressee oblivious to the plot. Police seized a half-dozen packages that contained about 417 pounds of marijuana, including the 32 pounds delivered to Tomsic, the Associated Press reported. Last Tuesday, the mayor arrived home from his full-time job as an executive with SEED Foundation, which establishes urban public charter schools. He took the unopened package inside and placed it on a table near the door. He changed clothes and walked the dogs, waving to the men and women sitting in cars near his home. He did not know they were police. He returned and went upstairs to get dressed for an event. As he changed clothes, SWAT team members darted across the fenced-in lot. Porter, 50, was cooking artichokes in the kitchen and screamed when she saw the approaching masked men with guns. It could have been mistaken for a kidnapping plot. somebody f**ed up real good and needs to be prosecuted. The door was kicked in and gunshots rang out, Calvo said. Police killed one dog, Payton -- named for football running back Walter Payton -- even though Porter was standing next to him. Police have said the dogs "engaged" officers. Calvo confirmed that Payton probably moved toward the door but would have ultimately done nothing more than lick them. "He was an aggressive licker," said Calvo. Cheryl Compton, a neighbor, said her two sons, 5-year-old Cody and 7-year-old Ty, played with the mayor's dogs all the time, and that everyone but the Prince George's County police knew where Calvo lived. "I would have let them stay in a yard by themselves with those dogs," Compton said. "It really upsets me to think that I don't feel safe in my home. If they were to shoot our dog, Amber, I would be outraged." The continuing story of the Drug War and the officers who protect you (maybe) from the evil ravages of weed. |
| Posted by:Deacon Blues |
| #11 I'm not so sure I would charge the entire SWAT team but I would charge the ones who authorized the usage. This was not a situation where the SWAT team should have been involved at all. It was pot, fer gawdsakes! No "gunmen", no threat of violence, just somebody wanting to flex his muscles. OS, I would react the same way. Somebody breaks into my home they will be shot at. I'm a pretty good shot, too. |
| Posted by: Deacon Blues 2008-08-08 21:06 |
| #10 This isnt the first time these assholes have raided innocents and killed the dogs: Prince George's sheriff's deputies executed a warrant on the home of Frank and Pamela Myers of Accokeek in November. The Myers told sheriffs that they had the wrong address as their dog began barking from the yard. The couple asked if they could retrieve their dog, but deputies refused. Minutes later, two shots were fired and the dog was killed, according to a notice of a tort claims filed by attorney Michael J. Winkelman. The Myers were never charged and nothing was seized from their house. "This has happened before, and without oversight, it will happen again," Calvo said Charge the SWAT tema NOW. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2008-08-08 19:44 |
| #9 Jsut to let you know, the "dubletap" was not a threat - its simply the way I train. If you intend to be in a life and death situation and fight, then you must practive to efficiently kill your opponent. 2 to the chest and one ot the head if still standing is how I train, to the point of being instinct. Present, Front Sight, flash sight picture, trigger pull recover and pull, sight to head and pull. I've done it thousands of times from variosu positions, with dummy rounds in at random to simulate feed failures, etc. And I dont use non-lethal ammunition either. High power load .40 S&W Hyrdashok rounds, one magazine of 10 in the Glock, and 2 in the drawer beside it. No threat, just facts. And one of these times, the police will run into someone like that, and there will be plenty of dead people, all due to abuse of miitary tactics by police forces. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2008-08-08 19:38 |
| #8 This is happening many times everyday. Often with people shot and killed and no one held accountable. We are screwed as there is nothing anyone is going to do about it. The War on Drugs was the beginning of the war on your civil right. The War on Terror is just going to increase the instances as everyone is now a potential "domestic terrorist". The terrorists have won and we did it to ourselves. It's just going to get worse and worse under the Democrats but the Democrats didn't start it. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom 2008-08-08 19:36 |
| #7 ANd stuff liek this scares the hell out of me - someone comeing into my house like that without proper identification is going to be doubletapped. Its instinct. I will likely be killed in the exchange, but I will certainly kill or wound several of them in the process, as I would beleive them to be criminals entering my home and threatening the life of me and mine. The "no-knock" raid and use of SWAT teams should be viewed as a civil rights violation, due to its extreme consequences, and high potential for misuse. It shoudl not be routine, nor shoudl it be allowed as anything other than an affirmative defense - charges shoudl be routinely filed against the commanders and officers EVERY TIME one of these raids takes place. Make the PROVE it was needed and justified, or lese end thier careers. If the police and commanders had to face consequences every time they do one of these, they would save them for when they are truly and overwhelmingly the only tool they havve available. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2008-08-08 19:26 |
| #6 The police officers commanding and leading those who did this (including the leaders onsite) should be prosecuted for breaking and entering, illicit use of a firearm, kidnapping, and animal cruelty. Their warrant did NOT authorize them to enter the hosue illegally. The SWAT unit shoudl be disbanded with a permanent reprimand placed in every officers record as a bar to promotion. The police MUST be held accountable for the misuse of military tactics, and violating fundamental constitutional rights of people. This was truly a CRIMINAL act. Publish the officer's faces and names. They must be held accountable to the public that employs and pays them - the very public they endangered. They should be dismissed form the force and barred from ever serving as officers again. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2008-08-08 19:22 |
| #5 Sounds like some of the crap Janet Reno pulled under the Clinton regime. |
| Posted by: Bill Shusorong1219 2008-08-08 18:57 |
| #4 The reason the police and the government want to disarm you is to avoid any possibility of resistance to tyranny. If you can't see the writing on the wall now you need glasses. |
| Posted by: Gleretle Big Foot9918 2008-08-08 11:58 |
| #3 They need a Fusion Center to coordinate all law enforcement activity from the city, county, state, and federal levels. Des Moines has had one since 1985 but greatly expanded it since 9-11. |
| Posted by: Danielle 2008-08-08 11:42 |
| #2 They want to use SWAT for everything now days. Police forces everywhere are turning into paramilitary units. There's a place for them, but not in upper middle class suburbs. The guy's obviously a "sweater and loafers" pussweed, you probably don't need a machine gun to take him down. And I don't think I've ever seen a Lab that is vicious. They shot those dogs because they wanted to, not because they were attacking them. And by the way, isn't that what a dog is supposed to do when a bunch of guys kick in your door and attack your family??? I'd not quite until I had the balls of every one of those idiots in my lawyers briefcase. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2008-08-08 11:17 |
| #1 No, it's power without accountability. With criminals upgunning their own, the police have to match fire power. However, that firepower has to be under strict control. As demonstrated here and elsewhere, there is a serious lack of adult supervision in these operations. The amateur mayors and city councils and county commissioners have allowed their constabulary force to evolve para-military units without hard ROEs for their employment and accountability for their misuse. The pols who fund the budgets can cut the monetary backing of these operations if they choose to. They don't. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2008-08-08 10:20 |