Legalize it! Town mayor's dogs shot by SWAT team in erroneous drug bust

[Tenigma]

OK this story (http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/08/07/mayor.warrant/index.html?eref=rss_topstories#cnnSTCText) has me SOOOOO angry!!!!!!!!!!!!

A Maryland mayor is asking the federal government to investigate why SWAT team members burst into his home without knocking and shot his two dogs to death in an investigation into a drug smuggling scheme.

"This has been a difficult week and a half for us," Cheye Calvo, mayor of Berwyn Heights, Maryland, said Thursday. "We lost our family dogs. We did it at the hands of sheriff's deputies who burst through our front door, rifles blazing."

The raid last week was led by the Prince George's County Police Department, with the sheriff's special operations team assisting, after a package of marijuana was sent to Calvo's home.

Authorities say the package was part of a scheme in which drugs are mailed to unknowing recipients and then intercepted.

Calvo said he had just returned home from walking his two Labrador retrievers, Chase and Payton, when his mother-in-law told him a package had arrived for his wife, Trinity Tomsic.

Moments later, Calvo was in his room changing for a meeting when he heard commotion downstairs.

"The door flew open," he said. "I heard gunfire shoot off. There was a brief pause and more gunfire."

If I were the mayor I think I'd be looking at a beeeeeg lawsuit.

[Gemini Cricket]

Ugh. That is so freakin' sad.
:(

[The Original OC Adventure]

Get a rope!

[innerSpaceman]

Great, now i'm crying and more upset than i already was as a potential fish murderer.


Fucity Fucfucfuc!!!

[BDBopper]

Alas there are way too many of these stories. It's time to legalize drugs, get the addicts into treatment programs, and end the uneeded murders and all the increased Federaldebt the War on Drugs is responsible for

[Alex]

If nothing else it is time for a significant curtailment of no knock warrants. Along with horrible stories like this are where innocent people defending their home against unidentified intruders and then are arrested for shooting a policeman.

[Tenigma]

If nothing else it is time for a significant curtailment of no knock warrants. Along with horrible stories like this are where innocent people defending their home against unidentified intruders and then are arrested for shooting a policeman.

I couldn't have said it better myself. No-knock warrants are for the dogs. It's not like they knew there were violent criminals in the home in a hostage situation or something.

I've been reading other articles about this story (you go, Mr. Mayor! Keep this in the press!), and in one of them, when someonementioned that the dogs were shot because they were posing a threat to the cops, the mayor's retort was supposedly, "If you'd knocked I would've put the dogs away."

The mayor didn't see the shootings but can you imagine what it must have been like? A bunch of strangers with their guns drawn, the dogs were probably defending their home from these home invaders! They died trying to defend their home.

The more I think of this incident the angrier I get.

I really hope the mayor sues them, and I really hope he has the energy to move a the no-knock warrant mountain.

[Technically though, the warrant said nothing about it being a no-knock warrant. Apparently it has to say that on the search warrant in order for them to burst in like that.]

LAWSUIT!!!!!

[katiesue]

Ok maybe I'm just slightly dim, but I'm confused. The package was a part of a bigger scheme to send drugs to unsuspecting people and then intercept them before the person actually got them right? So why was there a warrant for the house in the first place if they knew the recipient wasn't a part of the plan? And they had an undercover person deliver the package - so why not just arrest whoever signed for it upon delivery? I don't get why they needed to invade the home at all?

[Bornieo: Fully Loaded]

The way I see it, the Mayor was getting drugs and it wasn't like SWAT was driving down the street and randomly picking a house. Whether or not it was part of some scheme or not, that will be figured out later. Just because he's Mayor doesn't mean he's free from being investigated etc etc. Look at the DC mayor from years past. The dogs, well, if you're the officer, you protect yourself. Its sad but if it were me, I'd rather not take the chance of some animal attacking me.

The point, odviously, was getting the drugs off the streets and at the same time protecting themselves. They're human and though it sucks, that's what happens when you're inforcing the law. It's not gonna please everyone.

[Morrigoon]

Suing won't bring the dogs back...

[Ghoulish Delight]

Suing won't bring the dogs back...
No, but it might wake a few people up to what they're doing wrong and prevent future fvckups.

[Bornieo: Fully Loaded]

No, but it might wake a few people up to what they're doing wrong and prevent future fvckups.

If that were true, everyone would be sueing each other 24/7, which we are already close to doing anyway in our society. Someone put Disney City Hall in charge, damit!! :cheers:

[Alex]

Ignoring the general abuse and overuse of no knock warrants, it turns out the police didn't actually have one. So they had no right, legally, to create the situation that put them in danger and forced them to shoot the dogs.

And the fact that it was a scheme has already been determined. They've arrested the FedEx driver involved.

The purpose of a no-knock warrant is to either protect evidence against being destroyed (which seems unlikely with 32 pounds of marijuana) or to protect the police against an expectation of violence should they announce themselves (and if merely possessing pot creates that risk then we'll really have to just disagree).

It seems awfully circular to then claim that the protection against violence was the tool that created the violence that they had to protect themselves against.

[Alex]

No, but it might wake a few people up to what they're doing wrong and prevent future fvckups.

And perhaps bring enough public pressure to bear on political forces to reform the abuse of no-knock warrants.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Just because there are people who abuse lawsuits doesn't mean there aren't cases where it's warranted (so to speak). The police f'ckd up big time. I don't fault an officer for pulling the trigger with dogs charging them. I do fault whomever made the decision to illegally break into someone's home.

[Morrigoon]

No, but it might wake a few people up to what they're doing wrong and prevent future fvckups.
I didn't mean they shouldn't... just that the loss of a member of your family is huge, and not something that a few grand in a lawsuit is going to rectify. Even a few million, while more on par with the loss, is not ever going to make up for the fact that two innocent dogs, who did exactly what they ought to do, lost their lives.

Sorry, I can't get over the loss of an innocent dog. That bugs me more than a human getting shot - a human at least has a chance to make a judgement call on how to behave in the presence of a police officer. The dogs don't stand a chance. This kind of thing makes me cry inside.

[Tenigma]

By the way I read some more articles, and the mayor is now saying that the cops shot the second dog as it was RUNNING AWAY. Grrrr.

[alphabassettgrrl]

No reason to shoot the dog if it's running AWAY.

Fire the guy who decided to bust in on a regular warrant. There was no justification for no-knock from what I've read. The recipient of the package is by definition an innocent party. If I get something I didn't order, and a cop tells me it's part of a drug scheme, I'll give you the rotten thing. No need to bust in my door.

[Gemini Cricket]

No-knock warrants are for the dogs.
That made me cringe a little bit.
;)