Posted on 07/31/2008 11:19:39 AM PDT by Mr. Mojo
A police SWAT team raided the home of the mayor in the Prince George's County town of Berwyn Heights on Tuesday, shooting and killing his two dogs, after he brought in a 32-pound package of marijuana that had been delivered to his doorstep, police said.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
My point exactly. For the cost of a couple of thousand dollars, I can make anyone guilty of a felony simply by mailing them something. Do you seriously believe that this guy, a government policy wonk of the highest order, and apparently a Republican, was a major pot dealer? Or was it a set up?
Yes. I would want them to put the house under surveillance and wait for the suspect to walk outside, where uniformed officers would either arrest him or politely serve him a search warrant instead of sending in shock troops with submachine guns to wantonly kill dogs.
Wow, 32 poiunds of weed off the street!
Way to get 0.0000000001% of the supply! You guys truly do the Lord’s work, if the Lord wanted people to be arrested for possessing a plant the Lord made.
in this instance, the address was correct and the cops knew exactly what they were looking for and found it. and no one was hurt.
btw, personal insults make you look silly and small.
Exactly right! I don’t think it’s possible to MAKE A BLACK LAB BITE SOMEONE. What has happended to our country?? We are tuning into a police state!
By the way, shoot my dog, I guarantee I’ll be shooting back before he falls dead. And I should large caliber, high capacity guns.
I’m undecided about all of this. It has happened in PG County before that drug dealers send packages to people they know won’t be home and then pick up the package when UPS leaves it at the door. Or his wife has been watching too many episodes of “Weed”.
“so if i know the house contains 32 pounds of weed, the entire dwelling is in play for more drugs and a search is lawful.”
I’m not in disagreement about executing a search warrant. I’m just saying that a dangerous, paramilitary raid is not justified or warranted.
ALL HAIL THE WAR ON (some) DRUGS!!!
as for arrests, they could be forthcoming. these people do not seem to be flight risks.
How quickly do you think they would've been able to dispose of 32 lbs. of pot?
i do not think the cops knew it was the mayors house and as soon as they figured it out, politics came into play and they backtracked perhaps. if this was just some family, they would have all been in cuffs, IMHO.
No, really? LOL!
criminality was afoot in this house, the cops chose to handle it a certain way, and no one was hurt.
Now who's Monday-Morning QB-ing?
How do you (or the cops involved in the raid) know there was criminality? They didn't investigate the intel they got from the snitch? They took it as face value. You said so yourself. You wrote it happens all the time.
You do not yet know that they weren't set up, yet have no problems pronouncing them as criminals. Or, were they merely criminals who hadn't been caught yet?
I have a saying and I've yet to see it proved wrong. There's two types of cops in this world. Those who've been caught in their lies and those who have yet to be caught.
Sound familiar, Mr. JBT?
if your neighbor was receiving packages like this, would you want the cops to do something about it?
No, I would not. My neighbor's business is not my business. But, then I'm not one the animals that thinks I'm a little more equal than the other animals in the barnyard.
If they do it at the expense of the Constitution I can and will fault them. The tough thing about being a cop used to be that their own safety was secondary to the Constitution and the rule of law. Not any more. They're scared and they advertise it and seem to regard their own personal safety as the most important thing. And the slide deepens.
Someone may have sent it as a setup as the couple is political. It also says the package was unopened. Have they checked to see if it really contains weed? Not yet I guess.
arizona is near a certain foreign country... hmmm...
the names of the involved people resemble names from that certain country.
and a part-time mayor of a small municipality is not someone i would call a high order politician. but hey, if they were set-up i'll be the first to apologize to them. but the cops can only go on the info they have at the time.
and it turns out that the cops were not set off by some anonymous tipster. they were alerted by a drug dog. so the 3rd party set-up argument kinda goes out the window.
Guns are the reason they act like commandos when they enter.
He may be small potatoes but his wife is a finance officer for the state and the package was addressed to her. It really will be interesting to see how this turns out.
Hey, the dog may have been running to flush evidence down the toilet, or grab a weapon from the other room. You can't be to careful.
Buncha idiots. I really despise this paramilitary sh*t.
It didn’t sound like the local police were very happy either. They weren’t notified or involved.
Ok, you’re a cop, tell me why this situation warranted a swat team? The didn’t even know he was the mayor. Why, because they didn’t check, they didn’t check who owned the house, they didn’t check his prior criminal record, which is BLANK. How about the guy in Maryland they’ve charged with Murder for killing a cop breaking thru his front door at midnight. Seems a neighbor saw Japanese maples and thought they were pot plants. Again, a check would reveal no priors, surveillance would have revealed no usual visitors. But NO, a swat team hits the door at midnight… In that case a cop was killed for NO REASON. In this case two dogs were killed for NO REASON. Now I have an X father n law who is on a swat team, so I understand there is a need for them. But the excuse that EVERY raid has the potential of going wrong is no excuse for the military style raids that are occurring all over the country. I can tell you, when I hear something, I get up ARMED. My door bursts open and I’m shooting everything I’ve got. Why not, when the check shows no priors and surveillance shows nothing unusual, knock on the door and say, Police, I have a warrant. If you are worried about me flushing the toilet. Approach me as I walk out to my car in the moring with a UNIFORMED OFFICER. You’ll get nothing but “Yes Sir and NO Sir” responses from me. Kick my door down at midnight, and if I’ve been alerted by something, it’s a gun fight.
I just can’t comprehend what’s happening to our country….
sorry brother, you just lost me. read the story. there was no snitch. it was a drug dog in arizona who smelled the package. so the whole 3rd party set-up thing is pretty much a non-issue.
i was referring to other no-knocks that rely on info from less than church-going individuals.
but this looks like a decent hit.
and i was not monday morning QB'ing. i was just stating the facts, not interpreting them and 2nd guessing them.
if your neighbors were dealing drugs, you don't think that is any of your business? HA! that's funny. i'd love to introduce you to some of the people who would be stopping by to purchase their drugs, and casing your house as they did it. you're a riot.
and i speak german. your accent is way off.
The current fad of the BG's then was to send a shipment to a complete strangers address and then track the shipment from home. The person whose address was used would never know. The BG would pretend to be the home owner or wait outside expecting UPS to just leave it on the door step.
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