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 ...
“Police say Cheye Calvo and his wife appeared to be victims of a plan by two men to smuggle millions of dollars worth of marijuana by having it delivered to about a half-dozen unsuspecting recipients.”
My friend, can you now agree that the police should have investigated this before sending in the SWAT?
my position does not change, even with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. there was a need for action, but the tactics used were heavyhanded. i read the police bosses reasoning for using such tactics:
he maintained that when he heard the MIL scream in the house, he thought she was warning others in the house, possibly to arm themselves or begin getting rid of evidence.
that is a valid concern for the police. again, i won't 2nd guess a judgment call made in a split second under duress.
but yes, looking back a week later, they turned out to be wrong.
people keep coming back to this whole "investigated" thing. what does that mean? what could they have found out? these were county cops and not local guys. i do believe they should have involved the local cops. it's courtesy and just plain smart.
Well I’ll agree definately including the locals would have been smart. They would have quickly found out that this was the mayor and then I’m sure had no problem arranging entry into the house.
If nothing else, what kind of profile do these people fit? You can look at them and see that these aren’t dangerous people. There was a serious lack of judgement all around.
I disagree with you in that there is never a reason to put someone’s life at risk to protect evidence of a non-violent crime. If this could happen to the clean cut mayor with his wife and mother in law it could happen to any of us, and I find that very disturbing.
In thinking about this, had the police not immediately acted what is the worst thing that could possibly have happened? I don’t think you will be able to come up with anything worse than what actually did happen, and there was a dangerous potential for even greater tragedy.
Imagine if the man thought that the home invaders were common criminals and decided to defend himself? If I hear someone breaking into my home that would be my first reaction.
As a free citizen I would like to not have to worry about defending myself if someone is breaking down my door. What would be your first reaction if someone breaks down your door?
well i live in a small apartment in manhattan. if anyone broke in they’d be on my lap. i live alone so i keep my firearm on my nightstand. if anyone hits my door, they are assumed to be criminal. god help them.
I feel the same way, and that’s my point. What if it’s the SWAT team with a wrong address or someone decides to use your address for a drug drop point? These “no knock” tactics are a bad idea unless life is at risk to begin with. They put life at risk where it wasn’t before.
These mistakes happen more frequently then you may realize. There was a guy in Texas, I think who was a victim of a wrong address raid. He shot at the intruders and ended up killing a cop.
When he realized they were police he immediately put the gun down and surrenedered. None the less he was charged and convicted of, I think, manslaughter and is in prison (he killed the police chief’s son).
If it’s a drug dealer that has been identified, why not just wait untill he steps out and then arrest him and then the house can be entered without the danger and drama.
as i said last week, a suburban home might call for different tactics. and yes, some guys just like to use their toys. but a very small amount of these raids go bad. that is why we read about them.
“If you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear”
> jackbooted thug apologists
If someone else - let’s say the neighbors - had done to these people what the authorities did, you wouldn’t waste a second trying to justify it. So what gives the police the right to do it? How exactly do citizens of the United States suddenly lose the right not to be treated like this?
It used to be one had to be a very serious bad guy to get handled the way some officers are treating traffic offenders - or, in this case, the perfectly innocent.
“But we didn’t know they were innocent.”
Yes we did; innocence is the presumption in this country. Remember?
Someone who can’t do his job without trampling on the rights of citizens ought to look for another job.
That may be the claim. I don't buy it for a moment.
If officers try to prevent the occupant of a house from determining that they are police officers, they alone are responsible if the occupant shoots at them. For them to shoot back is not self defense, but attempted (or successful) murder.
In other words, particularly given that it is well known that police often lack reasonable basis for their warrants, the teams routinely raid houses without a reasonably-held belief in the legitimacy of their actions.
You would receive it because someone sent it. As to why they would sent it, I have no idea. Absent evidence that the you actually solicited the package, there would be no crime (unless some uniformed robbers raided your house, but they--not you--would be the criminals).
What could they reasonably and legitimately have hoped to accomplish by giving him the package and waiting until he was inside the house to conduct the raid? If they had a search warrant, wouldn't it have made more sense to hand him the package and then, as soon as his hands were occupied with it, identified themselves as police shown him the warrant? The only reason I can think of that such an approach wouldn't have been preferable would have been if they didn't actually have a warrant to show him.
Why do you call it a failed policy? The sentence would read more accurately without the word "failed".
Is this justifiable on the occupant’s part?
Not only that, but anyone involved in the raid who cannot document a reasonably-held belief in its legitimacy is a murderer.
“...it would reveal nothing about her job or her husband.”
Or whether either of them might be a Class III permit holder? One day that’ll bite some SWAT team in the ass in a big, messy way.
If a person's on-duty performance is acceptable, why does it matter what the person does off-duty? Likewise if the person's on-duty performance is not acceptable. Why should the employer care about factors other than the actual quality of the person's performance?
Why do you call it a failed policy? The sentence would read more accurately without the word "failed".
Harping against an accuracy without insight or measure is simply a keyboard workout.
You described the drug war as a "failed" policy utilizing fabricated fear to justify state terror. I would suggest that the policy is relatively effective at using fabricated fear to convince people to accept state terror. As such, would omit the term 'failed'. To be sure, the policies don't work toward the stated objectives (e.g. stopping drug use), but they're not supposed to. That's not their purpose.
I figured you had a convoluted explanation that twisted the logic of the statement and sure enough..... :-)
Everything always depends on what window you are looking through, good is bad, bad is good, etc, etc.
Thanks for your insight.
What twisted logic? Strike the word 'failed' and the statement would read: "No law enforcement here to speak of, just a continuation of the perpetual employment bonanza of a policy utilizing fabricated fear to justify state terror."
Perhaps you intended the participle phrase "utilizing..." to refer to the continuation, rather than the policy (in which case a comma after "policy" would have helped), but I think the clear and natural reading of the sentence as it appears above is fair and accurate.
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