Libertarian ping! To be added or removed freepmail me or post a message here.
Posted on 08/13/2008 3:09:59 PM PDT by LibWhacker
WASHINGTON (Map, News) - The violent assault on Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo’s home late last month was certainly not the first bungled raid by a government SWAT team, but the bad publicity it generated should make it the last time these trigger-happy squads target innocent civilians.
Tracking a 32-pound package of marijuana that had been addressed to Calvo’s wife, Trinity Tomsic, Prince George’s sheriff’s deputies forcibly entered the mayor’s home on July 29 and killed his two dogs before handcuffing him and his mother-in-law.
But like so many other SWAT team raids across the country, this one turned out to be a big mistake. After reviewing the case, State’s Attorney Glenn Ivey acknowledged that the Calvos were victims of a multistate drug ring that used innocent people’s names and addresses to hide shipments of contraband drugs. But the mayor and his family were also victims of a home invasion by the SWAT team, based entirely on what turned out to be a false premise.
In a groundbreaking study in 2006, former Cato policy analyst Radley Balko documented a disturbing pattern of cases across the country in which innocent citizens were killed by armed-to-the-teeth SWAT teams who either acted on the basis of wrong information from an informant or stormed the wrong house by mistake. “One thing I’ve noticed while picking through the depressingly long list of botched drug raids: The cops always shoot the dog,” Balko noted. Sure enough in the local case, Mayor Calvo and his family lost their two beloved black Labrador retrievers, but it could easily have been his own life or that of a family member that was lost. An apologetic “oops” from the responsible officials just doesn’t cut it anymore.
Originally set up to handle volatile, high-risk situations involving snipers, hostage takers or prison escapees, militarized SWAT teams have been unleashed on civilians with predictably disastrous results — as the fatal shooting of unarmed optometrist Salvatore Culosi by a Fairfax County SWAT team two years ago illustrated all too well. Sending a SWAT team to arrest Culosi was excessive compared with his alleged crime of betting on football games.
By sending a SWAT team to Calvo’s home, the Prince George’s Sheriff’s Department made the same mistake, setting the stage for a violent confrontation that could easily have escalated into something far worse.
It’s long past time for law enforcement agencies to restrict SWAT teams for use only in situations where massive lethal force is their only remaining option.
Those are just self pings for research.
Yes, drug dogs found the package, the police intercepted it and took the place of the regular FedEx deliverer to deliver the package.
2) The mayor found the package on his doorstep, addressed to his wife, so he took it inside and put it on a table. I can't imagine a more natural reaction.
I never said the mayor did anything wrong. However the drugs being addressed to them, and then taken inside definitely provided probable cause for a search and sheriff's department did get a warrant from a judge.
3) The mother-in-law started screaming because she saw multiple heavily-armed men in plain clothes and masks approaching the house. I can't imagine a more natural reaction. If it had been me, I would have been racing for my firearms, as, I would imagine, most people would.
When they approached the house they would have had jackets or something indicating they were police, and I haven't seen any reports that they were not doing so. However, I can also understand the mother-in-law's reaction. She didn't do anything wrong either.
No one in the house did anything unreasonable. However, that doesn't change the fact that the officers had to deal with.
The drugs had been addressed to the woman at that address (the mayor's wife). The sheriff's department discovered the drugs in transit and delivered them to the home. The drugs were taken inside. They waited for about an hour to see what happened.
They had probable cause to believe the people inside were trafficking in large quantities of drugs. No one in the house called the cops after having been delivered a large package full of drugs (they hadn't bothered opening the package yet).
When the officers approached the house to surround it and get ready to execute the warrant, they were seen, and the mother-in-law started screaming that they were out there.
Not unreasonable on her part, but it had the effect of letting the officers know that whoever was inside was alerted to their presence.
As far as they knew the people inside were trafficking in large quantities of drugs and might be arming themselves, or destroying evidence. While her reaction was not unreasonable, neither was their reaction to it. Both reacted like they did because they didn't know what the others knew.
Our constitution requires probable cause before a search is preformed not only because of the inconvenience of having your home searched, but because of the possible danger to both the searcher and those being searched such a confrontational situation can cause.
Requiring probable cause helps avoid bad situations like this, but it cannot prevent them completely. You can raise the bar farther and farther but you risk not being able to catch and prosecute dangerous criminals. There is no perfect solution. Situations like this one where bad things happen because people on both sides lacked information they needed to avoid bad things happening are an unfortunate part of reality.
We all wish they weren't, but wishing that doesn't change it.
The part that may very well have been avoidable is shooting the dogs. I'm far less sure that was justified. However the raid itself seems to me like it was justified by what they knew at the time even though in hindsight it turned out that those inside had done absolutely nothing wrong.
no really. I want to know.
She did nothing wrong by screaming. No one in the house had done anything wrong.
If she had known everything that was going on, she probably would have acted differently. If the sheriff's deputies had known exactly what was going on, they would have acted differently as well.
In reality, they both had reasonable reactions considering what they knew.
Given the continuing unacceptable level of errors with these types of raids, I think such tactics should be barred except for situations where an active hostage crisis is ongoing.
They were unsuspecting victims, but they weren't really the victims of the LEOS, but of the drug dealers who set them up.
From what I understand, this was a LE operation gone very bad.
It unquestionably didn't work out like the LEOs or the people in the house would have wanted it to.
If in fact this is what occurred, any fool with a bone to pick, wanting revenge, could set anyone up for an armed, violent, home invasion raid, all done by LEOs.
The problem with that scenario is that any fool with a bone to pick isn't going to use 32 pounds of pot worth upwards of $100,000 to set someone up. They could just pay a group of thugs to knock down the door an terrorize the people inside for a lot less money.
Without the high value of the drugs involved, such a raid wouldn't have been justified.
This wasn't a case where an informant lied and a judge gave the police a warrant based on that false testimony.
They got the warrant based on the large quantity of drugs being addressed to them, and it being intercepted before it reached that destination.
You can't really blame the police for thinking that no one would send that quantity of drugs addressed to someone's house with no connection to them. Even if someone in the delivery chain was involved you would think they would send the package to someone they knew, and if for some reason the regular deliverer wasn't able to intercept it, the person that received it could always say that they hadn't ordered it and have the person they had in the delivery company come pick up the unopened package to "send it back" after they had a chance to figure out if the police were on to them.
That's an awful lot of money to risk on the off chance that the delivery guy gets in an accident, or gets scheduled for training, or something else happens and someone else ends up being supposed to deliver the package.
I have no real problem with them executing a legitimate search warrant. The way in which they executed it is the problem- throwing an old lady down and shooting two dogs because a bunch of candy-ass cops were afraid of a couple of Labrador retreivers.
So you're saying that mayors of tiny little towns with a population of 3000 people in a relatively bad area of the county can't be crooks? He should have been treated differently because he was the mayor?
I'm saying that anyone with half a brain could realize that given who lived in the house, there was zero chance of violence breaking out when they executed their search warrant. They stormed the house like they expected it to be full of methed-up bikers or MS-13 gangbangers.
They pretty much had to go in, and they had to treat the situation with the seriousness that it deserved.
What possible reason, other than their desire to get their jollies by playing military, did they have for storming the house like they did?
If this was just an ordinary citizen, they probably would have gotten away with their gestapo-tactics. But the cops here actually abused someone who has the power to fight back and get the media, state and Federal authorities involved. Hopefully, these JBT are the ones scared now.
Just the Maryland stories make my blood boil.
The man whom fired the weapon in his basement, accidently as he’s trying to defend himself, had to fight to get his 911 tapes admitted into evidence?!?!??!?!
ARE YOU Fing (excuse me) KIDDING ME?!?!?
I justice system is setup to let 100 guilty men go free, to prevent just 1 innocent man from being jailed or executed.
How is the use of force any different?
LOL...You obvious don't get how the real world works. A bad guy could put anything suspicious looking, add an ounce for smell effects, throw in some cheap meth etc...Tip off the LEOs just prior to delivery etc etc and set anyone up for a violent, armed home invasion of LEOs. You think to set someone up for something like this this you'd have to spend 100k? Come on now.
In addition, all the LEOs would of had to do was play delivery man as they did, but INSTEAD of just dropping it off, as they did, why not just deliver the package in person? Knock on the door in a Fed ex uniform whatever, and have them sign for it, once in their possession they could have ID'd themselves, and started asking questions, detain them or whatever and their back would have been right there.
This isn't very complex.
They would have had their element of surprise, had back up right there, it would have been in the "suspects" hands..They could have started their investigation right there.
There was absolutely no need to play military here, no need to shoot the dogs, and no need to become a national embarrassment.
Americans have had a belly full of the cops shooting up innocent people, killing their pets, busting down doors over stupid things like pot, and conducting bizarre military style home invasions of those that are completely innocent.
If they're going to continue doing this, they might want to use some common sense for change and lose the Rambo mentality.
Ping
What? Give a cop a choice between playing special forces and playing mailman, is there any doubt about the answer?
Trafficking in $100,000 worth of contraband justifies a pretty high level of attention regardless of what the contraband is, simply because of the amount of money involved. Unscrupulous people will do some rather unpleasant things when that much money is involved.
Second, any police department with an IQ higher than a donut is going to be aware of whatever current scams are going around. The 'delivery to a random address' scam is one we civilians (or Crown Subjects, as the case may be) have all heard of. Cops who are not aware of this have no business playing with military equipment.
I guess I'm just out of touch since I hadn't heard of it.
I have heard of people having drugs shipped to themselves, though usually they use a fake name with the correct address so they can say it must have been sent to them by mistake. They just let the package sit for a little while after receiving it in case the police show up, and if they do, they say they were going to have it sent back because it wasn't theirs.
I had a friend from high school that messed himself with alcohol abuse and drugs. He got so sick, mainly from the alcohol abuse that going and getting his drugs was difficult (somehow he always managed to get alcohol). I asked him how he did it when I was visiting him while he was really sick, and he told me.
It seems strange to me that someone would use the address of someone not involved for a large shipment of drugs. There's too much risk that something might happen and the regular deliverer might not be the one to deliver the package. If they couldn't intercept it, a large amount of drugs worth a lot of money goes to the wrong person.
It would make much more sense for them to use the address of someone they could trust but might not be directly involved. That way if the package got delivered by accident, they person could sit on it unopened, and then have their person in the delivery company pick it up under the pretense that they were sending it back because they hadn't ordered whatever it was.
When they delivered the drug in place of the FedEx driver they didn't charge right in. They waited around to see what happened.
At first the package was left outside, which might indicate they were suspicious because a different driver delivered the package. Once the package was taken inside, they still waited for a bit to see what was might happen.
If they had opened the package and realized what was inside, they would have then called the police, and the raid would have been called off. Unfortunately that's not what happened.
They could have not delivered the package and just sat on it, but doing that makes it harder to tie the drugs to the suspects because they never received it. They've captured the drugs, but alerted the drug ring that the police are on to them without solidly tying the drugs to anyone.
So they delivered the drugs. They were taken inside. No one from inside called the police.
The had to think that the most likely case was that the drugs had been taken to their intended destination. It it wasn't the intended destination, then they had to feel like it was very likely they'd be getting a call shortly after the drugs were taken inside. They didn't get a call. They couldn't just all go home and leave $100,000 worth of contraband there.
The people inside the house made reasonable decisions based on what they knew. The people outside the house made reasonable decisions based on what they knew. Events such as them not opening the package, and the officers being spotted approaching the house escalated things into a mess.
Ping
Libertarian ping! To be added or removed freepmail me or post a message here.
I agree completely.
If you wait until hostages are taken you've already let the situation get out of control and greatly increased the chances of someone dying.
The statistics say that an overwhelming show of force in high risk situations is most likely to to result in the least people being hurt. This was a high risk situation because of the high value of the drugs involved.
And, in any case, they did not have a warrant for surprise armed entry, and lied about that fact when the investigation began. Those facts in and of themselves are sufficient to throw them under the jail.
They didn't perform a surprise entry. They only rushed in after the mother-in-law started screaming about them being out there. It wasn't unreasonable for her to scream when armed men were approaching her house, even if it did say police on what they were wearing. However, her yelling made it clear that everyone in the house knew they were out there. At that point they either needed to rush in and quickly get control of the scene, or back down and risk a hostage situation or having to later go in against prepared armed criminals.
In reality that wasn't going to happen because they people were the innocent victims of the drug ring's plans going awry. However, the police really couldn't have known that.
They didn't need a special warrant for what they did, because what they did was the result of the unfortunate way things went down.
If they hadn't been spotted they could have surrounded the house, and then had officers go an knock at the door, present the warrant, and then quickly take control of the scene. Unfortunately, they were spotted, she screamed and yelled, and they had to make a split second decision how to react.
Good editorial. Cops who dress in all sorts of armor and shoot dogs are about the biggest pu$$ies in our society today. I wouldn’t shed a tear to see a few get popped.
For those of us who tend to like dogs more than humans, it not a canary in the coal mine.
Can you provide evidence that an increase in shootouts is an inevitable result of no SWAT entry to serve warrants? Most large size departments utilized Warrant Squads or warrant service tactics back in the day before SWAT. I knew a guy who was the "high risk officer" in a department in the '60s and '70s. He had fewer shots fired incidents than the street cops because of his meticulous planning.
Can anyone tell me how many police officers lives, indeed suspects lives, have been saved utilizing their overwhelming force concept? How do you count tragedies that never happened?
You can't. But you can count tragedies that have occurred because of "utilizing their overwhelming force concept." I'd say the burden is on police to justify this response on routine warrant service.
Their warrant authorized the search. It didn't specify how many officers they should take.
It also didn't specify that they could bust down the door without announcing their presence first.
However, since they were spotted approaching the house, the mother-in-law announced their presence for them. Not the way they would have wanted to do things, but they have to deal with the reality of the situation, not what could have been.
They knew at the time that their warrant was to knock on the door and wait for the occupants to admit them.
A warrant does not require them to sit outside and wait for the occupants to admit them. After announcing their presence, they can knock down the door if they think that evidence might be being destroyed or occupants might be arming themselves.
Her yelling let everyone who might have been in the house know they were there. Their presence was announced regardless of if they were ready for it to be announced or not. At that point they had to make a split second decision if they should go in hot, or wait and see what happened.
If they actually were drug dealers inside, waiting could have meant important evidence being destroyed, criminals arming themselves, or even someone in the house being taken hostage.
Given the amount of drugs involved and the value of those drugs, it gave them reason to far they were dealing with serious criminals, despite the outward appearances of the home. Their decision was not the best one in hindsight, but it was also not unreasonable given all they knew at the time.
They also knew this at the time when they perjured themselves about it, but that's a separate crime.
I've seen different reports from different people at different times. Confusion by the spokesman for the police or by the reporters is more likely than perjury.
These officers have undoubtedly been called to testify in court in the past and know that lies about something like that would come back to bite them.
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