Posted on 08/07/2008 6:26:37 PM PDT by Kjirstje
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.
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 earlier.
No other evidence of illegal activity was found, and no one was arrested at Mayor Cheye Calvo's home.
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.
Thursday, Calvo called on the U.S. Justice Department's civil rights division to investigate the raid. 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,"
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at baltimoresun.com ...
When every warrant is a no-knock warrant delivered by a SWAT team, there is no correct warrant.
Why does every little local govt. and agency have a damn swat team?
It is getting a lot out of hand. Jack booted is a good call.
Is the dog’s breed listed anywhere?
As I said, if it had been my brother (who commanded that unit once as its Sergeant), there wouldn’t have been a SWAT raid in the first place.
Prince George’s County is not a “little government.” It has a population which is bigger than some states and is highly urbanized in its west, next to Washington, D.C.
I like your handle. Not many people are familiar with Jesus’ saying, “the kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force.” I think it’s one of his most interesting sayings. Way too few of us are on our way to heaven properly “kicking and screaming.” Huzzah!
The dogs were both labrador retrievers. The worst that could be said about either of them apparently (according to the article) was that one was an “aggressive licker.”
I think that is it. In an early story, the police said that they didn’t even know it was the mayor’s house. How on earth do you go into a house without doing some research on who lives there, what kind of pets they have…maybe a floor plan, if available.
I know, I lived in Alexandria for two years while working at the pentagon.
There is no way you can know that for sure.
Maryland “Freak State” PING!
The sad truth is this isn’t “dumb police”, this is just business as usual. Some how, some way we have empowered an antagonistic relationship between the governed and the governors. We need to dismantle trh3e whole rotten mess and start over. That means electing a whole new breed of city councilor’s, mayors, State Reps, Federal Congress. Eventually that gets us change. Unfortunately, most voters want to be controlled because they don’t trust themselves to make the right decisions. So, in a word we are screwed. Welcome to the Police State. Look at traffic laws, the entry level for State control. Because most people don’t trust themselves to drive to conditions, they want somebody else to tell them what is safe on the assumption that they are incapable of making that judgment. They also don’t trust themselves to put down the cell phone when traffic gets tight, so they legislate that. They don’t trust themselves to have the self discipline to strap on a seat belt, so they legislate that. We get the government that our neihbors want. Your neighbors want violent police raids because they don’t trust themselves to not smoke pot. Your neibhors are idiots, and so is our government.
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