back in the 80's, the first SWAT team in the area on their first "Mission", shot and killed one of their own guys...
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.
Nahhh, just keep letting these goon squads go to the wrong homes and terrorize innocent folks and shoot their dogs.
The dogs were the first deaths at Mt. Carmel.
Reminds me of that elderly lady in Atlanta that got shot by police because they barged in her house on a no-knock warrant. She thought she was being burglarized, grabbed her gun and got several dozen bullets.
This has gotten out of control. And for what? Both of these cases were for drugs.
War on drugs? More like war on citizens. No drug out there is worth killing innocent people over. This reminds me of the prohibition days when more people died from gangster thugs running the booze and poisoned alchohol than from what was supposed to originally bad for them.
It’s time LE officers gave up the “War on Dogs.”
I’m going to agree. SWAT should not be used against ordinary civilians.
We used to support just about any reasonable funds request by the police and sheriff's departments. Because of the increasing trend toward militarization, that will stop--no more money as long as they keep it up. I would not be surprised if this trend isn't part of some scheme by the Feds to ensure they have help in the event our citizens finally get fed up enough to rebel.
I’m not sure what else they’re good for. I’ve had the misfortune to see a SWAT team working, close up. Very effective against civilians untrained in combat.
That said, their use should be rare. Same with tasers.
Civilians??? You mean citizens don't you??? Or was that a Freudian slip as the opposite of civilian is military??? There's no doubt that these knuckle draggers think that they are in a military unit that's for sure.
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?
When you are a hammer, everything else starts to look like a nail.
This is not to pick on you personally.
These were not ordinary civilians - They are CITIZENS.
The ordinary cops work for the citizens of this country, we don’t work for them.
It is time to remind the powers that be that there a two classes of people in this county, the military and civilians. Cops are just as much civilians as you and I and the military and the cops work for us.
Sam (a civilian and a veteran)
In Albuquerque, the theme of police department recruiting billboards seems to be "Join us and you too can be a JBT, rappel out of helicopters with a nifty machine gun, kick down doors and shoot dogs".
To a man who only has a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
Used to be, if police officers were executing a search or arrest warrant on a non-violent criminal, they would show up at the door, during daytime, and knock. Worst case scenario in 99% of such cases? The person in the house makes a run for it.
Now, police departments have para-military SWAT teams who are trained to knock down doors and shoot dogs, even in situations where there is no indication that the person they are looking for is dangerous. They don’t strike me as real cops- if they were, they’d be involved in the difficult work of actually investigating crimes, rather than knocking down doors.
The use of SWAT teams to exercise warrants against anyone other than violent felons should stop. There is simply no reason, in most cases, to use these tactics.
I’ll tell ya, I’m starting to root for the innocents who shoots at these thugs as they break in.
It happened recently and the shooter got off free. Seems the “police swat team” had the wrong address, didn’t announce themselves or that they had a warrent even though it was for a different home. And they came in civilian cloths.
You’d of thought the swat guys would take it a little different after WACO.
That is how police forces used to execute warrants for decades, with few violent incidents.
If you're going after a known violent criminal, it's one thing. But if you're looking to arrest a drug dealer with no violent felony convictions? SWAT teams just escalate the situation.
Technically speaking as a "mayor" this guy was part of the institutional problem, hardly a "civilian".
For some reason the writer of the editorial is of the impression that mayors should be immune from the cops (as they are in Chicago I suppose).
back in the 80's, the first SWAT team in the area on their first "Mission", shot and killed one of their own guys...
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