Posted on 07/14/2009 4:28:15 PM PDT by Leisler
Late last month, Berwyn Heights, Maryland Mayor Cheye Calvo took the unusual step of filing a civil rights lawsuit against the police department of his own county. The suit stems from a 2008 SWAT team raid on Calvo's house that resulted in the shooting deaths of his two black Labrador retrievers. In pushing back against the abuse he suffered at the hands of the Prince George's County police department, the mayor is helping expose a more widespread pattern of law enforcement carelessness and callousness throughout the state of Maryland.
Prince George's police originally obtained a warrant to search Calvo's home after intercepting a package of marijuana sent to the mayor's address. Calvo and his family were innocent—the package was intended to be picked up by a drug dealer. But instead of first investigating who lived at the residence, or even notifying the Berwyn Heights police chief, the county police department immediately sent in the SWAT team. In addition to having his two dogs killed, Calvo and his mother-in-law were handcuffed for several hours, and questioned at gunpoint.
To his credit, the mayor concluded early on that if this could happen to him, it was probably happening to others. "In some ways, we were lucky," Calvo said at a University of Maryland event this April. "We had the support of our community, who knew we weren't drug dealers. It didn't take long for me to realize that many people this kind of thing happens to don't have that kind of support."
Calvo also learned just how obstinate and unapologetic police and government officials can be, even (or especially) when they're clearly in the wrong. Prince George's County Police Chief Melvin High actually praised his officers' conduct, insisting that if they had to do it again they'd conduct the Calvo raid the same way. "Our investigators went in and showed both restraint and compassion," he told a local TV station.
Prince George's County Executive Jack Johnson told a local newspaper that Calvo would get no apology for the slaying of his dogs. Johnson's puzzling explanation: "Well, I think in America that is the apology, when we’re cleared.... At the end of the day, the investigation showed he was not involved. And that's, you know, a pat on the back for everybody involved, I think."
It took nearly a year for the Prince George's police department to release its report on the incident. The conclusion: officers did nothing wrong.
Within a few weeks of the raid, other victims of botched search warrants in Maryland began contacting Calvo. One couple was raided after their teenage son was found with a small amount of marijuana during a traffic stop. Another elderly couple had their dog shot and killed by Prince George's officers in a mistaken raid. And in Howard County, police broke down a door in front of a 12-year-old girl, battered a man with a police shield, then shot and killed the man's Australian cattle dog. They were looking for someone suspected of stealing a rifle from a police car. The suspect didn't live at the residence.
There were more:
• Eleven days before the raid on Calvo's home, Prince George's police raided the home of a Secret Service agent after receiving a tip that he was distributing steroids. They found no drugs or incriminating evidence.
• In August 2007 police raided the home of a Prince George's County couple to serve an outstanding arrest warrant for their son. The parents were handcuffed at gunpoint. Police later learned that the couple's son had already been in police custody for 12 days.
• In November 2007 Prince George's police raided the wrong home of a couple in Accokeek. Though the couple presented the police with evidence that they were at the wrong address, the police still detained them at gunpoint, refusing even to let them go to the bathroom. The couple asked the police if they could bring their pet boxer in from the backyard. The police refused. Moments later, the police shot and killed the dog.
• In June 2007 police in Annapolis deployed a flash grenade, broke open an apartment door, and kicked a man in the groin during a mistaken drug raid. When they later served the warrant on the correct address, they found no drugs.
Most victims of these mistaken raids experienced the same callousness and indifference from public officials that Calvo did. When police in Montgomery County conducted a mistaken 4 a.m. raid on a Kenyan immigrant and her teenage daughters in 2005, the county offered free movie passes as compensation. When police in Baltimore mistakenly raided the home of 33-year-old Andrew Leonard last May, the city refused to pay for Leonard's door, which was destroyed during the break-in. When Leonard called the city's bulk trash pick-up to come get the door, no one came. Days later, city code inspectors fined Leonard $50 for storing the broken door in his backyard.
Just last month, Baltimore's ABC affiliate reported on another mistaken raid, and noted that city officials generally make no effort to compensate homeowners when police trash their houses in search of contraband that doesn't turn up. "If you're searching for drugs or unlawful firearms, these things are not left out in plain view on the living room table," City Solicitor George Nilson explained. "You often will have to do some damage to the premises and...the police department doesn't and we don't pay for those kinds of damages." Even if the police find nothing, Nilson said, the city has no obligation to pay, because, "it may have been the stuff that you're looking for was there three hours earlier, but somebody got it out of harm's way."
At least none of these raids ended with the loss of human life. In January 2005, police in Baltimore County conducted a 4:50 a.m. raid on the home of Cheryl Lynn and Charles Noel after finding marijuana seeds and cocaine residue in the family's trash. After taking down the front door and deploying a flash grenade, SWAT officers stormed up the steps and broke open the door to the Noels' bedroom. Because their daughter had been murdered several years earlier, the couple kept a gun near the bed. When the police entered the bedroom, 44-year-old Cheryl Lynn Noel stood with the gun, clad in her nightgown. She was shot and killed by an armor-wearing SWAT officer, who fired from behind a ballistics shield. Police found only a misdemeanor amount of illicit drugs in the home. Shortly after the family filed a civil rights lawsuit in 2006, Baltimore County gave the officer who shot Noel an award for "valor, courage, honor, and bravery."
In March, a federal jury returned a verdict in favor of the police. The winning argument in the Noel case is a common one—but it's also paradoxical. Police argued both that these volatile, confrontational tactics are necessary to surprise drug suspects—to take them off guard before they have a chance to retaliate, or dispose of the contraband. At the same time, police argued that Cheryl Lynn Noel should have known the armed men storming her home at 5 a.m. were police; therefore she had no right to be holding a gun, and the police had every right to shoot her. Unfortunately, under the law the jury (and the police) was probably correct. The police didn't appear to violate any department policy.
It's the policy that's the problem. Drug war hysteria has so twisted our sense of right and wrong over the last 30 years that we've come to accept the idea that sending SWAT teams after minor potential drug offenders is an acceptable police tactic. The occasional wrong house, murdered pet, or police killing of a mother of two are regarded as regrettable but acceptable collateral damage—the price we pay to keep drugs illegal.
Maryland is hardly unusual. The last 30 years have seen a massive increase in the use of SWAT and paramilitary police tactics. High-profile botched raids like the Calvo incident occur all over the country. They inevitably get reporters digging and activists looking—and generally finding—other victims who were too frightened or embarrassed to come forward earlier. That's usually followed by promises for reform...then a return to business as usual once the attention dies down.
But something good may yet come out of Maryland. Mayor Calvo was able to get first-in-the-nation legislation passed in his state that will bring some transparency to how police agencies use their SWAT teams. Every department will be required to submit a quarterly report detailing each SWAT deployment.
That at least is a start. It will enable some honest assessment of just how often these tactics are used, and what they're actually turning up. Terrible as it sounds, it may well take more mistaken raids on high-status victims like Calvo to generate real debate over the wisdom of using violent, high-risk police tactics to serve warrants for nonviolent crimes
Nanny state/Maryland ping!
Only in The Peoples Republic of Maryland.....
Okay, I don’t know why I pinged you on this. Disregard.
I remember this case but my facts may be wrong...I recollect, if they had a warrant, it wasn't a no knock warrant.
PG Country PD has been a problem for about the last 40 years.
More recently, about 10 years ago I did a 911 to the PG PD about some guy blithely doing afternoon car break-ins at one of the Laurel shopping malls. I stood there waiting for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes..... nothing.
They never showed up.
I left, with the guy still walking through the lot and casually breaking into parked cars.
Why do they like killing dogs so much? Is that legal for them to just kill people's animals and then get an "atta'boy" for it?
PG County is its very own mini banana republic.
You really have to wonder how many of these “legal raids” end up with a suspect shot for “resisting.”
Not to pile on the cops, but these situations seem well above and beyond responsible and professional work.
just another reason why i hate cops
Sue'em. Jerks.
And to think it used to be quite conservative and Republican in the past. Even had a Republican Congressman. Really. I was there. It's now totally weird.
No reason to hate all cops. Most of them are good people, and a lot of them will tell ya in private the war on drugs is a joke, a waste of resources, tax money and everything else.
Unfortunately, a lot of cops have lost sight of the fact that they are there to help or assist, and find themselves with the us vs them mentality due to being around so many bad people and assorted freaks.
Most cops are totally burned out, and many just get to the point where they want to escape people, which I can totally relate to.
It takes harm to an official before anything is done.
More deaths from illegals driving drunk are happening everyday.
Pray that those deaths are those of governors and legislatures wives, children, grandchildren. That’s the ONLY way anything is going to change on that front too.
The Governors and other elected officials could care less about what happens to the rest of us.
Not good Karma. There may be a day in which you change your mind. There are bad apples in every basket. 99% are straight shooters that face the dregs of society on a nightly basis.
Think about it...
Union thugs. They NEED people to be thugs. And dogs to be killers.
You totally relate to these guys???
Cops have NEVER responded in a timely manner to my calls.
Cops have cost me a lot of money and time.
Cops are DANGEROUS with guns. Number one cause of cop deaths is fratricide.
Cops HAVE pulled my best buddy's girlfriend out of her car in the middle of the night and beat the crap out of her - to get even with my friend.
Cops killed one of my best friends whom they had misidentified and then gunned him down in cold blood.
I have seen cops LIE their a$$ off in court which I later impeached with video evidence.
I have beaten every traffic ticket I have ever been given and have NEVER been convicted of any crime or spent a day or night in jail.
I will not express my opinion about cops but you get the drift. Oh and I do not worry about karma.
Yeah.
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