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Militarized police overreach: “Oh, God, I thought they were going to shoot me next”
Salon ^ | July 10, 2013 | By Radley Balko

Posted on 07/12/2013 12:28:18 PM PDT by Brad from Tennessee

There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice. — Charles De Montesquieu

Cheye Calvo only intended to be home long enough to grab a bite to eat and walk his dogs. Calvo worked full-time at an educational foundation in Washington, D.C., but he also had an unusual part-time job: he was mayor of the small town of Berwyn Heights, Maryland. In 2004, at age thirty-three, he was the youngest elected mayor in the history of Prince George’s County, Maryland. Now thirty-seven, he lived with his wife, Trinity Tomsic, her mother, Georgia Porter, and their two black labradors, Payton and Chase. Calvo was due back in town later that night for a community meeting.

As Calvo took the dogs out for a walk the evening of July 29, 2008, his mother-in-law told him that a package had been delivered a few minutes earlier. He figured it was something he had ordered for his garden. “On the walk, I noticed a few black SUVs in the neighborhood, but thought little of it except to wave to the drivers,” he would later recall. When Calvo and the dogs returned, he picked up the package, brought it inside, then went upstairs to change for his meeting.

The next thing Calvo remembers is the sound of his mother-in-law screaming. He ran to the window and saw heavily armed men clad in black rushing his front door. Next came the explosion. He’d later learn that this was when the police blew open his front door. Then there was gunfire. Then boots stomping the floor. Then more gunfire. Calvo, still in his boxers, screamed, “I’m upstairs, please don’t shoot!”

(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...


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To: Telepathic Intruder

I actually read that somewhere but forgot where. But it is unfortunately true.


21 posted on 07/12/2013 1:36:57 PM PDT by darkangel82
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To: Crazieman

Not long ago I saw a cop pull his gun on a guy in a supermarket parking lot and started screaming “On the effing ground! Now!” He was at least 50 feet from the guy and the guy hadn’t even reached his car yet so there was no danger of him “getting away”. There were lots of people within his line of fire including kids. I never did find out what it was all about. I got the hell out of there before the fat cop started spraying lead everywhere.


22 posted on 07/12/2013 1:39:00 PM PDT by VerySadAmerican (If you vote for evil because you can't see evil, you ARE evil!)
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To: VerySadAmerican
You mean like what happened at Mt. Carmel outside of Waco?

Winnah, winnah, chicken dinnah!

23 posted on 07/12/2013 1:45:30 PM PDT by VRW Conspirator (The Lefties can drink Kool-Aid; I will drink Tea.)
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To: Telepathic Intruder

In a word, wickedness.

In a few more words, losing all sensitivity to wickedness.

God lets these things happen desiring that people would notice what happens when they let wickedness percolate among themselves, and then reach back His way. The dialogue on this board often reminds me of the futility that the author of Ecclesiastes rather cynically outlines before his important final conclusion that only God can make it make sense. Almost everything BUT God, and in particular BUT the all-conquering gospel power.


24 posted on 07/12/2013 1:49:21 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Whatever promise that God has made, in Jesus it is yes. See my page.)
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To: HiTech RedNeck
I'm sure these police, at least most of them, think they're doing the right thing. But that should also be a reminder to question your own actions, even when they seem good in your eyes. God's ways are so far above ours that it takes effort to see right and wrong as He does. It can go so far as Jesus once warned:
the time will come when those who kill you will think that by doing this they are serving God
He was referring to another situation but that doesn't mean it's the only possible one.
25 posted on 07/12/2013 2:32:59 PM PDT by Telepathic Intruder (The only thing the Left has learned from the failures of socialism is not to call it that)
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To: Telepathic Intruder

What bothers me is when the cops shoot a dog or some bystander and rationalize it by saying they “felt threatened.” They signed up to “feel threatened” and they’re getting paid to “feel threatened.” If everybody reacted with lethal force every time they “felt threatened” we’d be in a continuous domestic war.


26 posted on 07/12/2013 2:37:25 PM PDT by Brad from Tennessee (A politician can't give you anything he hasn't first stolen from you.)
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To: Telepathic Intruder

It’s staggering alright. And yes, for our fallen selves, it does take effort to put on gospel eyes. This is not some gimmick that you can get or learn from a huckster on TV. But, the effort is so, so worth it. The free riches of God’s love, compared to how most people (even nominal believers) treat it, is like winning the Powerball in the lottery and then spending only a dollar of it. I am making whatever awkward effort I can, such as the Lord has allowed, to pass on the vision.


27 posted on 07/12/2013 2:59:02 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Whatever promise that God has made, in Jesus it is yes. See my page.)
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To: Brad from Tennessee

I knew this shiite was gonna happen as soon as the recruits were issued 9mm automatics or worse. If you can’t kill the perp in 2 shots, you don’t need 16 to spray the surrounding neighborhood. Makes’em feel tough, not effective.


28 posted on 07/12/2013 2:59:54 PM PDT by Safetgiver ( Islam makes barbarism look genteel.)
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To: Brad from Tennessee

Be aFRaid!

Be very aFRaid!

Stay safe, stay armed!

It is only going to get worse.


29 posted on 07/12/2013 3:05:22 PM PDT by Taxman (So that the beautiful pressure does not diminish!)
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To: colorado tanker

Maryland sucks.

In the past, I travelled I81 through MD several times a year. No more.

I refuse to drive through the state.

If I were a trucker, I would refuse to deliver in that state.

I am sure there are others that feel the same way.

As for living there, anyone who does deserves it.


30 posted on 07/12/2013 3:06:54 PM PDT by old curmudgeon
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To: Taxman

and the best thing to arm with is the love of God... most people act like God is indifference, if not God is hate. but the choosing is a ball that God has lobbed squarely into our court. we are bestowed with the dignity of being allowed to send ourselves to hell, yet with the love of being allowed to send hell away from ourselves (and receive the free spiritual gift of heaven) by grasping the power of God.

okay, so i sound like a monomaniac. i am happy to be a monomaniac about this, and of course this stuff doesn’t have to be kept in a monastery. it can be brought out to bloom in the whole wide world.

trying to band together to fight on a worldly level “might” or “might not” work. if issues between God and ourselves are not worked out first, any earthly effort is going to bitterly disappoint.


31 posted on 07/12/2013 3:11:13 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Whatever promise that God has made, in Jesus it is yes. See my page.)
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To: old curmudgeon

God is alive and powerful even in places in Maryland. Hagerstown is one such place and I can vouch for it, I was there. Whether that sphere increases is up to us to accept or reject.


32 posted on 07/12/2013 3:14:21 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Whatever promise that God has made, in Jesus it is yes. See my page.)
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To: Brad from Tennessee

The fact is that these cops are either nut case blood thirsty or cowards.


33 posted on 07/12/2013 3:24:54 PM PDT by old curmudgeon
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To: Telepathic Intruder

Hadthat been my house not a single one of those cops would be alive today. Not one.


34 posted on 07/12/2013 3:30:59 PM PDT by Lurker (Violence is rarely the answer. But when it is it is the only answer.)
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To: Brad from Tennessee
as Jackson put it, “the guys did what they were supposed to do.

Yhis is, i believe, a truthful statement. The point of this is classic TERROR, the Terror of Le Directoire and of the Terror of the Communists in Cambodia and China And Russia and wherever they have taken power. It is to keep the people off balance and fearful, ultimately to get everyone ratting out their neighbors and family members about anything at all, real or fanciful, so that no one can trust anyone else so that an opposition to the State cannot form.

The saracens are not conducting Terrror, they are simply killing infidels and conquering territory. The State perpetrates Terror on its own citizens/subjects.

35 posted on 07/12/2013 3:50:29 PM PDT by arthurus (Read Hazlitt's EcThomics In One Lesson ONLINE http://steshaw.org/econohttp://www.fee.org/library/det)
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To: Brad from Tennessee
as Jackson put it, “the guys did what they were supposed to do.

Yhis is, i believe, a truthful statement. The point of this is classic TERROR, the Terror of Le Directoire and of the Terror of the Communists in Cambodia and China And Russia and wherever they have taken power. It is to keep the people off balance and fearful, ultimately to get everyone ratting out their neighbors and family members about anything at all, real or fanciful, so that no one can trust anyone else thus an opposition to the State and its rulers cannot form.

The Jihadists are not conducting Terrror, they are simply killing infidels and conquering territory. The State perpetrates Terror on its own citizens/subjects.

36 posted on 07/12/2013 3:51:57 PM PDT by arthurus (Read Hazlitt's EcThomics In One Lesson ONLINE http://steshaw.org/econohttp://www.fee.org/library/det)
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To: taxcontrol
Makes me want to build my next house like a fort. Concrete walls, ballistic resistant glass and breach resistant door.

That is just proof that you are guilty of something. They won't bother with the small arms and will escalate all the way to tanks and helicopters, maybe even drones, if you're ever late on a parking ticket.

Just like they did to those poor folks outside of Waco in 1993.

37 posted on 07/12/2013 4:13:56 PM PDT by tpmintx (Gun free zones are hunting preserves for unarmed people.)
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To: taxcontrol

RE: Swat raids

one on one interaction with individual swat team members would likely reflect a normal, community spirit type of individual.

It’s scary though that the pack mentality can take over and individuals do what they think is expected of them as part of the team, legal or not, humane or not and with little thought of whether they’re doing the right thing.

While I generally support our police and always give them the benefit of any doubt, elite swat type teams can easily get out of hand without controls and accountability.

I hope the mayor and his family got rich off of the actions of these thugs.


38 posted on 07/12/2013 4:17:23 PM PDT by Joan Kerrey
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To: Brad from Tennessee
On 9/11/01 terrorists that received full quarter in Afghanistan crashed four planes within the United States of America killing nearly 3000 Americans.

Since then U.S. troops have deployed to multiple fronts to fight a determined enemy. The Global War on Terror has cost the lives of around 7,000 men and women.

The Rules of Engagement the men and women of the Armed Forces are under are very stringent. Any question of veracity in the use of force - an investigation is lost. The accused stands to lose everything they every worked for and to rot in a military prison.

These are men and women fighting in war zones.

Yet, here on U.S. soil, the "law enforcement officers" that are allegedly here to "serve and protect" are able to violate Constitutional Rights - conduct searches without probable cause or warrant, destroy property, cause fear and pandemonium, kill innocent pets and family members with impunity.

Why is it that LEOs in America have less restrictive ROEs than U.S. troops in a war zone against suicidal jihadis?

Why is it that lethal force is granted carte blanche against civilians without repercussion, yet beyond any doubt and near their own detriment, U.S. troops are only allowed lethal force as a very last resort?

Now citizen, ask yourself who is the bigger enemy - jihadis hell bent on the destruction of theUnited States, or you?

39 posted on 07/12/2013 5:14:44 PM PDT by Repeat Offender (What good are conservative principles if we don't stand by them?)
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To: Repeat Offender

What is it, with you Va/rgina boys, that can never ask the right question?


40 posted on 07/12/2013 5:23:56 PM PDT by RedHeeler
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