Berwyn Heights Drug Raid: The Police Keep Digging
Radley Balko | August 8, 2008, 11:17am
The violent drug raid on Berwyn Heights, Maryland Mayor Cheye Calvo is now making national headlines. Calvo was also on CNN yesterday.
In the raid, police in Prince George's County, Maryland intercepted a package addressed to Calvo's wife that contained about 30 pounds or marijuana. Undercover officers completed the delivery to Calvo's home, then stormed the place in SWAT gear when Calvo brought the package inside. During the raid, the police shot and killed Calvo's two black labs, including one Calvo says was running away to hide. Calvo and his mother-in-law were then handcuffed and questioned at gunpoint while his dead dogs lay nearby in pools of their own blood.
Since the raid last week, we've learned that police have arrested two men in conjunction with a scheme using delivery services to ship marijuana across the country. The plan was for operatives within the companies to intercept the packages before they reached their targets. The destination addresses may have been random, or simply chosen because of their location along routes convenient to the scheme. In fact, the Washington Post reports in the story linked above that some packages were accidentally delivered, at which point operatives went to the houses of the innocent people who'd received them to ask for their return.
Despite all of this, Prince George's County police refuse to apologize for the no-knock raid, for the tactics they used in the raid, or for killing Calvo's dogs.
Prince George's County Police Chief Melvin High said Wednesday that Calvo and his family were "most likely ... innocent victims," but he would not rule out their involvement, and he defended the way the raid was conducted. He and other officials did not apologize for killing the dogs, saying the officers felt threatened.
High told the Washington Post that the raid "was conducted responsibly, given what deputies and officers knew at the time." That's absurd. High doesn't even seem to consider the possibility that perhaps the officers didn't know enough to conduct the raid when they did, and that maybe they should have done a bit more investigating before going all commando on the Calvo family.
Interestingly, the state of Maryland does not issue warrants for no-knock raids. However, police may determine at the scene that a no-knock entry is necessary if one of two conditions are present. The first if the police have reasonable suspicion that the suspect may pose a threat to the officers' safety. The second is if police have reasonable suspicion that the suspect may destroy the evidence.
Though these two "exigent circumstances" exceptions carve gaping holes in the knock-and-announce requirement, it's difficult to see how this situation fit either exception. Prince George's police say they heard Calvo's mother-in-law scream as they approached, which they say made them fear someone inside may grab a gun or dispose of the marijuana.
Both prospects are dubious. If the police had done any surveillance or investigation at all, they'd have realized that this was the home of the local mayor, an unlikely candidate to engage in a suicide shootout with raiding cops. And unless the Calvos own an industrial strength toilet, it's unlikely that he'd have been able to flush 30 pounds of marijuana in the time it takes police to knock and announce themselves.
Moreover, even if seeing the cops approaching did tip off Calvo and his mother-in-law, that's the whole purpose of the knock-and-announce requirement—to give suspects notice that the police are coming, and to allow them the opportunity to consent to a peaceful search and avoid the violence of a forceful police entry.
Still, courts have in the past been loathe to question police officers who find exigent circumstances at the scene of the search. Perhaps the high profile of this raid will lead to more scrutiny.
Finally, I guess I'd just add that the national media coverage of the Berwyn Heights raid seems to be predicated on the assumption that the most troubling aspects of the raid—the killing of the dogs, the violent tactics, the lax investigation, the likely innocent victims, and the police obstinacy after the fact—are unusual. They aren't. The only thing unusual about this raid is that its victim happened to be an elected politician.
Anon | August 8, 2008, 2:53pm | #
I may be a lone voice here, and it may be because it's a mayor, and it may be because the wife's statement to the media was so over the top, but I don't think this is a great injustice. The SWAT officers have to be prepared that the suspect may be armed, and the officers must be prepared that the suspect may have some way to dispose of the drugs. Also, the officers have no way to know whether or not the dogs were trained to attack - being a mayor does not disqualify the possibility. The SWAT officers acted according to their training - whether or not you disagree with those tactics is another question. After all, another SWAT officer didn't mistaken the shots at the dogs for gunfire coming from the suspect and shoot them(as what happened in Lima). No one got hurt - the mistake here was they targeted the wrong people. But in terms of mechanics, I don't think you can say it was a gross injustice in and of itself.
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1) The police had no reason to suspect anyone in the house would be armed, it was a middle class neighborhood and the mayor waived to them earlier that day. The police do not ALWAYS assume that any warrant they are serving is going to turn violent and there was no reason here to use a swat team.
2) The police are the ones who delivered the drugs and there is no way I know of to destroy 30 POUNDS of pot in the time it would have taken for them to knock on the door and show the warrant.
3) It appears the dogs did NOT attack, even the police have not said the dogs atacked, only using vague words like 'engaged' and the police feeling threatened. The mayor has said the 2nd dog was shot in the back while running away and has challenged the police to release the photos. So, far the police have not released any evidence that backs up the need to shoot and kill the two dogs.
4) Yes, someone got hurt, the two pets were killed for no reason and the mayor and his mother were terrorized for two hours. I suspect IF the mayor had a gun he and his mother would both be dead.
5) The issue here is that a SWAT team was totally inappropriate given the situation and what police knew: a package of pot delivered to an address with no known history of drugs or criminal activity in a middle class neighborhood where the suspect had waived at them earlier while walking his dogs.
There is no defense for the shoddy investigation and police overkill. Even IF he was a pot dealer this would still be complete overkill and inappropriate use of force.
Anon | August 8, 2008, 4:33pm | #
Back to the dog killing jack booted thugs...here is Calvo's letter to DOJ...pretty compelling, I especially like how he mentions that one of the "officers" sitting in a house full of the blood of two dead dogs with an old woman lying face down on the floor was making personal phone calls on her cell phone.
Nice.
Dear Ms. Becker:
I am writing to request that the Civil Rights Division initiate an investigation into the search warrant policies and procedures of the Prince George's County Sheriff's Department and the County Police Department and specifically to investigate the incident that occurred on July 29, 2008 when our home was illegally entered by county law enforcement officers, who tied up two members of our family and shot and killed our two family dogs, with premedication and without provocation.
1. What Happened.
On the evening of July 29, 2008, I came home from work and arrived at my residence at 8522 Edmonston Rd. in Berwyn Heights. I work at SEED, a non-profit organization that operates the nation's only public boarding schools for at-risk urban students. I have been the elected, part-time mayor of Berwyn Heights, a municipality in Prince George's County since 2004. My wife, Trinity Tomsic, is a financial officer for the state of Maryland. My mother-in-law, Georgia Porter, works for a local company.
When I arrived home, I was greeted by my mother-in-law, who was cooking an artichokes, tomatoes and pasta dinner in the kitchen. She told me a FedEx package for my wife, Trinity Tomsic, was on the porch. It had been delivered to the house a few minutes beforehand, and Georgia had asked the delivery man to leave it outside on the porch. I thought little o fit because Trinity frequently receives gardening supplies by mail. I then took our two dogs, Payton (age 7) and Chase (age 4), both black Labradors, for a walk. While on the walk, I noticed SUVs parked on nearby roads, but thought little of it other than to wave to the drivers. I returned home and then began changing my clothes to get ready for a quarterly meeting of municipal officials from nearby towns that I was hosting at Berwyn Heights Town Center, down the street. Before going back inside the house; however, I retrieved the package and placed it unopened on a living room table.
While in my bedroom upstairs, while changing and only in boxer shorts, I heard my mother-in-law scream and then heard our front door being broken open and gunshots being fired. I thought our home was being invaded. I feared for my life and fell to the floor. No one announced themselves as law enforcement.
Downstairs, the officers shot Payton immediately upon entering the house. Payton's body was located on the floor near the entry to the kitchen where he was hot some distance from the front door. Chase, our four-year-old Lab, was shot in the back by the officers in the rear of the house while running away. Neither dog attacked or "engaged" law enforcement, as claimed by the county sheriff.
My mother-in-law was made to lie face-down on the floor in the kitchen, several feet away from where Payton was bleeding to death. Her hands were restrained with plastic handcuffs behind her back. She laid there on the floor with her head held down by police so that she could only see Payton's lifeless body for a considerable period of time.
The officers called for me to walk downstairs backwards with my hands up, which I did. The officers then directed to me to kneel down in the living room by the open front door in my boxer shorts with my hands restrained in plastic cuffs behind my back. I remained in that position for a considerable period of time, watching Payton's body in the other corner of the room and my mother-in-law lying face down in the kitchen.
Georgia and I then were interrogated by police. Georgia was questioned by a detective named Kim, who in the course of her questioning managed to talk on her cell phone and to make a veterinary appointment for her dog. Georgia overheard Kim tell her friend that, this was her first raid and that it was "exciting" because it was the mayor's house. Finally, after nearly two hours, the officers released the restraints on my mother-in-law and me after I complained about losing feeling in my right hand. The officers ultimately decided not to arrest me or any member of my family and indeed found no evidence linking any of us to the box's contents.
Yesterday, Melvin High, the outgoing chief of the Prince George's County Police Department, announced the arrest of two men, including a Federal Express delivery man, who participated in a scheme to use the overnight service to ship as much as 417 pounds of marijuana using the addresses of innocent and unsuspecting residents to ship the contraband. Chief High said that, in addition to Trinity Tomsic, five or six other innocent county residents had been subject to such ficticious deliveries.
Although they were listed as addresses, the deliveries never reached them because they were intercepted by the Federal Express employee. Like my wife, they were victims of identity theft. Their names were used to allow drug traffickers to ship marijuana through the Federal Express overnight delivery service.
The law enforcement officers who entered our home did so without knocking and broke through the door. Since 2005, Maryland law has required a no-knock warrant. Last Saturday, the spokesperson for the county police stated that the court had issued a no-knock warrant. This is untrue. Law enforcement neither sought nor obtained a no-knock warrant. Indeed, no warrant was ever presented to us during the evening of the police raid.
Yesterday, the county sheriff justified the killing of our dogs because they had engaged the deputies. This is false. The officers were aware of the presence of dogs in our house before they entered. They had seen me walking the dogs, both black Labs, moments earlier. They opened fire on our dogs as soon as they broke our door down. One dog, Payton, was shot near where he was found near the entrance to our kitchen some distance from the front door. The second dog, Chase was shot in the back while running away and was found in the rear of the house, where he had been shot.
Without ever investigating what happened or speaking to us, both the sheriff and the county police chief have announced public conclusions in this case defending the raid. More disturbing, we now have received reports of similar misconduct involving other innocent homeowners, including invasion of the homes of other innocent country residents and killing of other innocent family pets. This appears to be a pattern and practice in our law law enforcement agencies where a lack of training and supervision is apparent. There are also significant questions as to why our county's sheriff's department, whose statutory mission does not involve drug enforcement, should be executing drug raids.
It is clear that our local law enforcement agencies have a culture of disregarding Maryland's no-knock statute and ignoring the rights of innocent occupants and their pets. It is also clear that our county law enforcement agencies cannot discipline or investigate themselves.
On behalf of my wife, Trinity Tomsic, my mother-in-law, Georgia Porter, and myself, I request that the Civil Rights Division investigate the circumstances surrounding the invasion of our home and killing of our dogs on July 29, 2008. I also request the division to investigate the pattern and practices associated with search warrant executions by the Prince George's County Police Department and Sheriff's Department.
SFAlphaGeek | August 8, 2008, 10:38pm | #
TRO, you are a disgusting human being.
To make light of what is a deep personal tragedy for the mayor ("If the dog was so loyal why was it running away") because you somehow want to minimize the egregious behavior of the police in this instance - behavior that is becoming all too common with the paramilitarization of the police - is reprehensible.
The point here is that the police had no business sending a bunch of amped up adrenaline junkies in plainclothes to execute a military style raid in a situation where two uniformed officers and a bullhorn would have sufficed.
I'm thoroughly sick of SWAT / SOT / HRT / HRET infantry wannabes. If you want be a soldier, join the damn Army. A cop is a civilian who has a civilian job as a public servant, "to serve and protect," not a jackbooted thug who sees a police career as an opportunity to get his rocks off kicking doors. There is no excuse for this - none.
Of course, if an 18 year old infantryman in Iraq behaved like these cops did, he'd be facing UCMJ action. It infuriates me beyond belief that our soldiers fighting a war are held to a higher standard than our civilian police are.
And it matters not a whit to me whether thousands of cops everyday suppress the urge to shoot citizens' dogs, destroy their property, and terrorize their mother in laws. In this case, and in too many cases like it, the cops are out of control thugs - and will continue to be until the voting public reins them in.
And Andy, while I in general agree with you that the problem is that the raid happened, I also thing that the police were simply wrong and out of control in shooting the dogs. No, I take that back, they were pussies who execute all large dogs as a matter of SOP because they're afraid of them. If they couldn't control 2 labrador retrievers - not a breed known for ferocity - then they're just wimps. And tracking the dog's blood through the house - there's no excuse - just the cops way of saying "Fuck you" to the citizens they're sworn to protect and the law they're sworn to uphold.
And before the police apologists like TRO jump on me with the "you haven't been there so you don't know" argument, let me throw the bullshit flag pre-emptively. The doors I've kicked have potentially had trained terrorists with RPGs and machine guns behind them, not street criminals. And the cops don't have to be worried about getting IED'd on the way in.
Oh, and by the way, when I was faced with an Iraqi fucking Cujo snarling in my face, I didn't take the shot because I didn't want to terrorize the family by shooting in their house. No such consideration is forthcoming inside the US, apparently.
Just disgusting . . .
SF Alpha Geek
TRO | August 9, 2008, 9:28am | #
Yeah, call me "disgusting." That always moves a debate along.
If disgusting means I have my priorities straight, The issue here is the police conducting a no-knock warrant (something I am against by the way) based on what evidently was bad intelligence and even worse police work. If the officers involved acted illegally here they should be punished. If they did not, they should not. Simple as that.
The dead dogs, while unfortunate, are not the most important thing here, yet people gnash and wail about them as if the world had ended.
Give me a break.
This is a typical comment thread here on any cop shooting. Everyone goes off on tangents like pot legalization and all cops are "suppressing the urge to shoot dogs." It would be funny if it weren't so overdone.
I have been a law enforcement officer for 24 years in both the military and now with a federal agency. I never had the urge to shoot a dog. I own a couple of beautiful dogs. I have, however, worried about having to shoot dogs that I believed could be dangerous to me on a number of occasions. And I have always counseled other investigators who happen to be with me to not shoot a dog - better to get bit and be stitched-up - just because of the unhinged people who will flip out if you do, no matter how legitimate that action might be.
Someone said "Then why do they always shoot the dog?"
Well, they don't. Rarely does that happen, because as you can see, when it does it is bigger news than a mass murder. As I said before, cops serve thousands of warrants each year, and the vast majority are preformed safely and without any significant problems. And cops interact with the populace millions of times each year with no real issues either.
But you guys ignore that and judge all officers by the screw-ups of a few. And it's mostly because you can't smoke pot legally and you got a speeding ticket in the past.
