I bet these police officers don't get off easy

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jeffie7

jeffie7

Wrong Whole!
VIP
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080808/ap_on_re_us/marijuana_packages

happened not to far from me.

BERWYN HEIGHTS, Md. - Mayor Cheye Calvo got home from work, saw a package addressed to his wife on the front porch and brought it inside, putting it on a table.

Suddenly, police with guns drawn kicked in the door and stormed in, shooting to death the couple's two dogs and seizing the unopened package.

In it were 32 pounds of marijuana. But the drugs evidently didn't belong to the couple.

Police say the couple appeared to be innocent victims of a scheme by two men to smuggle millions of dollars worth of marijuana by having it delivered to about a half-dozen unsuspecting recipients.

The two men under arrest include a FedEx deliveryman; investigators said the deliveryman would drop off a package outside a home, and the other man would come by a short time later and pick it up.

Now, federal authorities say they're looking into how local law enforcement handled the July 29 raid. FBI Agent Rich Wolf said late Thursday that the bureau had opened a civil rights investigation into the case.

A furious Calvo said earlier Thursday that he and his wife, Trinity Tomsic, had asked the government to investigate.

"Trinity was an innocent victim and random victim," Calvo said outside his two-story, red-brick house in this middle-class Washington suburb of about 3,000 people. "We were harmed by the very people who took an oath to protect us."

Calvo insisted the couple's two black Labradors were gentle creatures and said police apparently killed them "for sport," gunning down one of them as it was running away.

"Our dogs were our children," said the 37-year-old Calvo. "They were the reason we bought this house because it had a big yard for them to run in."

The mayor, who was changing his clothes when police burst in, also complained that he was handcuffed in his boxer shorts for about two hours along with his mother-in-law, and said the officers didn't believe him when he told them he was the mayor. No charges were brought against Calvo or his wife, who came home in the middle of the raid.

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.

The FBI will monitor how effective, fair and professional the law enforcement agency's conduct was during the incident, Wolf said. A police spokesman declined comment Thursday on the FBI investigation.

Police announced Wednesday they had arrested two men suspected in a plot to smuggle 417 pounds of marijuana, and seized a total of $3.6 million in pot. Investigators said the package that arrived on Calvo's porch had been sent from Los Angeles via FedEx, and they had been tracking it ever since it drew the attention of a drug-sniffing dog in Arizona.

Police intercepted it in Maryland, and an undercover detective posing as a deliveryman took it to the Calvo home.

Calvo's defenders — including the Berwyn Heights police chief, who said his department should have been alerted ahead of time — said police had no right to enter the home without knocking.

But officials insisted they acted within the law, saying the operation was compromised when Calvo's mother-in-law saw officers approaching the house and screamed. That could have given someone time to grab a gun or destroy evidence, authorities said.

Neighbors in Berwyn Heights, which Calvo described as "Mayberry inside the Capital Beltway," have rallied around the couple. On Sunday night, supporters gathered on a ballfield to pay tribute to the family and the dogs. A banner on the wooden fence around Calvo's yard read, "Cheye and Trinity, We support you, Friends and Citizens of Berwyn Heights." Around it were dozens of handwritten messages from supporters.

In addition to being the part-time mayor, Calvo works at a nonprofit foundation that runs boarding schools. His wife is a state finance officer.

"When all of this happened I was flabbergasted," said next-door neighbor Edward Alexander. "I was completely stunned because those dogs didn't hurt anybody. They barely bark."

The case is the latest embarrassment for Prince George's County officials. A former police officer was sentenced in May to 45 years in prison for shooting two furniture deliverymen at his home last year, one of them fatally. He claimed that they attacked him. In June, a suspect jailed in the death of a police officer was found strangled in his cell.

Calvo said he was astonished that police have not only failed to apologize, but declined to clear the couple's names.

His wife spoke through tears as she described an encounter with a girl who used to see the couple walking their dogs.

"She gave me a big hug and she said, `If the police shot your dogs dead and did this to you, how can I trust them?'" Tomsic said. "I don't want people to feel like that. I just want them to be proud of our police and proud to live in Prince George's County."
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Thats bullshit, i would raise hell about it... shit like that pisses me off bad... gah...
 
Wow, thats the fucked up. The cops wont get anything for it. A while ago in the town next to mine to cops on the late night shift would meet in a parking lot and they both would get into one car. (If you know what I mean;)) They got caught for it, and all they got was 6 months paid suspension. Now what kind of punishment is that? You nail the hot chick officer on duty and then get a 6 month paid vacation for it? Doesnt make sense to me. :dunno:
 
You bust into the mayor's house and shoot his dogs?

I'll be surprised if these guys all the way up to whoever authorized the raid won't be able to work at a Taco Bell after this is done.

At least that is my hope.
 
"Your honor, both of these men are upstanding citizens, not only as officers, but at friends and neighbors too. They have a cleaner record than I do. These men only acted like anyone in their situation. They have been trained to protect themselves if they feel threatened in any way. They were following protocol your honor. They have been hired to protect the community, and that is exactly what they where doing, they were unaware of the nature of these animals." So on and so forth, juries eat that shit up.
 
Love the no knock warrants being executed by SWAT. If they would spend just a little more time doing police work shit like this would not happen as often.
 
Too bad the only time an investigation into their conduct, because of such circumstances, would be opened in when they bust into the mayor's house.
 
the cops should have had more sense then to do some sort of thing like this to begin with, they already evidently had known that this was going n but did what they did anyways.

makes no sense to me. idiots
 
If killing a police dog is equal to killing an officer, then killing the mayor's dogs should be equal to killing a family member. Bring on the murder trial.
 
cartune said:
yeah i concur /\ he did state they were like their children didnt he.
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Having a badge doesn't make you any more human or alive than anyone else. The same goes for animals.

I guess they call it a "shield" because so many love to hide behind it.
 
Let's run the checklist

* Search Warrant Type didn't grant "no knock" entry

* Country Cops in City jurisdiction of a small town where the Mayor is probably on a first name basis with officers (my dad was mayor of a small town, bit of an expert on this lol)

* Shot two dogs, which were black labs, for barking

yeah these cops should be in the unemployment line looking for wages which will be garnished to satisfy a civil court judgment for the mayor's family. I normaly defend cops and even I am saying throw the book at them. Since this is a small town, and it was the mayor, no doubt the local cops are going to be out for blood since the country deputies fucked this up.
 
Can I point out that just because this guy was mayor doesn't make him an instant saint? Political corruption is a common thing, especially with lower level positions that don't get paid well.

The cops fucked up, no doubt. But it was in an attempt to enforce the law.
 
SlushboxTeggy said:
Can I point out that just because this guy was mayor doesn't make him an instant saint? Political corruption is a common thing, especially with lower level positions that don't get paid well.

The cops fucked up, no doubt. But it was in an attempt to enforce the law.
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Who in their right mind gets thirty pounds of weed FedEx'ed to their house? This ought to have raised a red flag the size of Dallas over these cops' heads.
 
Sabz5150 said:
Who in their right mind gets thirty pounds of weed FedEx'ed to their house? This ought to have raised a red flag the size of Dallas over these cops' heads.
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Sometimes the easiest way to get away with something is to be blatantly obvious about it.
 
SlushboxTeggy said:
Can I point out that just because this guy was mayor doesn't make him an instant saint? Political corruption is a common thing, especially with lower level positions that don't get paid well.
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That's true, but if he wasn't a mayor, we probably wouldn't be hearing about it.
 
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