SWAT team busts into MD mayor’s home, kills dogs

I found a disturbing story today about a drug raid gone wrong. Police tracked a package of marijuana addressed to the wife of Berwyn Heights, Maryland mayor Cheye Calvo. When Calvo brought the package inside, deputies and county narcotics officers burst in unannounced, shot the mayor’s two Labradors dead, and handcuffed him and his mother-in-law for two hours while his dogs bled to death. Cheye’s wife Trinity Tomsic was apparently the innocent victim of identity theft in a drug-delivery scam.

“He was an aggressive licker,” Tomsic said of one dog.

Oh, and contrary to the sheriff spokesman’s statements, the warrant was not a no-knock warrant, nor was it delivered to the mayor upon their entering his premisesas required by law but days later, according to Calvo’s lawyer. Prince George’s County sheriff Michael Jackson denied this raid was a “failed operation,” yet his officers apparently didn’t even know they had just kicked in the door of the mayor.

The sheriff’s office has yet to apologize or exonerate Calvo and Tomsic.

I can’t count all the ways the Prince George’s County sheriff’s department screwed up on this raid, but I’m thinking their apology will come with quite a few zeros in it. I generally support law enforcement but when there are guns involved there is just no excuse for not doing your homework.