So ends the statement of the Sheriff of St. George County, Michael Jackson, regarding the raid on Berwyn Heights, Maryland Mayor Cheye Calvo’s home last summer."I'm sorry for the loss of their family pets," Jackson said. "But this is the unfortunate result of the scourge of drugs in our community. Lost in this whole incident was the criminal element. . . . In the sense that we kept these drugs from reaching our streets, this operation was a success."
The Washington Post has the story.The findings of the internal review "are consistent with what I've felt all along: My deputies did their job to the fullest extent of their abilities," Sheriff Michael Jackson said at a news conference.
Radley Balko is not so kind in his analysis. First, he lays the groundwork.
Then he deconstructs the official argument.Last summer, officers intercepted a package of marijuana at a delivery service warehouse. Despite the fact that they already knew of a drug distribution network in which dealers were sending packages of marijuana to random addresses with the intent of having them picked up by accomplices working for the delivery companies, the Sheriff’s Department raided Calvo’s just seconds after his mother-in-law brought the package into the house with no investigation into who actually lived there.
Is there any way to stop this recurring problem of "isolated incidents" and the whitewashing of home invasions by over-zealous law enforcement? This could be your home, or mine, the next time.First of all, the police intercepted the package at the warehouse. At that point, they had already kept the marijuana inside from “reaching the streets.” Everything that happened next was at the discretion of the officers who carried out the investigation and raid well after the marijuana had already been confiscated, which means they and they alone own the results of the raid.
Second, what happened to Calvo isn’t the “unfortunate result of the scourge of drugs in our community,” it’s the result of a bumbling, overly aggressive, wholly incompetent police department. And it’s the result of a drug warrior mentality that believes invading someone’s home with guns and filling their pets with bullets is an appropriate response to a possible violation of state marijuana laws. The raiding cops didn’t bother to notify the Berwyn Heights police chief before sending in the SWAT team, which would almost certainly have tipped them off to their mistake. They didn’t bother to do any investigation at all of who lived at Calvo’s residence. Their first resort was to use the most overwhelming force possible.
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