http://www.wusa9.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=74799&catid=189
Finally, someone asked some of the right questions:
Police Arrest Suspects Linked to Berwyn Heights Raid
Posted By: Phyllis Armstrong 1 day ago
PALMER PARK, Md. (WUSA) - - The raid on the home of the mayor of Berwyn Heights has led to new evidence and two arrests.
Prince George's County Police say their investigation of the marijauna trafficking case has not completely cleared Mayor Cheye Calvo and his wife, but it's come close.
"It's most likely they were innocent victims," said Chief Melvin High.
Investigators say the two suspects now being questioned have been linked to the 32 pounds of marijuana found in a package addressed to the mayor's wife, Trinity Tomsic. The package was seized in the July 29th raid after police officers, posing as delivery men, dropped the package off at Calvo's home.
"We have two arrests. One had some involvement in the parcel delivery. It was an an independent contractor. The other person was the intended person for the parcel," said Major Mark Magaw, commander of the county's narcotics enforcement division.
Police announced they had seized 417 pounds of marijuana worth about $3.6 million dollars. Another 100 pounds was confiscated today.
Chief High says county police have seized at least $28 million dollars in drugs this year alone. He put the number of parcel extradictions at more than 100 a year.
The seizures are linked to different people allegedly involved in using the parcel delivery system in this region and nationwide to distribute drugs. Investigators are trying to sort out whether the two suspects arrested and the other individuals are all part of the same drug organization.
"The organization would use a courier or delivery person, a contracted person to deliver parcels. They would make arrangements with these people to either deliver the parcels to them or in some circumstances, leave them at an address, and then the drug trafficker would come back behind it and pick it up," said Major Magaw.
Yet, many questions remain about the execution of a search warrant on Calvo's home. Berwyn Heights Police Chief Patrick Murphy says county officers and the Sheriff's Department SWAT team did not request or receive the authority to enter without knocking or announcing themselves.
"The law simply does not allow police officers to take this kind of initiative on their own without extremely grave, urgent, exigent circumstances or the authorization of a judge," said Chief Murphy.
According to Murphy, state law does allow for exceptions when a judge grants permission because of information presented or circumstances that indicate the officers could be in endangered or evidence destroyed.
The warrant obtained by county police does not list any evidence of weapons being present or any history of violence at the 8522 Edmonston Road address. Chief High told reporters officers did nothing wrong when they broke down Calvo's door, killed the family's two Labrador retrievers, and handcuffed the mayor.
"This appeared to be a major drug trafficking activity,...and violence and the use of a firearm is quite often associated with that," said Chief High.
Sheriff Michael Jackson offered another explanation for why his SWAT officers did not knock and request entry.
"The specific circumstances was that our team was compromised. The mother-in-law saw them as they approached the house. She gave a yell to whomever else at the time was in the house," said Sheriff Jackson.
Mayor Calvo will discuss the arrest of suspects and the warrant issue at a news conference Thursday. His attorney, Timothy Maloney, issued a written statement blasting the explanation for a "no-knock" entry:
"These arrests confirm that Trinity Tomsic was a random victim of identity theft at the hands of major drug traffickers. This crime was compounded by law enforcement when it illegally invaded the Calvo home, tied up the mayor and his mother-in-law, and killed the family dogs. The suggestion that Mayor Calvo's mother-in-law's reaction to seeing a SWAT team in her front yard justified an illegal no-knock entry is outrageous," said Maloney in the statement.
The mayor's counsel also disputes authorities claims that they killed the dogs, Chase and Payton, because one of the dogs was coming at officers. Maloney says one dog was running away and the other was shot some distance from the front door.
Still, county law enforcement officials say they do not owe the Calvo's an apology. Chief High defended the officers actions, but expressed regret over the death of the dogs.
"I'm an animal lover, a pet owner myself and so, I can certainly sympathize with that," Chief High said.
"There's nothing that can replace those animals that they [Calvos] dearly loved, and I'm sure will hold close in their hearts for the rest of their lives. But I think an apology from the police chief and the county sheriff would certainly go a long way towards healing this, this community," said Chief Murphy.
Maloney told 9 NEWS NOW that no decision has been made about whether the Calvos will file a lawsuit. He says at this point the couple wants to know how this happened, and how police can prevent it from every happening again to innocent people.
Written by Phyllis Armstrong
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Chief Murphy sure is getting a lot of press time considering his agency had nothign to do with the excecution of the warrant.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...AR2008080702161.html?sid=ST2008080603533&pos=
FBI to Review Raid That Killed Mayor's Dogs
By Rosalind S. Helderman and Aaron C. Davis
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, August 8, 2008; Page B01
The FBI has launched a review of the violent law enforcement raid of the home of Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo in Prince George's County last week that resulted in the deaths of the family's two dogs.
The FBI announcement came in response to a call yesterday by Calvo and his wife, Trinity Tomsic, for such a probe. Calvo and Tomsic suggested a systemic problem might exist in county law enforcement.
"We have witnessed a frightening law enforcement culture in which the law is disregarded, the rights of innocent occupants are ignored and the rights of innocent animals mean nothing," Calvo said, surrounded by county elected leaders and friends on the front lawn of his house. "A shadow was cast over our good names. We were harmed by the very people who took an oath to protect us."
June White Dillard, president of the NAACP's local chapter, also called for a thorough investigation and said Calvo experienced police action familiar to many young black men in the county.
County police said they would cooperate with the FBI review. "We've tried to establish a pattern of transparency and clarity about the way in which we do our work, and I'm sure the chief will be cooperative and forthcoming in any investigation," Prince George's police spokeswoman Sharon Taylor said yesterday.
Sheriff's Department spokesman Sgt. Mario Ellis said the department had not been informed of the FBI's plans. "If they deem it necessary to do that, we welcome it," Ellis said, adding that the department has also begun the standard review it conducts any time a deputy fires a weapon.
The Prince George's Sheriff's Office SWAT team and county narcotics officers raided the home after Calvo brought in a 32-pound marijuana-filled package addressed to his wife. They tied up Tomsic's mother and Calvo, and they interrogated the mayor for hours.
On Wednesday, police announced they had arrested a package deliveryman and another man in connection with a scheme to smuggle marijuana by intercepting packages addressed to unsuspecting recipients.
Police Chief Melvin C. High said that Calvo and his wife were probably innocent victims of the conspiracy but that the case remained under investigation. He and Sheriff Michael Jackson defended the actions of deputies and officers who carried out the raid.
FBI reviews precede investigations and are used to determine if law enforcement agencies followed procedures. The agents will likely look at both the forceful entry of the mayor's home by sheriff's deputies and the narcotics investigation by county police that led to the search, legal experts said.
They will examine "what information did the police have about the residence at the time they went there, what justification did they have to enter under those circumstances," said Jim Sotos, a lawyer who has written about evolving search and seizure law.
Sotos said they will also probably review other search warrants served by the sheriff's office and county police in recent years.
An attorney came forward yesterday to allege a possible pattern of animal abuse by the sheriff's department. Michael Winkleman said he is representing another family whose dog was shot by sheriff's deputies in November, along with a woman who is suing the department for searching her home without a warrant and threatening to shoot her dog.
In the first case, Winkleman said, sheriff's deputies arrived at the Accokeek home of Frank and Pamela Myers with a warrant for another house on their street. After the couple informed the deputies of their error, they continued to question the couple and looked around their home.
As they spoke, the couple's 5-year-old German boxer began barking in a yard, out of sight. Soon after, according to Winkleman, the couple heard gunshots, and they found the dog shot to death. He said the family is preparing to file suit.
In another case, Upper Marlboro resident Amber James has filed a $4 million lawsuit accusing sheriff's deputies of searching her home without a warrant in May 2007 while looking for her sister, who lived in Capitol Heights. According to the suit, deputies falsely claimed to have a warrant and searched every room of the home. When they did not find the sister, the suit alleges, they threatened to return the next day and search again, saying that if they did, James's dog would be dead.
Some lawyers and leading law enforcement groups said deputies should have known to do everything possible to avoid killing Calvo's dogs.
Courts across the country in recent years have ruled that it is almost always unacceptable for police to kill pets in the course of searching a home. Cases in three federal circuits have found that killing pets amounts to unreasonable seizure.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to stop a lawsuit by the Hells Angels motorcycle club after police in San Jose killed three guard dogs during a 1998 raid. That case, which also involved police taking items from the group's clubhouse, resulted in $1.8 million in settlements.
"It was the fact that the dogs were shot that made the public sympathetic to the Hells Angels," said Karen Snell, who was the club's attorney during the case and has since successfully tried similar cases.
Killing dogs is considered a "last resort," said John Gnagey, executive director of the National Tactical Officers Association, a group that provides tactical training for police departments and is advocating a national accreditation system for SWAT programs.
The group recommends that SWAT teams develop multiple plans for dealing with animals during a raid. "You have a plan so that, first, maybe you hit it with a fire extinguisher, and if that doesn't work, maybe you give it a good swift kick into an adjoining room and close the door," Gnagey said.
Yesterday, Calvo also called on the sheriff's office to release photos taken the night of the raid of the two black Labrador retrievers, which he said would prove the dogs did not engage deputies as Jackson said Wednesday. He said the children of 3,000-person Berwyn Heights would testify to the dogs' gentle nature, and he said deputies had killed them "for sport."
He also asked Jackson to take back his suggestion that the SWAT team was justified in raiding the home without knocking first, ordinarily required by law, because his mother-in-law had screamed upon spotting officers. That suggestion shifted blame for the no-knock entry onto her, Calvo said.
Police had been tracking the package since Arizona, where a police dog had alerted them to the presence of drugs. It had been left on the porch by police posing as deliverymen and was later seized unopened from inside the home.
Staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.
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Question: Why do officers have to knock?
Answer: To announce their presence, which as a general rule they must do .
Question: Are they announced at the point that occupants see them and begin shouting to other occupants to that effect?
Answer: Ahh, the crux of the matter.
Question: What does the SWAT team in question look like when it deploys?
Answer: That answer will matter more than many realize or will be reported.
