SWAT team insanity

By Libby

The Baltimore Sun continues to follow the story about the Maryland mayor whose home was raided. The added details are horrendous.

When the shooting stopped, two dogs lay dead. A mayor sat in his boxers, hands bound behind his back. His handcuffed mother-in-law was sprawled on the kitchen floor, lying beside the body of one of the family pets that police had killed before her eyes.

Even if they were guilty, how unnecessary is that sort of intimidation? Are we to believe a bunch of armed cops might feel so threatened by an old lady that she has to lie on the floor for two hours next to a dead dog? Worse yet, the cops did not have a no-knock warrant and tracked the dog's blood all over the home while they were ransacking it looking for some justification for their over the top Gestapo tactics.

The town's chief of police is still livid about not being notified in advance of the raid, noting the sheriff's SWAT team was "wearing street clothes, masks and carrying weapons as they approached the mayor's house." For all the local cops knew, this could have been a criminal home invasion and a confrontation could likely have become a shoot out.

It's clear that this use of force was completely unwarranted in this instance and I was right in thinking this was a set-up.

This week Prince George's police arrested two men for orchestrating a plot to deliver marijuana to the addresses of unsuspecting recipients -- among them, Calvo's wife, Trinity Tomsic.

One wonders what happened to the other people who were targeted? Maybe those raids were called off after this fiasco, but the long history of SWAT team drug raids is rife with the same kind of misconduct. The only good news is, with such a high profile victim as the mayor, maybe the issue will finally get the attention it deserves and something will be done to stop it.

Comments

[Damien]

So let's get this straight:

- The cops didn't announce their presence or present their credentials.
- They didn't have a no-knock warrant.
- They were wearing civies.
- They didn't notify the local police.
- They shot two dogs.
- And they arrested the local mayor for being the unsolicited recipient in a drug shipping scheme.

Without even getting into the tactical justifications for shooting dogs at the scene these SWAT guys are lucky they're not from my municipality. Not all cops are crooked, and these bastards would be looking at hard jail time within the day.

They're just likely no police were around or, yes, there very well could have been a major firefight. This is the kind of crap you expect to see from gang assaults, not police raids.

[Libby]

Hard to tell the criminals from the SWAT cops these days Damien.

[geoff]

Hi Libby

I had seen the WaPo piece on the botched SWAT raid late last week and Cato's coverage here: http://tinyurl.com/68h8yz but missed the Baltimore Suns follow up.

I guess I'm generally left speechless - that couple are drug dealers or more precisely that couple and the dogs and the wife's mother are a gang of drug dealers.

Someone seems on drugs and it's starting to look like it might be the boys/girls in blue, oops sorry, the persons in black covered in Kevlar and brandishing the mp5s.

The dog killing pattern is amazing. Have you seen this old now, I guess, piece by Radley Balko "Drug War Goes to the Dogs": http://tinyurl.com/6ypypc.

His longer article on paramilitary police raids is here for interest:http://tinyurl.com/hjspc

I wonder if Obama given he makes it to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, is it?, will put or try to put a stop to this particularly silly war.

[geoff]

I meant to, but forgot, to include in my above comment above a link to Peter Moskos' site "Cop in the Hood": http://www.copinthehood.com/ he seems like an eminently sensible guy and not at all like the SWAT teams roaming around outside of DC.

Of interesting, I noticed at the end of the AP video clip on the BSun page the brother referred to the mayor et al as "civilians" and in effect collateral damage i.e a type A military reason for killing civilians: there were on the battlefield, the enemy was using them as shields, etc. etc. etc. etc. .... .

[Libby]

Good points Geoff and thanks for the links.