On Tuesday, July 29, 2008, a SWAT team from Prince George's County conducted a narcotics raid on the home of Berwyn Heights mayor Cheye Calvo and his wife, Trinity Tomsic. Both of their pet black labs were shot and killed.
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DC swat raid mayor Cheye Calvo
Washington Post:
Police Raid Berwyn Heights Mayor's Home, Kill His 2 Dogs
Baltimore Sun:
SWAT team kills 2 dogs in raid of DC-area mayor's home after incognito delivery of marijauna
Apparenty the raid was conducted without providing the city police department with the customary notification.
Nobody was arrested during the raid.
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Originally Posted by Washington Post
"My government blew through my doors and killed my dogs," Calvo said. "They thought we were drug dealers, and we were treated as such. I don't think they really ever considered that we weren't."
Calvo described a chaotic scene, in which he -- wearing only underwear and socks -- and his mother-in-law were handcuffed and interrogated for hours. They were surrounded by the dogs' carcasses and pools of the dogs' blood, Calvo said.
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Mayor Calvo claimed not to know how or why the drugs end up on his doorstep:
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Originally Posted by Baltimore Sun
"We never opened the box. We have nothing to do with this box," Calvo said.
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Associated Press:
2 arrested in DC-area marijauna-smuggling scheme
It turns out the mayor's claims of innocence were well founded:
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Originally Posted by Associated Press
Police told The Washington Post the men, whose names weren't released, are suspects in a scheme to traffic 417 pounds of marijuana by mailing packages to unknowing recipients.
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More details emerge of the abysmal manner in which the SWAT team conducted themselves and of the mess they left behind ....
Huffington Post:
The Death of DC Suburban Mayor's Dogs Should Matter to Every American
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Originally Posted by Huffington Post
They tied up Calvo [in his boxer shorts] and his wife's mother and interrogated the mayor for hours.
Worse, without apparent provocation, they shot and killed the couples' two Labrador retrievers.
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Apparently the Prince George's SWAT team was not authorized to conduct a no-knock raid:
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Originally Posted by Huffington Post
... they did not have a warrant to break down the door without knocking, tie him up or shoot his dogs.
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Baltimore Sun:
Mayor Cheye Calvo described raid in e-mail to friends
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Originally Posted by Mayor Calvo in the Baltimore Sun
I was ushered downstairs in only my boxer shorts before I was bound and forced to kneel on the floor. My mother-in-law was bound face down in the kitchen. The dead body of my bigger and older dog, Payton, laid in a pool of blood on the other side of the living room. ...
The county police then proceeded to turn our house upside-down. I was moved to the kitchen, where I could see my little dog, Chase, lying in his own pool of blood. My mother-in-law watched them shoot him while he was running away. ...
After about 90 minutes ... Animal Control came to remove our dogs.
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In other words the perpetrators had an important part of the physical evidence of their misdeeds removed from Mayor Calvo's house.
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Originally Posted by Mayor Calvo in the Baltimore Sun
About three-and-a-half hours passed before they acknowledged that they had found nothing to connect us to the box ...
Then they left. The broken front door remained open and unsecured. Blood from my dogs was pooled and tracked throughout the house. Our belongings were pulled from drawers, closets, and trunks and tossed about, piled in the middle of rooms and on tables and beds.
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08-16-2008, 08:02 PM
Berwyn Heights, MD: Police Raid Mayor's Home, Shoot 2 Dogs
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