Police raid Md. mayor's home and kill his dogs

[grateful1]

Just thought I'd share.

linky

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How does it relate to us:

It's things like this that cause the feds to look more closely at items being shipped.

Just a thought.

 

[Infinity]

It would have made for a better story if it had said, "in it were 32 Cuban cigars." :laugh:

Brian

 

[Devil Doc]

That place in Md. had a pop. of less that 3000 at the 2000 census. It has a Volunteer FD. How could those cops not know he was the Mayor? Bunch of State Police rejects looking for fame, if ya ask me.

Doc.

 

[vinnyvega]

Someone might be losing their job for this FUBAR. My heart goes out to the Calvo family. My dog is like my own child.

 

[stevehawk]

Someone might be losing their job for this FUBAR. My heart goes out to the Calvo family. My dog is like my own child.

I was thinking the same thing. If someone came into my home and shot my dog, my wife would be totally devastated. We all know that mistakes happen, and the innocent often get in the way, but this seems a bit over the top.

 

[Jinxedwarrior]

Something about that story smells to me! If the package was being tracked ever since it drew the attention of a drug-sniffing dog in Arizona, then the Feds were running that show, not any local police. Local police might have been involved, and that seems unlikely as the Berwyn Heights police chief said his department should have been alerted ahead of time, but the Feds had to be in charge.

 

[Seanholio]

Something about that story smells to me! If the package was being tracked ever since it drew the attention of a drug-sniffing dog in Arizona, then the Feds were running that show, not any local police. Local police might have been involved, and that seems unlikely as the Berwyn Heights police chief said his department should have been alerted ahead of time, but the Feds had to be in charge.

Yeah, this stinks like a week-dead fish. Sounds like the DEA is going a bit cowboy.

 

[TBaGZ]

What a crock....There is no way in hell that they didn't know it was the mayors house in that lil town. Hmmph

 

[souldog]

Hmmm... This is definitely an odd situation indeed. In many cases like this, the media does not have all of the details involved in the entire case. Like any actions the police take, we don't know if the "part-time" Mayor has prior contacts/convictions for drug abuse, or if he has weapons registered to him. There's a million factors involved.


As far as the police killing one of the Labs "for sport," gunning down one of them as they ran away; the credence to that statement comes from a one-sided perspective of the dog owner. In a shooting an Officer may or may not have been involved in, witnesses and family accused this particular Officer of shooting a 4 year old girl in the leg with the supposed intention that the bullet would go through her small leg and hit her drug-induced father who was holding her hostage. That was not the case. The child was struck by a Deputy's .45 round. This particular Officer didn't even have his .45 ACP weapon out at the time of the shooting, but rather was using a .223 long rifle. Much can be lost in translation.


All that said: Poor execution of an op', bad intel, bad execution overall. I can sort of kind of not really understand the Officers not being able to identify the mayor, as he is a part-timer, but still...if you have your intel correctly, alot of these things could have been avoided. We only have a couple hundred Officers in our department, and our city is considered small, with only 100,000 citizens. But shoot, even WE all know the Mayor's NAME, if not his face. Heads will roll for this one.


As far as the dogs, that is absolutely horrible. I would not be able to shoot a dog, I love em' too much. I'd just take the bite, if it were me, but thats just my opinion. I believe that it is highly possible the dog was running away, and that still does not justify shooting an animal that is in retreat, but there is a possibility that the animal would return to attack. An animal in retreat is a passive threat, but still a threat. That said, if they had their intel right, they would know the mayor has two dogs, and should have brought a control stick or a pepperball gun.


Enough Monday Morning Quarterbacking from me. Thanks for posting the story Gary. These guys are gonna have a hard time explaining all that went on in those fateful two hours...

 

[cigarsarge]

Don't blame the officers that conducted the raid. Blame the higher ups that planned it. Something sounds strange about the whole mess...

As far as shooting dogs in a raid...I had to do it once. It was him or me. I don't regret shooting him...I regret the owner used him to protect his operation.