That's some fine police work there, Lou.

Police burst into home of Maryland mayor, shoot his dogs dead, handcuff him before he could put pants on, ransack his house and question him for hours. . .the cops didn't even know they were raiding the mayor's house, didn't believe he was the mayor, and they did NOT have a "no-knock" warrant. And yeah, he hadn't done anything.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,399882,00.html

http://www.examiner.com/a-1523469~Warrant_...yor_s_home.html

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal...0,4607054.story

Good to know the ppl we entrust to regulate our society have their shit together.

Got us some smart ones there.

You know, I don't have a problem with them making mistake's now and then. I mean, we are all only human and mistakes can be made. What I do have a problem with is the indifference they take once it comes to light that they made a mistake. This is where the problem begins.

It's the same attitude the federal government takes all the time, then covers up.

Atomm wrote:You know, I don't have a problem with them making mistake's now and then. I mean, we are all only human and mistakes can be made. What I do have a problem with is the indifference they take once it comes to light that they made a mistake. This is where the problem begins.

It's the same attitude the federal government takes all the time, then covers up.

Oh yeah, mistakes happen, but this was kind of a big one, and it disturbs me that they didn't know whose house they were hitting. Shouldn't they do, like, at least a Google search on ppl who they're raiding, if they can't do actual police work? Seems like the background on who they're serving the warrant on might be a good thing to know.

Imagine this: You're changing clothes after a long day at work, masked men invade your home, and there's gunfire going off in your house. Now your pets are dead for no good reason, and these guys that are supposed to be protecting you are tracking the pooled blood thru your house, ransacking it. . .and imagine you and your wife in handcuffs, and maybe your kids are around for all this.

It's just scary, knowing you can be a law-abiding citizen and be subjected to this. Also, when they serve their no-knock warrants, they burst thru doors unannounced, wearing masks and waving guns (this wasn't even a no-knock warrant, but they did it anyway). Cops and law-abiding citizens have been killed this way, with the citizens thinking it's a criminal home invasion and grabbing a gun, and the cops raiding the wrong address.

With all the things I've read about, cops scare me. . .and I've been friends with 2 cops, and my uncle was a state trooper.

My best friend is a cop outside of Nashville. He had just made the swat team and something like this happened on his very first raid. I won't go into details, but it made national news just like this.

The one caveat in that case was the fact that it was one of those weird house addresses with a house in front, and a smaller house out back. You know, the kind of address the pizza delivery guy never gets right.

You can probably figure it out from there.

I agree there is no excuse for a mistake like this. But let me relay one quick story. This is why I think cops have one of the hardest jobs out there. In my later teen years I was seriously considering being a cop. It was a good fit for me.

I talked to my uncle who had been a cop and quit the force. He relayed a story of a time he pulled up behind a car that was parked somewhere it shouldn't be (maybe a graveyard?). He approached the car slowly and correctly. As he approach the passenger side he yelled they were police and he wanted to see hands. the passenger and the driver payed no attention despite a window being open and no doubt they had heard him yell. He yelled one or more times. he cautiously approached and as he got near the door the passenger quickly grabbed under the seat as if pulling a gun. My uncle had to at that second decide his course of action. The person in the care was making an action as if they were grabbing a weapon.

Had he shot he would have been up on criminal charges, had the guy been reaching for a gun, my uncle would be dead now. fortunately, he was scared and didn't shoot, fortunatly the person in the car was just acting stupid.

I never wanted to be in a decision making situation as this.

The cops in this story may have been warned that there were dogs that would attack. The mayor may have been doing something that seemed odd given the cops preperation. I don't agree with no knock warrants, but they do serve a purpose. remember you are only getting one side of this story.

Bubbaspanky wrote:I agree there is no excuse for a mistake like this. But let me relay one quick story. This is why I think cops have one of the hardest jobs out there. In my later teen years I was seriously considering being a cop. It was a good fit for me.

I talked to my uncle who had been a cop and quit the force. He relayed a story of a time he pulled up behind a car that was parked somewhere it shouldn't be (maybe a graveyard?). He approached the car slowly and correctly. As he approach the passenger side he yelled they were police and he wanted to see hands. the passenger and the driver payed no attention despite a window being open and no doubt they had heard him yell. He yelled one or more times. he cautiously approached and as he got near the door the passenger quickly grabbed under the seat as if pulling a gun. My uncle had to at that second decide his course of action. The person in the care was making an action as if they were grabbing a weapon.

Had he shot he would have been up on criminal charges, had the guy been reaching for a gun, my uncle would be dead now. fortunately, he was scared and didn't shoot, fortunatly the person in the car was just acting stupid.

I never wanted to be in a decision making situation as this.

The cops in this story may have been warned that there were dogs that would attack. The mayor may have been doing something that seemed odd given the cops preperation. I don't agree with no knock warrants, but they do serve a purpose. remember you are only getting one side of this story.

Someone was using random houses as a drug drop, FedEx'ing pounds of pot to homes, and having someone grab the package off the porch before the owners found it. FedEx or the police caught wind of this, and one of the packages was addressed to the mayor's house. They set up a sting operation. Their plan was to place the package on the porch and see who picks it up. Mayor comes home, sees a package, and takes it into the house. Given the nature of this sting, I don't think anyone could have told them anything about the dogs. Also, given that one of the dogs was running away when it was shot (as per the mayor), it seems to me that shooting all dogs at the scene is now standard operating procedure.

In this case, they did not have a no-knock warrant, but they entered like they did, and they didn't know anything about the ppl whose home they were bursting into. I hate to drag out the old saw about 'with great power comes great responsibility', but it applies. I'd like to see a little more responsibility with the power.

I know it's not an easy job. I also know that, if someone ever tells a story like the one above with me in it, I won't be the cop. Given the many things I've read over the years, they frighten me. . .and if I ever am in a story like the one above, or worse, the difficulty of their job will be cold comfort.

I had something happen, not once, but twice as a teenager involving cops that really scared me. The part that scared me was the amount of power they could wield at any whim.

Here's one. I was 17. My best friend and I went to see a movie. The theater was across the street from the mall we worked at together. The theater was set up like most theaters. The main parking lot was in front and one side of the theater had additional parking. There was a wide road that went in front of the theater and another than ran perpendicular to the main parking. It also happen to stop at the side parking.

We were leaving the theater and decided to go see how our fellow coworkers were doing as it was right after closing time. We spent a few minutes saying hi and went back to our car, which was now parked outside the mall. When I got to my car there was a minivan and a cop car beside it.

From the minivan was a woman screaming frantically at the cop that my car had tried to run here and her family over "in front" of the theater. When we got there, the cop started questioning me about being the driver of the car. I was polite and answered his questions. I also asked where the lady said this reckless endangerment happened. The cop said in front of the theater, IE, the road that run between the main entrance and the main parking. At which point, I told the cop that it was impossible that I did what she said because I parked on the side of the theater and went straight out the exit road, never driving in front of the theater or even crossing the path of pedestrian foot traffic from the theater. My best friend confirmed what I was saying. It was also mentioned that we always park on the side of the theater because it's easier to get out without having to go through foot traffic or other cars.

The whole time, the lady is screaming that I tried to run over her kids. Her husband is trying to get her to calm down. Even though I was telling the truth, my being arrested and charged came down to one question. The cop asked the woman if she saw the driver and could identify him. If she had lied at this point, especially since she knew I was the driver and she believed it was my car that had tried to hit her, I would have been screwed. Luckily, she said she did not get a good look at the driver. At that point, the cop told her there was nothing he could do and she left.

While all of this was going on, my best friend went inside the mall and called our dads. They had made it to the mall about the time the cop was finishing up. My dad, being the kind of guy he is, set there talking to the cop after the lady left. Me, being a scared 17 year old kid, let out a half sigh, hysterical laugh. At this point, the cop said right in front of my dad something about my smugness and that even though the lady couldn't ID me, he better never pull me over.

That one incident forever changed how I view authority, cops and how little I can do if they decide to take matters into their own hands.

Atomm wrote:That one incident forever changed how I view authority, cops and how little I can do if they decide to take matters into their own hands.

Indeed! I've had a couple of bad experiences with asshole cops as well. Growing up in a small rural community brings out the worse candidates for officers. All of them barely graduated HS and most of them needed a parent to sign permission slips for them to carry a handgun. These are the 18yr old hokies that can only pull you over for going a mile over the speed limit, but if your in a convenience store thats being robbed they arrive 30mins later with about a dozen cars well after the perps have fled.

Heh, I once outran a cop chasing me on RR2 on my bike. I think he just didn't have the balls to drive over 120mph 🙂 Then a few months later I moved to Pgh to finish school and got nailed for driving my GF's car with a expired sticker, only by hours even, and was promptly tossed into jail because I had a WV driver's license.

About the only kinda cops I respect are the State Police, or academy trained large city cops. The rest of them are largely jerks.

Atomm wrote:At this point, the cop said right in front of my dad something about my smugness and that even though the lady couldn't ID me, he better never pull me over.
That one incident forever changed how I view authority, cops and how little I can do if they decide to take matters into their own hands.

That would be fun to hear at any age, but I'd have browned my pants as a teen.

I used to work in the sporting goods dept of a sporting goods store. . . sounds redundant, but only about 25% of the store was hardware - the rest was clothing and shoes. I worked the gun counter (shotguns, and ammo for many different guns), and the fishing/bow/camping area a lot. Some local cops came in frequently. They were amongst the rudest, meanest customers we had. . .just scary ppl. We'd argue over whose turn it was to deal with them. I got the impression they looked at everybody else as a nuisance or a potential problem.

I'd love to have the same respect and trust in them that I had as a child, but it's just not there now.

Found this follow-up during my 'net rounds. Mayor Calvo talks about the raid. Only a couple of days old.

Link to MP3 podcast DL (About 8 minutes)
http://www.cato.org/dailypodcast/cheyecalv...ts_20080912.mp3


I poked around afterwards and found this. It's about a month old, but it's nice to have video, and the mayor's wife talks a bit.

About 7 minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qdjp0_I8FV8

Dunno if your interested, but it's easy enough for me to post it, in case you are.

Oh sure, post the gut wrencher.....

Let's keep an eye on this. I want to see someone pay for what happened.

Atomm wrote:Oh sure, post the gut wrencher.....

Let's keep an eye on this. I want to see someone pay for what happened.

Yeah, it was a gut-wrencher, and that little girl said it perfectly.

I can't say that I'd mind seeing someone pay for this screw-up, but I'd REALLY like to see some changes made. If this sort of thing can happen to upstanding, high-profile ppl like these, then no one is safe. You can keep your nose clean, go about your daily business, then suddenly you door is busted, you're on the floor in cuffs, looking at your dead pets - if your lucky. Sometimes people are killed-civilians AND cops.

As the mayor says, due diligence. No one's saying police work is easy, or safe, but when you're given a gun and power over others, you need to approach that with a strong sense of duty and responsibility. You can't go half-assing it, breaking down doors when you're the warrant doesn't say you can, or cruise into an area without liaising with local authorities on what you're doing and who you're going after. . .and fer cryin' out loud, KNOW WHO THE FUCK YOU'RE BUSTING, AND EXACTLY WHAT HOUSE YOU'RE RAIDING! At least get that much right. It's kind of important.

DocJon wrote:As the mayor says, due diligence. No one's saying police work is easy, or safe, but when you're given a gun and power over others, you need to approach that with a strong sense of duty and responsibility. You can't go half-assing it, breaking down doors when you're the warrant doesn't say you can, or cruise into an area without liaising with local authorities on what you're doing and who you're going after. . .and fer cryin' out loud, KNOW WHO THE FUCK YOU'RE BUSTING, AND EXACTLY WHAT HOUSE YOU'RE RAIDING! At least get that much right. It's kind of important.

👍

I had a long post here but the power flickered and I lost it. It boils down to the more important your job is, the more important it is that you do it well. Many people seem to have lost that idea somewhere along the way.