I'm going to have to call Sheriff Michael Jackson a disgrace

to that badge he wears.
The Prince George's County sheriff's office has concluded that deputies did nothing wrong when they charged into the home of the mayor of Berwyn Heights during a drug investigation last summer and fatally shot his family's two dogs.

The findings of the internal review "are consistent with what I've felt all along: My deputies did their job to the fullest extent of their abilities," Sheriff Michael Jackson said at a news conference.
Yup. And how much you want to bet, if one of those shots had killed or crippled one of the people in that house, Sheriff Jackson would be trying to blame them for it? And saying the same damn excuses?
"It's outrageous," he said. "Not only is he not admitting any wrongdoing, but he's saying this went down the way it was supposed to and he's actually commending his police officers for what they did."
Because breaking into a house for no good reason and killing dogs is apparently excusable as 'part of the job'.
Members of the SWAT team killed Calvo's black Labrador retrievers after deputies broke down his door and raided his home in search of a drug-filled package that had been addressed to Calvo's wife.

Law enforcement officials have since acknowledged that Calvo and his wife, Trinity Tomsic, were victims of a smuggling scheme that used a FedEx driver to ship drugs. They said the couple knew nothing about the box. County police, who were leading the drug investigation, have said they were unaware it was the mayor's house.
Two things: one, this is a raid that should never have happened. Two, that "We didn't know it was the mayor's house!" is interesting; like if it was, they'd have done it differently for a politician that for some stupid citizen without 'official' standing?
In an interview, Jackson reiterated his explanation that a scream by Calvo's mother-in-law, Georgia Porter, who saw officers in SWAT gear running toward the house, justified the shooting.

Porter "corroborated that she did scream out 'SWAT.' She admitted to that, and [Calvo] admitted to hearing that upstairs in the house," Jackson said. "That threw out the procedure of knocking and announcing, because now [officers were] compromised."
Three: notice how they keep saying 'admitted', like they were admitting guilt for something? Four, yeah, that sure justifies shooting the dogs, doesn't it? "...knocking and announcing..." my ass.

As I recall, at first they denied that the one dog was running away; now?
One dog was shot four times by the front door. Calvo has said his younger dog was running away from officers when it was shot twice, including once in a hind leg. Jackson said deputies thought the dog was running toward another deputy in the home.
Awww, isn't that a convenient excuse?
"I'm sorry for the loss of their family pets," Jackson said. "But this is the unfortunate result of the scourge of drugs in our community. Lost in this whole incident was the criminal element. . . . In the sense that we kept these drugs from reaching our streets, this operation was a success."
Not sorry apparently for an unnecessary raid that could have gotten innocent people killed, not sorry for scaring hell out of everybody but "this operation was a success." Except that they could have knocked on the damned door and acted like peace officers instead of strapping on their ninja gear and getting to shoot someone's dogs.

No, I'm not feeling charitable. I'm sick of LE officials excusing bullcrap actions because "They were following procedure" or "They thought the dogs were a threat" and all the other crap used to prevent the officers involved from facing any real penalty for what they do.