Tuesday, July 14, 2009

I do push stories about bad SWAT raids, which includes

wrong addresses and where they shouldn't have been used in the first place. Remember the idiot raid in Maryland where they shot the mayor's dogs? One of whom was hiding in a corner? And claimed it was to 'protect' themselves? Well,
Late last month, Berwyn Heights, Maryland Mayor Cheye Calvo took the unusual step of filing a civil rights lawsuit against the police department of his own county. The suit stems from a 2008 SWAT team raid on Calvo's house that resulted in the shooting deaths of his two black Labrador retrievers. In pushing back against the abuse he suffered at the hands of the Prince George's County police department, the mayor is helping expose a more widespread pattern of law enforcement carelessness and callousness throughout the state of Maryland.
...
Calvo also learned just how obstinate and unapologetic police and government officials can be, even (or especially) when they're clearly in the wrong. Prince George's County Police Chief Melvin High actually praised his officers' conduct, insisting that if they had to do it again they'd conduct the Calvo raid the same way. "Our investigators went in and showed both restraint and compassion," he told a local TV station.

Prince George's County Executive Jack Johnson told a local newspaper that Calvo would get no apology for the slaying of his dogs. Johnson's puzzling explanation: "Well, I think in America that is the apology, when we’re cleared.... At the end of the day, the investigation showed he was not involved. And that's, you know, a pat on the back for everybody involved, I think."

No, their being cleared proved you did the wrong damn things, you moron; and you SHOULD issue an apology. But that would require a sense of honor and some common sense, which seems in short supply in Maryland among LE personnel.

To give you an idea of just how bad this crap can be, among the people who contacted the mayor to say "No, you're not the only one",
• In August 2007 police raided the home of a Prince George's County couple to serve an outstanding arrest warrant for their son. The parents were handcuffed at gunpoint. Police later learned that the couple's son had already been in police custody for 12 days.
Just what kind of useless excuse for police are these? They never heard of 'record keeping'?

Besides the 'Law Enforcement, Sorry Excuse For' factor, do these people not know or just not care that they're making themselves the enemy of honest people? That they're trashing the inclination to trust them?

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