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Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo sent us his terrific statement in response to the new SWAT reporting law passed by the Maryland legislature:

"Although the botched raid of my home and killing of our dogs, Payton and Chase, have received considerable attention in the media, it is important to underscore that this bill is about much more than an isolated, high-profile mistake.  It is about a growing and troubling trend where law enforcement agencies are using SWAT teams to perform ordinary police work.  Prince George's County police acknowledges deploying SWAT teams between 400 and 700 a year -- that's twice a day -- and other counties in the state have said that they also deploy their special tactical units hundreds of times a year.  The hearings on these bills have brought to light numerous botched and ill-advised raids in Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Howard, Montgomery, and Prince George's counties that also have had devastating effects on the lives of innocent people and undermined faith in law enforcement.  HB 1267 will shine this light, provide oversight, and demand accountability as a matter of course."

It's about time. No matter how many of these stories I cover, the scope of the problem continues to send shivers down my spine. Calvo's own story is troubling enough before one considers that there are so many more that follow a disturbingly similar plotline.

Calvo also comments on the fact that law-enforcement interests directly opposed his efforts to increase oversight and accountability:

"Although I applaud lawmakers for passing this bill over the objections of law enforcement, I was disappointed that state law enforcement groups decided to oppose this measure rather than embrace it as an opportunity to restore the public trust.  I remain especially concerned with the argument put forward that only law enforcement should police itself and that it is somehow inappropriate for elected leaders to legislate oversight and accountability.  I cannot disagree with this argument more.  As an elected officials, we must take full responsibility for the law enforcement departments that we fund and authorize, and we must hold our law enforcement officials to the highest standards and ideals.  I strongly support law enforcement and believe that so many of our officers are heroes.  However, it is perfectly consistent to support them, provide oversight, and demand accountability -- just as our constituents support, oversee, and demand accountability from us."

Well said. Still, I'm honestly appalled that such arguments even have to be raised. After everything that's happened, how dare they object to basic oversight? When law enforcement directly lobbies against accountability, that is just an affront to the public interest. It's outrageous and although the right result was reached, there remain serious questions to be asked about the agenda of those in law-enforcement who took a leadership role in opposing this bill.

With their hands stained in innocent blood, they arrogantly insist that we avert our eyes. Thanks to Cheye Calvo and Maryland's legislators, we'll do exactly the opposite.

Law enforcement officials justify the frequent use of heavily-armed SWAT teams and no-knock warrants -- police do about 50,000 SWAT raids per year -- as protecting officer safety.

Law enforcement likes to argue that it needs to resort to heavy-handed tactics such as SWAT-style raids and no-knock warrants because drug law enforcement is just so darned dangerous. You know the spiel: "We're outgunned and up against crazed drug dealers, so we need to come on like gangbusters for our own safety."

But I'm in the process of reviewing police deaths in the drug war since the beginning of 2008 for a Chronicle article that will appear Friday, and so far, I've only found two officers who were killed in drug raids during this time. I'm using the Officer Down Memorial Page and the National Law Enforcement Memorial data bases and I still have to dig a little deeper into the numbers and the discrepancies between the two, but so far, it doesn't appear that enforcing the nation's drug laws is that dangerous for police.

For civilians, it is perhaps a different story. Nobody's keeping a data base of citizens killed by the police, let alone those killed by police enforcing the drug laws, although I have a few ideas on where to come up with some figures, or at least some especially horrendous cases. I'll be looking into that, as well.

I'll be talking to as many cops, criminologists, and other interested parties as I can, but at this point, it seems that it is going to be hard to justify the overwhelming use of force typical of police drug raids. As much as they would like to think they are, cops are not US military Special Forces units, and drug law violators are not terrorist fugitives. Look for the story on Friday.

Cheye Calvo's efforts to bring transparency to the use of aggressive SWAT raids in Maryland are moving forward:

Delegates adopted a bill, on a 126 to 9 vote, that would require law enforcement agencies to report every six months on their use of SWAT teams, including what kinds of warrants the teams serve and whether any animals are killed during raids. The bill was prompted by the case of Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo, whose two black Labrador retrievers were shot and killed during a botched raid by a Prince George's County Sheriff's Office SWAT team in July.

Calvo has said he was surprised to learn that police departments use the heavily armed units far more routinely than they once did but that it is difficult to get reliable statistics about SWAT raids. The Senate has passed a similar measure. [Washington Post]

The bill doesn’t actually reform anything, but it aims to create a record of how, when, and why SWAT teams are deployed in Maryland. This effort has the potential to reveal a great deal about the reckless over-reliance on aggressive drug raid tactics. That's exactly why police opposed it, despite utterly lacking any compelling arguments against such oversight.

Good work by Maryland's legislators and another big moment for Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo, who has become a valiant champion of justice following the tragic killing of his two dogs during a botched drug raid last summer.