Police in Prince George's County, MD have completed their internal investigation of the botched raid on the home of Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo. Their disgusting, though unsurprising, conclusion is that they did a terrific job:
Except that they could easily have intercepted the package before it was ever delivered, thereby eliminating the need for the violent raid entirely. Killing the dogs was completely unrelated to the goal of intercepting the drugs and it's just supremely dishonest to equate those two outcomes. Radley Balko has more on the fundamental incoherence underlying these latest claims from the PG County Sheriff's Office.
In the end, Sheriff Jackson is making a powerful statement to the public: this could happen to you. He's proud of his officers' actions and he has no intention of trying to prevent this from happening again. Cheye Calvo filed a lawsuit today that will hopefully change that.
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.
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"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." [Washington Post]
Except that they could easily have intercepted the package before it was ever delivered, thereby eliminating the need for the violent raid entirely. Killing the dogs was completely unrelated to the goal of intercepting the drugs and it's just supremely dishonest to equate those two outcomes. Radley Balko has more on the fundamental incoherence underlying these latest claims from the PG County Sheriff's Office.
In the end, Sheriff Jackson is making a powerful statement to the public: this could happen to you. He's proud of his officers' actions and he has no intention of trying to prevent this from happening again. Cheye Calvo filed a lawsuit today that will hopefully change that.
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