SHOOT FIRST, ASK LATER

In Prince George's, A Drug Bust Goes Awry

The drug raid by Prince George's County law officers on the home of
Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo last week was a Keystone Kops
operation from start to finish.

Acting on a tip that a 32-pound package of marijuana had been sent by
Federal Express from Arizona to Mr. Calvo's home (addressed to his
wife, Trinity Tomsic), Prince George's police swung into action. Which
is to say they got on the phone, calling law enforcement agencies to
see who might have a SWAT team available to bust the unsuspecting
Calvo family. (It seems the police department's own team was tied up.)
After being turned down at least once, they finally struck a deal with
the Prince George's Sheriff's Office, whose track record with domestic
disputes is extensive but whose experience with drug busts is slight.
And it showed.

Without bothering to alert Berwyn Heights police, sheriff's deputies
moved into position. Posing as a deliveryman, a deputy took the
package to the family's door. After Mr. Calvo's mother-in-law
initially refused to sign for it, the package was finally taken into
the home, where it sat, unopened, on the living room floor. Whereupon
the deputies, guns drawn, kicked in the door, stormed the house and
shot to death the Calvos' two Labrador retrievers, one of them,
apparently, as it attempted to flee. The canine threat thus
dispatched, the mayor -- in his briefs -- and his mother-in-law were
handcuffed and interrogated in close proximity to the bloodied corpses
of their dogs.

Within an hour, it seems, the police concluded that something was
seriously wrong and that there was at least a strong possibility that
the Calvos -- whose home contained not the slightest evidence of
involvement in the drug trade -- were unsuspecting victims. The
deputies left without making arrests. And yesterday, county police
announced the arrest of a deliveryman and another person suspected in
a scheme to smuggle hundreds of pounds of marijuana by shipping
packages addressed to unsuspecting recipients such as the Calvos.

The Post's Rosalind S. Helderman has reported that when deputies
stormed the Calvo household, they didn't even have a no-knock search
warrant, the tool specifically designated under Maryland law to deal
with searches that police do not wish to announce because they could
be dangerous. They had plain vanilla warrants to enter the house and
seize the package. In other words, they should have knocked.

Law enforcement officers are justifiably cautious during drug busts,
knowing that traffickers frequently are armed and dangerous. In this
case, even a cursory investigation prior to the raid might have given
the authorities pause about kicking in the door and entering with guns
blazing. The sheriff, Michael Jackson, seems embarrassed by the whole
episode. He should be.