....but how often do we hear of really dumb cops?

Shoot First, Ask Later
In Prince George's, a drug bust goes awry.

Thursday, August 7, 2008; A20

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.

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Sometimes I think we should just let the police handle traffic duties,
and hire entirely different people to investigate serious crimes. As far
as safety and protection go, you're on your own and always have been.