if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained?"
-- Chief Justice John Marshall, Marbury v. Madison, 1803
Your Friendly Neighborhood Police State
Somebody screwed up big time here.
When the shooting stopped, two dogs lay dead. A mayor sat in his boxers, hands bound behind his back. His handcuffed mother-in-law was sprawled on the kitchen floor, lying beside the body of one of the family pets that police had killed before her eyes.
After the raid, Prince George’s County police officials who burst into the home of Berwyn Heights’ mayor last week seized the same unopened package of marijuana that an undercover officer had delivered an hour earlier.
What police left behind was a house stained with blood and a trail of questions about their conduct. No other evidence of illegal activity was found, and no one was arrested at Mayor Cheye Calvo’s home in this small bedroom community near College Park.
....Thursday, Calvo called on the U.S. Justice Department’s civil rights division to investigate the raid and other similar actions by Prince George’s law enforcement. He said officers burst into his house without knocking or announcing themselves, in violation of the warrant they had.
“Trinity was an innocent and random victim of identity theft. Apparently, so were four or five other county residents whose names and addresses were stolen and used as addresses on drug packages,” Calvo said at a news conference outside his house, near a garden of tomatoes and strawberries.
“However, Trinity and our family have not been treated as victims of a crime. Instead, our home was invaded. Our two beloved Labrador retrievers are dead. My mother-in-law and I were tied up for nearly two hours,” he said. “We were harmed by the very people who took an oath to protect us.”
Read the whole thing. Imagine what would have happened if these cops had been even more trigger-happy or if the Police Chief’s officers had fired on the sheriff’s men. All this over someone else’s marijuana and identity theft, which happens to a lot of people each year. And then try and convince yourself that this could never happen to you.
Comments
This is the kind of shit that our forefathers fought a war over.
That’s for sure - this fucking war on drugs has to end. If my dogs were killed by the police over something like this, my world would never be the same - I can’t tell what I’d do, but it wouldn’t be good.
"And then try and convince yourself that this could never happen to you. “
Fair point, but how often does stuff like this happen? And, although it’s not going to undo what happened, I’m sure a lawsuit will be pending shortly.
What happened was wrong, and a tragedy, but it’s not like there isnt any remediation for these people.
Based on the story, the SWAT team follows a “kill all dogs on sight” protocol, which isn’t surprising. Remember Randy Weaver?
Our police forces have been growing more and more out of control for as long as I can remember - constantly trying to get more firepower, to lessen the population’s ability to resist them, and ingrain behavior patterns of automatic obedience to their whims and demands, even when they are unconstitutional.
Living in an adjacent county to Prince Georges, this clearly has been getting a lot of attention. The police are out of control, and while do they have a difficult job that I would never want this kind of bullshit must stop. Someone needs to lose their job and go to jail for this.
I have never met a black lab in my life that has been threatening - for the police to hide behind this as an excuse for shooting those two dogs is reprehensible. I am embarrassed to live in the state that allowed this to happen....Maryland is a cesspool that I can’t wait to leave once the boy is in college....
Fair point, but how often does stuff like this happen?
The same question was asked when we had the “Japanese Maple Incident” discussion. Probably more than you want to know.
"Someone needs to lose their job and go to jail for this. “
No doubt
“Our police forces have been growing more and more out of control for as long as I can remember - constantly trying to get more firepower, to lessen the population’s ability to resist them”
They get more firepower becuase criminals upgrade their firepower whenever they can.
“The same question was asked when we had the “Japanese Maple Incident” discussion. Probably more than you want to know.”
Please...do tell
They get more firepower becuase criminals upgrade their firepower whenever they can.
Which is total bullshit - the overwhelmingly vast majority of criminals use handguns, frequently cheap ones. Full-auto weapons, despite being popular on TV shows and movies, are extremely rare. Nor are they armed with RPGs, bazookas, tanks, Stinger missiles, hand grenades, gunships, Claymore mines (except for remote pot-growing operations that are left untended), lightsabers, the Force, pirates, or ninja.
Personally, I can only think of a single incident in the past 40 years where the bad guys were armed with machine guns. Not only are they extremely hard to find, converting semi-auto versions is frequently problematic, and they all know that they will spend many, many more years in prison when (not if) they get caught.
Personally, I can only think of a single incident in the past 40 years where the bad guys were armed with machine guns.
Dude, you don’t remember this?
That being said - pretty much agree with the argument that criminals have increased firepower is BS. Also - what does that have to do with storming a surburban house of a political figure?
That is the one I was thinking of…
Who the hell issued a warrant to do an armed raid of a mayor’s house!? The real crime is people issuing warrants without doing apparently any homework.
Maybe it’s getting time for another Revolution to occur....
That is the one I was thinking of…
oops - misread your post. sorry.
"pretty much agree with the argument that criminals have increased firepower is BS”
So then why do cops keep upgrading their weapons? They buring up the homeland security funds?
“Who the hell issued a warrant to do an armed raid of a mayor’s house!?”
Another issue that need to be looked out. This was a real goat fuck.
So then why do cops keep upgrading their weapons?
Good question - the easy and accurate answer is so they have more power over civilians and so they can keep expanding their budget.
There is absolutely no reason for the vast majority of police forces to have a SWAT unit or be armed with anything more than pistols and shotguns. But, having a SWAT unit means prestige and that you belong in the big boys club.
Our police forces have been growing more and more out of control for as long as I can remember - constantly trying to get more firepower, to lessen the population’s ability to resist them, and ingrain behavior patterns of automatic obedience to their whims and demands, even when they are unconstitutional
Which is why I am such a prick to them on the rare occasions I ineract with them. Doesnt make my life any easier, but its worth it to me. I fucking despise cops. I generally dont like or respect anyone who actively seeks positions of power over the general populace.
Fair point, but how often does stuff like this happen?
More often than it should, and most importantly more often every year.
This is the kind of shit that our forefathers fought a war over.
Good point. This type of shit is exactly what they fought a war over.
If our founding fathers could see us now, they’d say ‘grab a musket, we got work to do’.
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I have thought about it, and the Local cops know me well. However. police tactics have grown more and more militaristic, and with total lack or regard of what they do with their weapons. any asshole that forcibly enters my house with weapons and shoots my dogs, is gonna have a firefight from hell on their hand if i can gt to my gun cabinet. I might go down but ill take a few of the fuckers with me.
This is the kind of shit that our forefathers fought a war over.
Dam got to run to work, if i had more time to type out what i think..
more thoughts later.
oh and if the did pull a raid like t his kill my dogs tie me and my wife on the floor, when it was over id hunt the fuckers responsible down and fucking kill them. No joke, no internet dick swinging, im fucking serious.