TheAgitator.com
Puppycide in Prince George’s County
Sunday, August 10th, 2008Ten days ago, police in Prince George’s Country, Maryland conducted a mistaken drug raid on Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo, his wife, and her mother. During the raid, the shot and killed the family’s two black labs, one of which the family says was running away. Police officials now concede that Calvo in his wife were innocent, and they regret that Calvo and his family were "victimized by drug dealers," but they refuse to apologize for the violent tactics, or for killing the dogs.
As it turns out, it isn’t the first time Prince George’s County police have killed the family pet during a botched raid. From November of last year:
The Myers say the deputies knew immediately they had raided the wrong home. They say it could have ended with an apology, until the couple heard two shots from the yard.
"And I said, ‘You just shot my dog," said Pam Myers, through tears. "I just wanted to go out and hold her a bit. They wouldn’t even let me go out."
The couple’s five-year-old boxer Pearl was killed. The deputy says he feared for his life. They say the dog would bark but was no danger to the deputies.
ABC 7/NewsChannel 8’s Brad Bell reports that a search of court records shows a warrant for a suspected drug dealer who lives two doors away at 14610 Livingston Road. The address is clearly displayed on that house.
"It’s just not right that people have to worry about – police have their jobs to do, but the house is marked over there. All they had to do was go look," she said. "I want the sheriff to apologize to my family for killing their dog."
The Myers say they have received no apology. They say the deputies just left the scene, offering no explanation.
And the Washington Post reports:
Upper Marlboro resident Amber James has filed a $4 million lawsuit accusing sheriff’s deputies of searching her home without a warrant in May 2007 while looking for her sister, who lived in Capitol Heights. According to the suit, deputies falsely claimed to have a warrant and searched every room of the home. When they did not find the sister, the suit alleges, they threatened to return the next day and search again, saying that if they did, James’s dog would be dead.
The Post article quotes some law enforcement professional organizations who say that during a raid, killing the family dog should be the absolutely last option. That may be the case, but too many police departments across the country haven’t gotten the memo.
along with collars, we need bullet-proof vests for our pets. maybe we need to arm the dogs. I love how they always say they were in fear for their life. A BOXER. LABS. Classic kid dogs. We run into burning buildings to save dogs that are under serious stress- I’ve never heard of a fireman killing a dog.
These guys are high-strung. Maybe they need to smoke a few joints before they head out. You don’t hear about guys getting stoned and beating their wives…
The reason you don’t see fire fighters killing dogs is… they aren’t trained to shoot first and let the brass hide it. Fire fighters are still trained to protect the public, and they don’t get brainwashed into thinking they are at “war”, like the Barney Fife’s with machine guns that fill the SWAT teams of almost every US city.
I saw an MSNBC interview with the mayor friday. Its nice that he actually called for an FBI investigation into this and OTHER such raids in the area. Its sad that it took it happening to a politician to get the attention of one tho.
Again, I hear all the talk about how violence on tv, video games, movies etc. desensitizes and enrages one to commit violence down the road. Blame the grand theft auto4 they say, blame Doom for Columbine. Nay, I say. Watching the news and reading stories like this are what inspire me to possibly commit violence, responding in kind to jack booted thugs who are out of control. Thugs who will only learn from being treated as they treat “civilians”. Break into my house with a bad warrant, a mistake? Shoot my dog? Expect to get shot at and don’t expect any sympathy when any of your police brethren die in such circumstances.
I heard that ‘victimized by drug dealers’ line earlier in the car, and just had to shout ‘No!’ They were ‘victimized’ by the *^%^$# cops! They were the SOLE people who made the decision to use force, who made ALL the decisions about what to do, and how to do it, and they conducted themselves in the absolutely wrong manner.
Again, it’s blame shifting. “We didn’t do this, the big bad drug dealers made us do it.” Sorry, you horrible clowns, YOU did this. You did because you wanted to dress up in your party clothes and go play GI Joe. Because you wanted to act like you were in some TV show or movie. And RUIN innocent people’s lives.
[...] « Puppycide in Prince George’s County [...]
Lets not forget the young African American male who was found dead in his cell after crashing his car into a police officer.
Every apologist for the DrugWar’s excesses all act as if butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths and tell us they are doing all this to ‘keep us safe’ and ‘it’s for the children’. Enough, already! We didn’t have crap like this happening in the country until those drugs were made illegal (they weren’t always so) and by their being made illegal created the black market.
You don’t leave dirty dishes in the sink for days lest they attract roaches. Likewise, you don’t create opportunities for criminals to profit from and expect them not to try doing so. And when the evidence is clear that that is exactly what is happening, and that the process is practically invulnerable to any attempts to throttle it, it’s beyond stupidity to maintain that system. Our grandparents learned that with alcohol Prohibition by ending it; are we any less enlightened?
To excuse shooting the dog:
Miserable coward. Actually, while I think a billboard with that label below a picture of Deputy Puppy-Made-Me-Piss-My-Pants would be a nice gesture, my impression is really “damned liar” since I don’t believe the officer really thought the dog was going to kill him – that’s just the standard lie when shooting a citizen’s pet and he would have said the same thing if it had been a Chihuahua.
BTW, this note regarding the police reviewing their own actions was interesting to me:
[...] [Sheriff's Department spokesman] Ellis said, adding that the department has also begun the standard review it conducts any time a deputy fires a weapon.
Of course, in the Thursday Post story, Calvo’s attorney noted
So, apparently, the Sheriff’s Department review of possible police misconduct doesn’t place a high priority on getting the statements of those toward whom the misconduct was directed. That sounds like a system set up to justify questionable behavior more than to fix it.
Shooting dogs is a way to provoke the innocent. “There, I just shot your dog. PLEASE make a move against me.” That then gives the police an excuse to shoot the innocent. “Hey, if we shot them, they must have been guilty.”
the reason for shooting the dogs is not because the officers were afraid. it’s a deliberate tactic of war designed to demoralize the opponents, to crush their spirits, in the same class as raping captured women to demoralize their menfolk.
They hate us because of our freedom! America is #1!
Oh, and killing the family dog IS the last option… if they can’t come up with a reason to shoot someone else during the raid.
Am I cynical much? Yeah.
“They hate us because of our freedom.” Brock, that’s the most insightful, ironic comment I’ve heard in a long time. Bravo!
THE magic catch phrase for the police is “I was afraid for my life”. This is because the courts have ruled that police are free to kill with impunity whenever they do so in self defense when “afraid for their life”.
So now every cop who shoots to death a handcuffed suspect, beats a teenager to death, murders the family dogs, executes an elderly person just says, ” I was afraid for my life”, and gets off scott free, no matter how ridiculous the claim. The courts respond that if the cop was “afraid” then it was OK for him to commit murder.
Why should the public be placed at extreme risk by such a low standard? Should we all be murdered because some cop has a conveniently low fear threshold? Why are we employing cops who are so easily frightened even when they have a shotgun in their hand, a pistol on their side, pepper mace, a taser, a club, a tactical knife, lead filled gloves, a bullet proof vest, and several back-up cops standing behind them?
Why don’t the courts accept the very same standard for citizens? Why can’t a citizen say that he killed the cop because he was afraid for his life? At least the citizen wouldn’t lying about it.
The police have no concern about beating, tasering or shooting someone to death because they know the magic words that will guarantee they can murder with impunity.
The actions by “police” are becoming dangerously close to the levels of oppression of the British occupying army that justified the American Revolution.
However, the spirit of freedom that lived in the colonists of the time is dead in this country (nearly).
I have no idea how to get it back.
My ex was bringing my daughter to a doctor’s appointment. My daughter was in the front seat with her seat belt on. She was 10 (now 11). The cop pulled my ex over and lectured her for over 20 minutes about why small children should not be in the front seat. what could the ex do? This chick (the cop) was very forceful in her delivery. The ex had to wait and nod her head at the appropiate times, and was late for the appointment. Thank God they (the pigs) are here to “protect and serve”. They have the guns and I don’t, so my daughter mised her doctor.
“Protect and serve.”
What a joke.
“missed” … sorry
[...] package, and the SWAT team didn’t have a no-knock warrant to conduct the raid anyway. Yet the Prince George’s County police refuse to apologize for the violent tactics or the puppycide. It’s a fiasco on several levels, and apparently [...]