TheAgitator.com
Internal Investigation Clears Cops for Killing Mayor’s Dogs
Friday, September 5th, 2008In a decision that shouldn’t surprise anyone, an internal investigation by the Prince George’s County, Maryland Sheriff’s Department has determined that raiding officers acted entirely appropriately when they shot and killed two pet labradors during a mistaken drug raid at the home of Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo.
Neither Calvo nor his mother-in-law—both in the house as the raid transpired—were interviewed for the investigation. Calvo says one of the dogs was shot as it was running away, an assertion supported by a veterinary examination showing an entry wound to the back of one of the dog’s legs.
Prior posts on the Calvo raid here. I’ll be speaking on a panel with Calvo and Peter Christ of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition on Thursday, September 11 at the Cato Institute.
if i remember my history right, back in the dark/middle ages, justice worked like this: testimony before a judge was ranked by the individual’s status. if, say, 100 serfs were to testify that lord bacon had raped & murdered the crofter’s wife and daughters, that testimony could be trumped by lord bacon (or any other noble) testifying that he *hadn’t*.
see, back in those dark, ignorant, superstitious days of slavery and squalor, the word of a knight/noble/well-connected chap **outweighed** the words of any mere commoner – no matter how many there were, no matter if they had the whole thing on videotape.
fortunately, here in america, land of the free, we’re all equal in the eyes of the law and such a thing could never happen.
Hey Radley,
We all know this is a BS ruling that we see in pretty much every case. My question is, does the town/city pretty much have to come up with this sort of BS because if they find “fault” they provide any lawsuit with an open and shut case or is it just reflexive CYA? While neither is acceptable, I wonder if the town council, etc. says “make it so or we’ll be paying out millions”.
The fact that the internal investigation found no wrong doing is evidence that their conception of right and wrong is seriously messed up.
BTW: did you notice in the post story that the question PG county is asking “why didnt they know it was a mayor,” instead of “is this a good idea” whoever is the target. The focus is clearly on CYA, not the fundamental correctness of their actions.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
I think at this point it’s obvious the police are not responsible enough to police themselves. What are their arguments about non-police oversight? Things like ‘they don’t understand the job’ and ‘we can’t take away discretion’? Well, I think it’s obvious the police don’t understand what it’s like to have that worry in the back of your mind, that nagging thought of ‘what if someone lies and says I’ve done something?’ ‘What do I do if someone bursts into my house?’ What are people going to do? Because it happens. It happens every day. Not to lots of people, but it happens to completely innocent people. And it totally and royally screws up their lives.
And that it happens to a few almost makes it worse. Humans are irrational about threats. And this is one of the most threatening. And to have the police look around in some circle-jerk and say ‘we didn’t do anything wrong, because we say so, and you can’t do anything about it’ is vile, reprehensible, and must be stopped.
Well, since the police manual reads something akin to Splinter Cell strategy guides, I think they made a correct decision.
We are screwed as free people. Especially as dog-loving free people.
“Neither Calvo nor his mother-in-law—both in the house as the raid transpired—were interviewed for the investigation.”
I find this very surprising. Are you saying that SOMEONE was interviewed at all? Wow that seems to indicate they made some sort of effort in this interview. Shocking.
Masshole, internal investigations usually only affect litigation of future incidents. Meaning that a person might later sue the police if one of the same cops did something wrong under the theory that he should have been fired/not working XYZ detail because of hte problems in his past. But this can also go both ways, b/c if a department constant clears everyone then they can be negligent for always looking the other way.
Some states shield internal investigations performed by organizations from being used in lawsuits so as to encourage companies/organizations to examine their procesurde and become safer, but also an internal investigation uses a different standard than a trial and the conclusions would fall outside the realm of admissible evidence as either hearsay or improper opinion and for invading the province of the jury.
So no.
Nick T – I’m sure they interviewed the LEO’s who shot the dogs, it probably went like this
IA: You felt threatened by the dogs?
LEO: Yep
IA: You felt it necessary to terminate the threat to yourself and the other members of your team?
LEO: Yep
IA: Thanks for your time.
Maybe the dog shot in the back was familiar with the: Reverse Monkey Death Strike Back Flip?
There is no WAY the officer could have known one way or the other. He had to err on the side of caution. Normally after the Reverse Monkey a canine will go into Drunken Dog. Once that happens, the level of carnage goes up exponentially.
The police thought they were in grave danger of being licked on the hand by the Labrador Retrievers.
Dog spittle has germs.
Everyone knows that germs are dangerous.
Hence, the dogs had to be put down.
For the safety of the officers.
Case closed.
#7
What you posted could be funny…if it wasn’t so likely.
http://www.justiceforsal.com
I have to say that I am amazed, with all the publicity on this case, that the Sheriff’s Dept. didn’t interview the Calvos. I might expect them to neglect interviewing actual witnesses who might disagree with the police assessment in a less publicized case. After all, the cops are, by definition, the good guys and any ordinary scum citizen who questions them is probably a drug dealer or a child molester, if not both. But, just from a PR perspective, don’t they understand how unfair and rigged the review process will seem if the testimony of the primary complainants aren’t represented? Someone should
I am anxious to see the Cato event. And I am really happy that the press continues to cover the case. Lots of times, it seems like when “the official word” comes down, there is an utterly unjustified assumption that the truth has been rendered from on high and that’s all there is to the story. Often, dissenters are treated as screwballs or conspiracy theorists.
BTW,
“Marshall”? At least they have a sense of humor about it.
If the “investigation” had interviewed the victims of the attack and then proceeded to ignore everything they said, its actions would be in theory justifiable (it could claim it didn’t find them credible, or whatever). An investigation that is on the record as having not interviewed the victims, however, cannot credibly be regarded as having fairly examined all the evidence.
That the “investigators” wouldn’t even make a pretense of actually doing an investigation, despite the publicity of this case, shows that they do not view attacks on innocents as mistakes. The mayor should use all legitimate means at his disposal to make life as miserable as possible for the so-called “investigators” until such time as they seek employment elsewhere.
Let me explain this to everyone.
A dog is property.
A lamp is property.
To the state, killing a dog is breaking a lamp.
What’s more, there’s one key difference between a dog and a lamp.
The dog can fight back.
You all can get as emotional as you want, but your cognitive dissonance will persist unless and until you accept that the existence of the state necessitates the state doing everything it can to perpetuate itself.
#13
One HUGE hole in your argument. You kill a police dog and you might as well have killed a cop. And you can be damn sure the cops will get emotional…. about the dog. They don’t give a crap about you.
Also, if you (a civilian) kill a random dog, it will be treated by the police as much more than destruction of property. Yes, the law treats animals different from other property.
No hole in my argument whatsoever, Jesse. My argument was contextual, i.e dogs as property of civilians, not state property.
Thus, if one kills a police dog, the civilian (a virtual non-entity as far as the state is concerned) has destroyed state property. Or perhaps police dogs even have “person” status. I’m not sure. Either way, one who harms or kills a police dog has committed a crime against the state.
While it is true that animal cruelty laws might apply in the killing of a dog, animal cruelty protects all forms of animals, even opossum and similar pests. As for how much difference this makes versus inanimate property destruction, I don’t even know where to begin qualifying that. I know arson is more serious than animal cruelty.
Civilian-on-civilian crime, e.g. the killing of a neighborhood dog, is always a priority for the state as it manages conflict and preserves its monopoly on violence within its jurisdiction.
Still, there is no “cruelty to lamps”.
#15
I actually agree with your basic argument about the state, but your property arguments are not sitting well.
For example, arson is about more than property destruction. It is about the danger posed to the community and the possibility of killing someone (or something).
I just don’t think it is as cut and dried as you imply in #13.
I am going to have to agree with Cynical in CA. There is a lot of case law that treats animals as just the same as any other property. Of course this does not reflect how most people in society think about it (Michael Vick being an exception), so there is law that treats harming an animal as worse than breaking a lamp. The problem is not that the law is a bit messed up, the problem is that the only people allowed to bring the cases are prosecutors who are, as we know, pretty tight with the LEOs.
So, can we modify our laws to allow private prosecution. Britain had it, but AIUI, it’s no longer done there.
[...] The Agitator » Blog Archive » Internal Investigation Clears Cops for Killing Mayor&rsquo… – Score another one for the cops can do wrong crowd. Your house, and your dog, may be next. [...]
Aaron, Canada still permits private prosecutions, but the Crown (i.e.: the prosecutor) has the right to take over or stay the proceedings, so such a case, in our model, would be a dead-end. On the up side, here in Ontario police don’t investigate themselves in certain cases:
http://www.siu.on.ca/home.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Investigations_Unit
Dog-killing probably wouldn’t qualify. But then again, Canadian SWAT units tend to be (a) chosen from the best of the uniformed branch (b) less militaristic (c) better trained and (d) proportionately vastly less likely to do shit like this.
Jesse:
You’re a lamp-hating monster.
I guess Mayor Calvo should be grateful it wasn’t his mother and wife who were shot. Otherwise,while he stood grave side burying his loved ones, the boys at the Prince Georges County PD would be having a cold one after being exonerated from any wrong doing in the murder of two innocent people. Disgusting!
Wow. Just wow. A cumulative (-13) in two posts! The emotions are still flying high!
First of all, I could give a shit. The argument I presented in #13 is a logically valid and sound argument. I have no special claim to it. Anyone with an iota of intellectual honesty could draw the same conclusions from the evidence. The negative ratings speak volumes about those who assigned them — DENIAL.
Second, if I could wave a magic wand and create utopia, I would. I don’t want to be cynical. My rational mind compels me to be cynical. Don’t mistake my thought experiment here for support of the principle. I’m sure everyone here has realized by now that I’m an anarchist.
Jesse, there may be no cruelty to lamps, but I see that as beside the point. I can grant that the law does discourage cruelty to animals to a slightly higher degree than willful damage to inanimate property, but the core issue is the state defending its monopoly on violence, the essence of its existence. To the STATE, there is simply no difference between a civilian’s dog and a civilian’s lamp — the police will destroy the dog first because it is a potential threat. Nothing will ever change that. Nothing.
Institutions — states, and by extension, their agents — hold their self-preservation as the highest priority. It can be no other way.
Dog owners, especially those who own medium to large breeds that could be perceived as a threat to law enforcement, need to be mature and accept the statist world in which they live. Owning such an animal creates the circumstances by which tragedy may be introduced into one’s life, sometimes quite randomly and unjustly (to the individual, not the state).
I wish it were not so, but as they say, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
We are all STATE PROPERTY in the land of the fleeced and the home of the slave.And that go’s for Toto too.