Aug 8, 2008 3:20 pm US/Eastern
Calvo Requests Civil Rights Investigation In Raid
BERWYN HEIGHTS, Md. (WJZ) ―
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Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo writes a request for a civil rights investigation into the raiding of his home.
Request for civil rights investigation, Prince George's County, Maryland:
Dear Ms. Becker:
I am writing to request that the Civil Rights Division initiate an investigation into the search warrant policies and procedures of the Prince George's County Sheriff's Department and the County Police Department and specifically to investigate the incident that occurred on July 29, 2008 when our home was illegally entered by county law enforcement officers, who tied up two members of our family and shot and killed our two family dogs, with premedication and without provocation.
1. What Happened.
On the evening of July 29, 2008, I came home from work and arrived at my residence at 8522 Edmonston Rd. in Berwyn Heights. I work at SEED, a non-profit organization that operates the nation's only public boarding schools for at-risk urban students. I have been the elected, part-time mayor of Berwyn Heights, a municipality in Prince George's County since 2004. My wife, Trinity Tomsic, is a financial officer for the state of Maryland. My mother-in-law, Georgia Porter, works for a local company.
When I arrived home, I was greeted by my mother-in-law, who was cooking an artichokes, tomatoes and pasta dinner in the kitchen. She told me a FedEx package for my wife, Trinity Tomsic, was on the porch. It had been delivered to the house a few minutes beforehand, and Georgia had asked the delivery man to leave it outside on the porch. I thought little o fit because Trinity frequently receives gardening supplies by mail. I then took our two dogs, Payton (age 7) and Chase (age 4), both black Labradors, for a walk. While on the walk, I noticed SUVs parked on nearby roads, but thought little of it other than to wave to the drivers. I returned home and then began changing my clothes to get ready for a quarterly meeting of municipal officials from nearby towns that I was hosting at Berwyn Heights Town Center, down the street. Before going back inside the house; however, I retrieved the package and placed it unopened on a living room table.
While in my bedroom upstairs, while changing and only in boxer shorts, I heard my mother-in-law scream and then heard our front door being broken open and gunshots being fired. I thought our home was being invaded. I feared for my life and fell to the floor. No one announced themselves as law enforcement.
Downstairs, the officers shot Payton immediately upon entering the house. Payton's body was located on the floor near the entry to the kitchen where he was hot some distance from the front door. Chase, our four-year-old Lab, was shot in the back by the officers in the rear of the house while running away. Neither dog attacked or "engaged" law enforcement, as claimed by the county sheriff.
My mother-in-law was made to lie face-down on the floor in the kitchen, several feet away from where Payton was bleeding to death. Her hands were restrained with plastic handcuffs behind her back. She laid there on the floor with her head held down by police so that she could only see Payton's lifeless body for a considerable period of time.
The officers called for me to walk downstairs backwards with my hands up, which I did. The officers then directed to me to kneel down in the living room by the open front door in my boxer shorts with my hands restrained in plastic cuffs behind my back. I remained in that position for a considerable period of time, watching Payton's body in the other corner of the room and my mother-in-law lying face down in the kitchen.
Georgia and I then were interrogated by police. Georgia was questioned by a detective named Kim, who in the course of her questioning managed to talk on her cell phone and to make a veterinary appointment for her dog. Georgia overheard Kim tell her friend that, this was her first raid and that it was "exciting" because it was the mayor's house. Finally, after nearly two hours, the officers released the restraints on my mother-in-law and me after I complained about losing feeling in my right hand. The officers ultimately decided not to arrest me or any member of my family and indeed found no evidence linking any of us to the box's contents.
Yesterday, Melvin High, the outgoing chief of the Prince George's County Police Department, announced the arrest of two men, including a Federal Express delivery man, who participated in a scheme to use the overnight service to ship as much as 417 pounds of marijuana using the addresses of innocent and unsuspecting residents to ship the contraband. Chief High said that, in addition to Trinity Tomsic, five or six other innocent county residents had been subject to such ficticious deliveries.
Although they were listed as addresses, the deliveries never reached them because they were intercepted by the Federal Express employee. Like my wife, they were victims of identity theft. Their names were used to allow drug traffickers to ship marijuana through the Federal Express overnight delivery service.
The law enforcement officers who entered our home did so without knocking and broke through the door. Since 2005, Maryland law has required a no-knock warrant. Last Saturday, the spokesperson for the county police stated that the court had issued a no-knock warrant. This is untrue. Law enforcement neither sought nor obtained a no-knock warrant. Indeed, no warrant was ever presented to us during the evening of the police raid.
Yesterday, the county sheriff justified the killing of our dogs because they had engaged the deputies. This is false. The officers were aware of the presence of dogs in our house before they entered. They had seen me walking the dogs, both black Labs, moments earlier. They opened fire on our dogs as soon as they broke our door down. One dog, Payton, was shot near where he was found near the entrance to our kitchen some distance from the front door. The second dog, Chase was shot in the back while running away and was found in the rear of the house, where he had been shot.
Without ever investigating what happened or speaking to us, both the sheriff and the county police chief have announced public conclusions in this case defending the raid. More disturbing, we now have received reports of similar misconduct involving other innocent homeowners, including invasion of the homes of other innocent country residents and killing of other innocent family pets. This appears to be a pattern and practice in our law law enforcement agencies where a lack of training and supervision is apparent. There are also significant questions as to why our county's sheriff's department, whose statutory mission does not involve drug enforcement, should be executing drug raids.
It is clear that our local law enforcement agencies have a culture of disregarding Maryland's no-knock statute and ignoring the rights of innocent occupants and their pets. It is also clear that our county law enforcement agencies cannot discipline or investigate themselves.
On behalf of my wife, Trinity Tomsic, my mother-in-law, Georgia Porter, and myself, I request that the Civil Rights Division investigate the circumstances surrounding the invasion of our home and killing of our dogs on July 29, 2008. I also request the division to investigate the pattern and practices associated with search warrant executions by the Prince George's County Police Department and Sheriff's Department.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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