Berwyn Heights, Pr. Georges County Lows
The Washington Post Magazine ran a feature on an incident from a few months ago that I intended to write about at the time and never got around to doing so. It is about something that happened in the town of Berwyn Heights MD
Deadly Force. Berwyn Heights is a small almost imaginary sliver of a town nestled between Route 1, Greenbelt road and Kenilworth blvd. in Prince Georges county. I lived there myself once briefly a long time ago and remember it fondly. For those from other parts of the country who probably never heard this story, I'll give a brief recapitulation of the facts. The incident involves Cheye Calvo, who grew up locally. Among other things he is the current holder of the part-time position of mayor of Berwyn Heights. Also his wife Trinity Tomsic, and her mother Georgia. It then includes the County Sheriffs department and SWAT team. The incident itself was the tragically unnecessary, ill-handled, and possibly illegal police raid, that traumatized a family and left the family pets, two black Labrador retrievers, shot dead. This happened last summer on the 29th of July 2008. Over the next few days the Washington Post eked the story out with a series of small articles
Police Raid Berwyn Heights Mayor's Home, Kill His 2 Dogs like a child pushing peas around their dinner plate with a fork
Some Doubt Mayor's Tie to Drugs. Apparently there is a drug smuggling gambit that involves mailing drugs through the mail to random address with the intention of intercepting them at or prior to arrival at their final destination. Narcotics determined that just such a package was addressed to Trinity Tomsic. They delivered it themselves and when it was brought into the house they waited until dark flooded the yard with men carrying automatic weapons broke down their door and when the dogs barked they shot each of them multiple times. They did not have, nor did protocol demand the type of search warrant - a 'no-knock' warrant
Pr. George's Officers Lacked 'No-Knock'... they would have allowed them to conduct themselves in such manner. All this is in the article (first link) and it really is worth taking the time to read it. How could this happen is the question here. The point (made in article's deck), the sharp edge of the question is that this type of thing, a militarized assault on a ordinary citizens home is not uncommon at all - just unheralded. The feature's author, April Witt, offers a telling quote at one point an officer at the raid overheard saying "My first raid, and we got the mayor's house." A good time ruined, by a detail.
There was another story in the news around the same time which likewise gave off a trail of troubling sparks like a half detached gas tank rattling against the pavement beneath a car speeding along the highway. This one concerned a Maryland State Police undercover surveillance program
Police Spied on Activists In Md.. The police had targeted a Takoma Park MD food Co-op. Takoma Park is only a brief mile or so from where I live currently. Here they were infiltrating community meetings, compiling dossiers (which apparently continues and is classified), and writing reports. Why? Because they were concerned that the vegan activists that hung around that place were trying to organize protests against capital punishment in Maryland
Logs Show Activist Surveillance Continued Despite Lack of Criminal.... Former republican Governor Erlich's state police could not bring themselves to allow that. In the reporting on this it seems the police justify this by regarding the co-opists as potential domestics terrorists also that they may have repurposed Department of Homeland security funds to accomplish it
Many Groups Spied Upon In Md. Were Nonviolent. The dark shades of Cointelpro that hang around this, are no less disturbing than the fact that governmental effort so misdirected demonstrates no ability to protect people against any actual threat.
The feature on the Chavo's brings out another aspect of this I had heard of: Asset Forfeiture laws. These seem to be an interlocking web of federal, state, and local laws that allow the property - the cars, houses, boats, computers, bicycles and so on seized in drug raids to be kept and or sold for cash by the organization that makes the raid
Asset forfeiture laws - Google News Archive Search. It wasn't long after 1984 when this type of legislation appeared that some began to see the drug wars as a self perpetuating funding mechanism for law enforcement. All based on the dollar of the American drug consumer.
Returning to the earlier quote from the article "My first raid...". The participants find it comfortable to view it like a game. It is a game, it's not in any special sense real. There is no justice here, no moral dimension at all. The bad guys are simply bad. Adversaries uniformly and statically as the game serves them up. No proof no evidence is required to establish their side. There is only punishment, the thrill ride of enforcement. The buzz-kill of clerical error. The article also mentions a prominent report on the phenomenon of paramilitary law enforcement from the Cato institute which was the subject of a solid MetaFilter thread
The Militarization of Mayberry when it came out in 2006 . Even given academic position response and object lesson and change of administration, which we will limm here as change of heart. From the drug wars to the walls of the American borderlands border to the quest for al qaeda there is no sign that the Era of the Security state is abating The lesson continues to be that surveillance and military response obtains, and give the only answers we feel like listening to.
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