Pubdate: Mon, 11 Aug 2008
Source: Free Lance-Star, The (VA)
Copyright: 2008 The Free Lance-Star
Contact:  http://fredericksburg.com/flshome
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1065
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/raids.htm (Drug Raids)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Cheye+Calvo

GUNG-HO TO A FAULT

Overzealous Police Action In Prince George's County, MD., Crosses The Line

IT COULD HAPPEN anywhere, real-ly--a drug-smuggling operation that 
catches innocent, law-abiding citizens in its web. But pity one such 
unwitting family that happens to live in Prince George's County, Md.

Perhaps you've heard the story. A large carton is delivered to the 
home of the part-time mayor in Berwyn Heights, Md., addressed to his 
wife. His mother-in-law tells the delivery man to leave it on the 
porch. The mayor comes home and hauls it inside, not knowing or 
caring at that point what it was.

What it was was 32 pounds of pot.

Minutes later the county SWAT team busts down his door, shoots two 
pet black Labrador retrievers to death, orders the mother-in-law to 
the floor and trusses her up, handcuffs the mayor and ties him to a 
chair--all this initiating an hours-long interrogation while the cops 
ransack his house and belongings.

This was a real head-scratcher, because the mayor and his family had 
always been upstanding folks with no record of drug dealing. The 
whole shocking episode terrified the living daylights out of them.

A week or so later, the real alleged culprits were arrested on drug 
charges. The investigation had begun when a drug-sniffing dog hit on 
the 32-pound package in Arizona, and police posed as delivery men to 
take it the rest of the way. Turns out the smugglers had done this 
repeatedly, using other random addresses but successfully 
intercepting the packages en route to the tune of 417 pounds of pot 
worth $3.6 million.

Prince George's is a dangerous place; a police officer recently lost 
his life there. But that must not afford the police the assumption of 
wrongdoing. Incidents involving questionable police conduct are not 
uncommon in Prince George's, and police officials always trot out 
their we're-just-trying-to-do-our-job excuses.

Given that history you might think they would investigate a little 
first--like checking with the local police chief to learn that this 
was the mayor's house, for example--before unleashing a nuclear 
attack on a fly.

The police overreaction in this case should serve as a heads-up to 
law-enforcement agencies everywhere. The public expects a level of 
zeal and self-preservation in police officers, but also expects them 
to think, and acknowledge the rights of the innocent.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom