Drug WarRant

Chief High just doesn’t get it.

In a statement released yesterday, High said: “The Calvo family members were the apparent victims of a local drug ring. I called him to express my sorrow and regret for that and for the loss of the family’s beloved dogs.”
High stopped short of apologizing for the actions of the officers, according to the Associated Press.

Um, no Melvin. The Calvo family members were victims of…you. And ‘regret’ simply isn’t going to cut it.
I don’t know if police Chief Melvin High simply is unable to admit wrong, or if he somehow thinks that admitting it will make the investigation go worse for him and his unit, but the guy is not only dangerous, he’s clueless.
And let’s review again:

• The Calvo’s were victims of a local drug ring to the extent that Cheye Calvo had to lift a 32 pound package and bring it inside.
• The Calvo’s were victims of Prince George’s County police by having their home invaded, their dogs killed, the family terrorized, and no apology.

Oh, wait. I forgot — the police actually delivered the package.

Link

“We have witnessed a frightening law enforcement culture in which the law is disregarded, the rights of innocent occupants are ignored and the rights of innocent animals mean nothing,” Calvo said, surrounded by county elected leaders and friends on the front lawn of his house. “A shadow was cast over our good names. We were harmed by the very people who took an oath to protect us.”
June White Dillard, president of the NAACP’s local chapter, also called for a thorough investigation and said Calvo experienced police action familiar to many young black men in the county.

“bullet” For a scary look at how little things have changed in 38 years, read this amazing OpEd by Gore Vidal on September 26, 1970

Will anything sensible be done? Of course not. The American people are as devoted to the idea of sin and its punishment as they are to making money-and fighting drugs is nearly as big a business as pushing them. Since the combination of sin and money is irresistible (particularly to the professional politician), the situation will only grow worse.

“bullet” Reuters OpEd by Bernd Debusmann: America’s never-ending prohibition. A good piece.
“bullet” Quotable from WindyPundit:

If cops can’t do their job without terrorizing the citizens, then they’re trying to do the wrong job.

“bullet” Florida Prosecutor Refuses to Work With DEA (more fallout in the Rachel Hoffman case).
“bullet” “drcnet”
“bullet” Oh, and today is the Accountability Now/Strange Bedfellows money bomb. Give to let politicians realize that they must be accountable to us and not merely give themselves more authoritarian power.

Video including the press conference by Mayor Calvo

The FBI is now monitoring the investigation of the raid, and the mayor has also asked the DOJ for an investigation.
The news coverage is also getting pretty big. There’s now international coverage and hundreds of papers around the country are covering it.
Cheye Calvo understands full well the fact that media coverage isn’t always equal for everyone as he addressed the press, talking about the need for changes in how things are done:

“I happen to be a Mayor, and so you all are all here right now. But Trinity and I deeply feel the pain of the people who don’t have that opportunity to tell their story, and often are just presumed guilty.”

Classy guy.

So the cops intercept a package full of marijuana addressed to Mayor Cheye Calvo’s wife, deliver it, and when nobody opens it, they go in, kill the dogs and terrorize the family. Just routine police business.
In bizarro-land.
Of course, this is horrible policing. Even if you discount the fact that they entered illegally. And then, this

Prince George’s County police announced yesterday that they have arrested a deliveryman and another man who they say are involved in a scheme to smuggle marijuana by shipping packages addressed to unsuspecting recipients, including a delivery last week to the wife of the mayor of Berwyn Heights.

Of course.
Even if busting people for marijuana was defensible (which it isn’t) and even if was defensible to use violent home invasion techniques for marijuana busts (which it isn’t), there’s no excuse for going in with such horrendously poor information.
An address on a box? I can write any address on a box that I want. It’s really easy. I use a pen. And the person at that address won’t even know that I wrote it! It’s basic literacy, which apparently eludes the police of Prince George County.
So are the police ashamed? Have they turned in their badges? Have they wept for the loss of two loving dogs?

Neither [Police Chief Melvin C. High] nor Sheriff Michael A. Jackson apologized for the raid, which they said was conducted responsibly, given what deputies and officers knew at the time.

Translation: “we were so f-in’ stupid, we didn’t know what we were doing, which makes it OK.”
So what did the deputies and officers know at the time?

• The address on the box.

What didn’t they know at the time?

• Who lived there — they didn’t know it was the Mayor, or that there were dogs, etc., etc. — things that are apparently only impenetrable secrets to illiterate county police, who apparently also don’t know how to do… police work.
• Whether the addressee had any knowledge of the contents — something else that would have required actual police work.
• Whether there was any possibility that someone might have purposely misaddressed the package.

Now about the last one — maybe this was a brand new trick — something that nobody had ever done before — so diabolically clever that nobody could have anticipated it.
Except that… the idea of a purposeful wrong address was, in fact, the very first thought I had when I first heard the story. And let’s see, could it have actually happened exactly this way before? (like in March of this year)

Shortly after that, Halperin was sitting on his couch next to the unopened package when a special police enforcement team rushed in with guns raised. […]
“He was handcuffed at gunpoint, strip-searched, taken to jail and placed under a $25,000 secured bond for a crime he did not commit,” Thomas said.
The incident was the third of its kind in the past 11 months in which a Duke student was accused of trafficking drugs contained in a package intercepted from DHL, an express shipper with offices around the world. […]
“The power to arrest someone is a tremendous power,” Thomas said Wednesday. “But with that power goes a tremendous responsibility to conduct a full and complete investigation. You investigate first, and you arrest after the investigation.”

Investigate first, then arrest.
Oh, and yes, this can happen anywhere…
In my own town, a judge last week reversed his ruling and freed a woman who had received, but not opened a package of marijuana. Prosecutors claimed that she should have been able to smell the marijuana in the hour it was in her home (despite the fact that none of the officers testified smelling it). The judge realized that there was no reason to assume this. (I wonder if he heard about the Mayor Cheye Calvo case).
There’s no excuse for these officers in Prince George’s County, MD to continue to have jobs. The Police Chief and Sheriff should be gone. They are an embarrassment to law enforcement everywhere, and a danger to their communities.

It’s a little early to give out details right now, but I’ve been invited to participate in a prestigious debate overseas in a couple of months, which will focus on one aspect of drug policy.
I’m glad I’ve spent so much time on my Elevator Arguments (pdf). After having to get a point across in 30 seconds, the seven minutes I’ll be allotted should be a luxury.
I’ll let you know more when I have more details to share, and I’ll probably be running some ideas past you.

The Drug Czar visited a pot growing site.

John Walters, who holds the Cabinet-level position as director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, came to California to bring attention to a new locally coordinated, but partly federally funded, marijuana eradication program to raid marijuana gardens planted on public lands by Mexican drug cartels.
“We intend to shoot these down,” Walters said.

Shoot down gardens? Huh?
What else did he have to say?

Mandatory minimum sentences “make criminals talk,” Walters said approvingly.
“Talking criminals is what you need to go after the higher-ups.”

Every professional out there with a shred of respectability is saying that mandatory minimums don’t do us any good. So naturally, our drug czar loves ’em.
And does he have something to say about marijuana?

Walters said public perception that marijuana is harmless is out of date. Marijuana addiction is a major problem for young people today.
“For those of the baby boomer generation who started this stupidity, I want you to know this is not the marijuana of the 1980s,” he said. The marijuana being eradicated in national parks “is not something raised by some retired hippie.”

Actually, the baby boomer generation didn’t start this stupidity. The stupidity was started, fueled and expanded by people like these.

In Time Magazine: Bolivia’s Surprising Anti-Drug Success

Morales has proven to be a skilled switch- hitter: Coca cultivation is under control and drug trafficking interdiction is up. The U.S. acknowledges the achievements, even as it remains skeptical of Morales’ policies on the industrialization of non-narcotic coca products. Still, Morales has managed to meet at least some of the goals of the U.S. on his own terms, without turning into an enemy of his own people.

Now, obviously, Morales could do a lot better if there wasn’t a U.S. drug war to begin with, or if he didn’t feel the need to prove himself a drug warrior in order to continue to collect U.S. coin and avoid U.S. sanctions.
Even still, he’s managed to shut up the entire U.S. and U.N. drug war machine that has tried to claim that nothing short of total eradication of the coca plant is an option. They don’t like to admit that illicit plants can have beneficial uses.
And here’s the really embarrassing part …

Bolivia’s coca cultivation increased 5% in 2007, but that’s minimal compared to Colombia’s 26% increase over the same period

So while the killer of Tarika Wilson has been acquitted of any wrong-doing in a criminal court, he still faces civil proceedings. Additionally, now apparently, the Justice Department is taking a look at it.

The U.S. Justice Department will review the FBI’s findings in the case to determine if federal prosecutors should bring civil rights charges against the officer.

and

A separate internal investigation also is under way by the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office in Dayton. That will help determine whether Chavalia will face any discipline by the police department. He remains suspended with pay.

Fine, so they’re having investigations. Peachy.
But where are the investigations of the higher-ups who green-lighted a domestic military incursion to prevent flushing? Where are the Justice Department investigations into, frankly, the Justice Department?
After all, they supply the kerosene that fuels the conflagration.

Charlie Lynch found guilty.
What a stupid world this is.