The Changing Story in Prince George’s County

Last week, Prince George’s County cops raided the home of Cheye Calvo. They were there to seize 32 pounds of marijuana that had just been delivered by FedEx.

Even when the story first broke, it seemed unlikely that Calvo was actually the intended recipient of the drugs, since he’s the mayor of Berwyn Heights, Maryland. Of course, that didn’t stop the county’s finest from shooting his dogs.

The police now seem to have a better idea what happened:

Police say the couple appeared to be innocent victims of a scheme by two men to smuggle millions of dollars worth of marijuana by having it delivered to about a half-dozen unsuspecting recipients.

The two men under arrest include a FedEx deliveryman; investigators said the deliveryman would drop off a package outside a home, and the other man would come by a short time later and pick it up.

Prince George’s County Police Chief Melvin High has apologized to Mayor Calvo and his wife for the raid on his house and for killing his two black Labradors, and he’s promised to revisit the decision making process his department uses to decide when a raid is approved.

Ha! Just kidding. No, Chief High is being a dick about it:

Prince George’s County Police Chief Melvin High said Wednesday that Calvo and his family were “most likely … innocent victims,” but he would not rule out their involvement, and he defended the way the raid was conducted.

It’s possible that Prince George’s County Police Chief Melvin High is selling child pornography to raise money for Al-Qaeda. I don’t actually have any evidence of this, but I’m not prepared to rule it out.

He and other officials did not apologize for killing the dogs, saying the officers felt threatened.

So what? If I broke into Calvo’s house and killed his dogs, I couldn’t hope to keep out of jail by saying I was afraid of the dogs. That doesn’t matter if you don’t belong there in the first place.

The cops had a warrant, so it wasn’t a crime for them to be there, but they could still apologize. Heck, even if Calvo was a drug kingpin, they could still apologize for killing a pair of innocent dogs.

Actually, as Mike at Crime & Federalism points out, the police had a few problems with the warrant. They entered without knocking, something they claimed their warrant allowed. It turns out they were lying about that:

But a review of the warrant indicates that police neither sought nor received permission from Circuit Court Judge Albert W. Northrup to enter without knocking.

So now the police have changed their story:

But officials insisted they acted within the law, saying the operation was compromised when Calvo’s mother-in-law saw officers approaching the house and screamed. That could have given someone time to grab a gun or destroy evidence, authorities said.

I’m sure that must be true. Just because the cops lied the first time, doesn’t mean they’re lying now, right? And how hard can it be to flush 32 pounds of marijuana down the toilet?

Or maybe he could have fed it to the dogs.