Berwyn Heights, MD Drug Raid Update: Cops Didn't Have a No-Knock Warrant

Radley Balko | August 6, 2008, 8:29am It now appears that the entire raid on Berwyn Heights, Maryland Mayor Cheye Calvo may have been illegal. Last week, police stormed Calvo's home without knocking, shot and killed his two black labs, and questioned him and his mother-in-law at gunpoint over a delivered package of marijuana that police now concede may have been intended for someone else. The Washington Post reports that the police didn't even bother to get a no-knock warrant, which means the tactics they used were illegal: A Prince George's police spokesman said last week that a Sheriff's Office SWAT team and county police narcotics officers were operating under such a [no-knock] warrant when they broke down the door of Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo, shooting and killing his black Labrador retrievers. But a review of the... [read full story]