http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/…

Just north of D.C., in the small suburb of Berwyn Heights, a county SWAT team raided a house last week after a shipping service delivered a large quantity of illegal drugs to the front door.

Good police work in the war on drugs? Probably not.

The house is home to Berwyn Heights mayor Cheye Calvo and his wife Trinity Tomsic, and their two black Labs (pictured left). Though the package containing more than 30 lbs. of marijuana was addressed to Tomsic, the couple may have had nothing to do with the drugs. In recent months there have been incidents in which large quantities of drugs were delivered to homes in the D.C. area, where they were then supposed to be intercepted by drug dealers — all without the package addressees’ knowledge or involvement. Calvo and Tomsic may have been caught up in just such a scheme.

This would make Calvo and Tomsic the unfortunate victims of an understandable error by the police SWAT team, except…

The police action was yet another guns-ablazin’, no-knock raid, in which the officers (in what seems like SOP) shot the couple’s dogs, even as one of the pups tried to run away. The cops then handcuffed Calvo and Tomsic’s mother-in-law and interrogated them for hours, while the dogs’ bodies laid in pools of blood nearby. The cops later found the package of drugs — unopened, as if it were an unexpected package. No arrests were made.

“My government blew through my doors and killed my dogs,” Calvo told the Washington Post. “They thought we were drug dealers, and we were treated as such. I don’t think they really ever considered that we weren’t.”

Of course, it may end up that Calvo and his wife are part of a drug distribution ring, and the police have gotten their man. But even if that’s true, was a no-knock, shoot-the-dogs raid an appropriate police action for a lousy shipment of pot?

And what if the current, emerging picture is correct, and this is yet another botched police raid and cops-gone-wild? If that’s the case (and I emphazie the “if”), the Prince George’s County SWAT team and its superiors need to be held accountable.

Law enforcement officers have a difficult and dangerous job, and I do not make light of that. But their sworn duty is to protect and serve the public, not blast their way into innocent people’s houses and shoot their dogs. If they cannot fulfill that duty, then they cannot be law enforcement officers.

All this over a plant people like to smoke.

http://www.freep.com/…

The DJ was spinning old records by James Brown, Aretha Franklin and the Meters during Funk Night last weekend, when the heavily armed cops dressed in commando-style uniforms burst into the west-side Detroit art gallery.The cops yelled at the patrons to hit the floor. Witnesses said some officers used their feet to force down a couple of people who failed to move fast enough or asked too many questions.

Detroit police conduct raids frequently for all sorts of illegal activity, and the public never hears a thing. But cops almost never raid art galleries filled with young hipsters, students and at least one lawyer. So this May 30 raid, not unexpectedly, is turning out to have an afterlife: The gallery and patrons have decided to fight back, and the American Civil Liberties Union has become involved.

To the police, CAID was a blind pig, where people were buying beer after hours. They handed out 130 tickets for loitering in a place where alcohol was being sold illegally and impounded 44 cars, which cost $900 to get back.

Cops found no drugs, no weapons, no people with outstanding warrants.

Police spokesman James Tate said officers warned Timlin about violations during a visit several weeks ago. “We don’t often do that,” Tate said. “He was advised of the issues he needed to clarify.”

Timlin confirmed the visit, but said he believed he had made the necessary changes. He said the police told club officials May 30 that they also need a permit to allow dancing.

As a response to the raid, Timlin has launched a week-long arts festival that started at midnight Friday and will end with a concert Saturday.

Timlin is lining up bands, artists, lecturers, filmmakers and others to keep the CAID going 24 hours a day for 8 days.

Timlin said the 192-hour art festival this week will be alcohol-free, but in featuring dancing, he seems to be asking for more trouble.

“We’re standing up for what we believe in,” Timlin said. “We’d prefer that the police come and dance with us.”

But if they are found guilty by the courts will they refuse to pay the fines? Are they willing to go to jail for what they believe in? Will they fight to get their $900 back?

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/…

Yesterday, the Supreme Court of Texas ruled that Child Protective Services (CPS) abused its discretion by seizing 468 children from the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints ranch in Eldorado. Eugene Volokh has a roundup of the legal analysis.

CPS invited some mental health workers to the various shelters to help care for the hundreds of children. The mental health workers were disturbed by what they saw of CPS’s treatment of the women and children, and their written reports corroborate the bitter complaints of the FLDS mothers. I don’t think the news media has given this aspect of the story the attention it deserves — so here are some excerpts from the various reports that have been made public:

• “Women were constantly lied to about where their children [were] and when they could see their lawyers and about when they would be reunited with their children.”
• “Constant reminders that the adult women were only guests and that they were not in charge of the children and what CPS did to them. [The children] belonged to CPS now and they could talk, interrogate, separate and treat them any way [CPS] wanted. This included physical exams and x-rays without [parental] supervision.”
• “I sat with Audrey while three of her children were removed for six hours of questioning.”
• “The children arrived healthy and happy and left sick and crying.”
• “The door to the room was almost constantly open. Even when the women closed the door to reduce noise during naptime or to dress themselves or the children, it was almost immediately opened again [by a CPS worker].”
• “The women were lied to and denied access to their attorneys.”
• “At least 5 mothers reported that at night CPS [workers] circled their beds, held flashlight in their faces & then would sit inches away from them as they tried to sleep. Mothers reported that they were scared CPS would take their children during the night.”
• “The CPS workers were openly rude to the mothers and the children, yelled at them for trying to wave to friends and family members in surrounding shelters, threatened them with arrest if they did not stop waving to others, continually reminded them that the women were guests only and could be made to leave if they did not cooperate, threatened the mothers with never seeing their children again if they did not cooperate, and ignored requests for anything.”
• “The children were amazingly clean, happy, healthy, energetic, inquisitive, well behaved, and self-confident; while the mothers were consistently calm, patient, and loving with their children.”
• “Living conditions in the coliseum were not conducive to good health for anyone, and the presence of hostile CPS workers who spied on them constantly, kept them awake at night by shining lights in their faces and talking and laughing created enormous stress for the mothers and children. None of them slept well or enough.”
• “Try to imagine all these children from age 1 to 12 years, left in that coliseum [separated from their mothers] with only CPS and [police officers] to care for them. The only others were mothers whom CPS decided were under 18 and kept in their custody along with their children. The floor was literally slick with tears in places. A baby was left in a stroller without food and water for 24 hours and ended up in the hospital. A 4 year old boy was so terrified that he snuck away and hid and was only found after the coliseum had been emptied the next day.”
• “I witnessed a young mother named Rosinith be required by CPS to board the bus back to the ranch, though her young child was in the hospital with 104 degree fever and even though the child’s physician had personally requested the mother’s presence at the hospital. This event haunts me still, and I cannot imagine such a heartless act.”
• “By the second day, I was ready to run in front of the CNN cameras to shout that there was a travesty happening inside those walls…. Of course I was cautioned not to interfere in a ‘crime scene investigation.’”
• “I have always been proud to be an American and a Texan but this incident is not what America or Texas stands for and something must be done to undo the horrible injustice that has been done.”

CPS denies the allegations of mistreatment. But the excerpts above are eyewitness reports from objective/disinterested social workers that CPS invited into the shelters.

Justice is still not served. Not until restitution is paid and those who brought this about are punished directly. Now we need the state to return the children kidnapped from Strong City. Jeff Bent, Wayne Bent aka Michael Travesser son, was on Free Talk Live yesterday for those interested.

http://www.cnn.com/…

The state of Texas should not have removed more than 400 children it took from a polygamist sect’s ranch, an appeals court ruled Thursday.

Earlier this year, authorities raided the Yearning for Zion ranch in Eldorado, Texas, after they received reports of child abuse.

About 460 children were taken from the ranch, which is run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a polygamist sect linked to the jailed “prophet” Warren Steed Jeffs.

Parents have denied the claims of abuse and have been fighting to get their children back.

This is a great turn of events. Just in the past days I’ve heard that another court in Texas hearing some part of this case told the mothers that if they wanted their children back they’d have to repudiate their religion. As I understand it that’s an unforgivable sin, blasphemy. If true that’s absolutely disgusting. Effectively asking them to choose between eternal damnation or their child. In any case this ruling is the first positive thing to come out of this travesty. Hopefully it continues on this new path. Unfortunately even if nothing is ever found likely no one from the State will be held responsible for this. No charges will be brought or if they are nothing will come from it. No restitution. The Nuremberg defense will be used and at worst maybe a reprimand or a bureaucrat or two will loose their job. Nothing however to change the likely pre-existing belief the FLDS had that the modern world was controlled by Satan. They have no doubt now.

It bugs me that as much as the MSM talks about this case they still don’t really mention that the original call was a fake. That the whole operation was completely unfounded. That several if not dozens of the women are over the age of 18 yet kept in custody as children. Likely they prefer to stay with the younger ones but it’s still disgusting.

Update:

Here is the AP version:

A state appellate court has ruled that child welfare officials had no right to seize more than 400 children living at a polygamist sect’s ranch.The Third Court of Appeals in Austin ruled that the grounds for removing the children were “legally and factually insufficient” under Texas law. They did not immediately order the return of the children.

Child welfare officials removed the children on the grounds that the sect pushed underage girls into marriage and sex and trained boys to become future perpetrators.

The appellate court ruled the chaotic hearing held last month did not demonstrate the children were in any immediate danger, the only measure of taking children from their homes without court proceedings.

http://reason.com/…

• On January 7, 2008 a paramilitary police unit in North Little Rock, Arkansas conducted a drug raid on Tracy Ingle’s home. Ingle says he had fallen asleep for several hours, and was asleep when the raid happened. He awoke when the police took a battering ram to his door. Another team of officers approached form the outside of the house, and shattered the window to his bedroom.
• When he awoke, Ingle says he thought his home was being invaded by armed robbers. He reached for a broken gun, a pretty clear indication that he had no intention of killing anyone, but rather was trying to scare away the intruders. When he grabbed the gun, an officer inside the house fired his weapon. The bullet hit Ingle just above the knee, shattered his thigh bone, and nearly severed his lower leg. When the outside officers heard the shot, they opened up on Ingle, hitting him four more times. According to Ingle’s sister, one bullet still rests just above Ingle’s heart, and can’t be removed.
• Ingle was taken to the hospital, and spent a week-and-a-half in intensive care. He was then removed from intensive care-still in his hospital pajamas-and taken to the North Little Rock police department, where he was questioned for five hours. He was not told he was suspected of a crime, and his family wasn’t allowed to speak with him. After the interrogation, he was arrested and transferred to the county jail.
• Ingle spent the next four days in jail. He says he was never given his pain medication or his antibiotics. Though hospital nurses told him to change his bandages and clean his wounds every 4-6 hours, Ingle told the Arkansas Times that jail officials changed them only twice in four days. Ingle’s wounds became infected during the time he was in jail.
• Police found no illegal drugs in Ingle’s home. They did find a scale, which Ingle’s sister tells me was an extra she was given when she worked at a medical testing facility. She used it in her jewelry-making hobby. They also found a bunch of small plastic bags. Again, Ingle’s sister says these were part of her business. “I was leaving the country for a while, and I stored a lot of my stuff at his house,” she told me. “The scale and bags were mine, and are both common things to have for anyone who makes jewelry.” Police also found the broken gun and a broken police scanner.
• From those items, the police charged Ingle with running a drug enterprise. They also charged him with assault, for pointing his broken gun at the police officers who had just barged into his home. The judge set Ingle’s bail at $250,000, explaining that it had to be set high because Ingle had engaged in a shootout with police-never mind that Ingle didn’t fire a shot. Ingle was able to sell his car to pay a bail bondsman. But with no car, his injuries render him basically immobile. He had to walk two miles on crutches and an infected leg to his hearing last week.
• The police obtained a no-knock warrant for Ingle’s home about three weeks prior to the raid. The warrant itself (pdf) reads like boilerplate, with no specific references to Ingle (other than his address), or why he specifically posed a risk to police safety, or of disposing of drugs before coming to answer the door. It mentions no controlled buys. It doesn’t even mention an informant. In fact, someone scratched out “crack cocaine” and hand-wrote in “methamphetamine” on the type-written warrant, suggesting a cut, plug, and paste job. The Supreme Court has ruled that police must show case-specific evidence of exigent circumstances in order to be issued a no-knock warrant. The mere fact that it’s a drug case isn’t enough. The warrant for Ingle’s home contains no such specific information. Many times, information specific to the investigation is contained in the affidavit the investigating officer files for the search warrant, not in the warrant itself. Forrester says she has called the North Little Rock Police Department more than 20 times in an effort to obtain a copy of the affidavits. She says they at first refused to return her phone calls. When she was finally able to speak with a lieutenant, he became angry when she told him she had contacted the media. She then says he told her to “dream on” when she asked for copies of the affidavits.
• According to Forrester, Ingle’s neighbor had a direct line of sight into the bedroom, and saw the entire raid. His account initially matched Ingle’s. But that changed. “We have a witness, a next door neighbor that saw the entire incident,” Forrester told me. “He came forward on his own to give a statement to the family. Police never questioned him until a month or so after the shooting, at my insistence. They kept this neighbor in his home, and questioned him for at least four hours, refusing to let the man’s wife come home, of for other people to see him. When the police finished intimidating the man, they told him specifically that ‘he did not see what he thought he saw.’ The neighbor is now afraid to talk to the media.” I have not yet been able to speak with the neighbor.
• Ingle’s family was able to put up $1,000 to retain an attorney, but can’t afford the extra $6,000 the attorney has asked to represent Ingle. Ingle is therefore still looking for representation. He has no health insurance, and no money to pay for medication, or to continue treatment of his injuries.
• Last week, after the Arkansas Times article appeared, the judge in the case issued a gag order, preventing Ingle and any future attorney he may have from talking to the media about what happened to him. This is puzzling. Before today there had been exactly two articles about this case-not exactly a media circus. It’s hard to understand why a gag order was necessary. It’s only real purpose is to prevent more people from learning about what’s increasingly looking like a railroading. And it’s only effect is to lend more support to the possibility that it is, in fact, a cover-up and railroading.
• May 6th the gag order was lifted.

Nothing here is all that new and therefore unfortunately not surprising. Thankfully his gun was not operational as he may have killed an officer and therefore would have definitely been killed as a result. The odd part of this is that he survived. What is particularly disgusting that they continue to press charges with absolutely no evidence. Sickening.