Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo was the topic of discussion on NPR’s Tell Me More, more accurately the botched police raid on his home.
Calvo has stated that he is beyond an apology, he wants change. He ifinds “stunning” that even though Prince George’s County is the most affluent black majority jurisdiction in the country, the “absolute disregard” for civil rights adding that he is concerned about how county leadership (black for the record) remarkably disregards civil rights.
For the record, the Prince George’s County Sheriff’s Office declined NPR’s request to interview either someone from the department or County Sheriff Michael A. Jackson.
In case anyone was wondering, not only am I continuing to call for the apology and resignation of Prince George’s County Sheriff Michael A. Jackson (D) in addition to the apology of now former County Police Chief Melvin High (he retired,) but Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo and his wife Trinity Tomsic are continuing to live their lives in the same home where officers from both agencies completely botched a raid where they did not have a no knock warrant as High and Jackson had originally claimed. In this week’s edition of The Washington Post Magazine, they are the cover story. It’s a look at before, during and after the raid on Calvo’s home.
Also of note, a new facebook group “Friends of Cheye Calvo” started this weekend. In addition, Calvo and the writer of the Post Magazine article, April Witt, will be having an online discussion tomorrow (Feb. 2) at 12noon to discuss the article.
The Cato Institute posted a video today from Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo who spoke at the CATO Institute a few weeks ago about the botched police operation that resulted in his dogs being shot.
The Prince George’s County Police Department has yet apologized about the incident, Police Chief Melvin High has since retired without offering one. Prince George’s County Sheriff Michael A. Jackson since that time refused to apologize, expressed that his department does not need to be investigated by the feds and offered up a review of the incident clearing his SWAT team without getting the victims perspective, a page from the playbook of Jack Johnson from a few years ago.
Maryland Politics Today is still calling for Jackson to resign AND for him to apologize to Calvo and his family for the embarassment caused in addition to executing a botched police operation.
The Washington Post reported this morning that according to Prince George’s County Sheriff Michael A. Jackson, an internal review of the raid on the home of Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo justifies the shootings of they Mayors two dogs.
The results of the review, which did not include Calvo or his mother in law at all, was released in response to a necropsy performed by the state Department of Agriculture in College Park. The examination of the dog’s revealed that one dog was shot four times while the other one was shot two times in the back legs. By the way, Calvo paid for the examinatio at $360 for each dog.
First and foremost, Jackson has pulled a page from the playbook of Prince George’s County Executive Jack Johnson (D). When Johnson was State’s Attorney, instead of talking with the family of a victim who was beaten to death in Laurel ten years ago, he talked to the alleged assailants without getting the other side. Jackson in an attempt to prop him and his department up, rushed to release a review that is biased, let alone the fact that he has not acknowledged that the raid was a flawed operation AND the fact that he has not apologized.
Maryland Politics Today is still calling for the resignation of Prince George’s County Sheriff Michael A. Jackson in addition to demanding that he apologizes to Mayor Calvo and his family.
It has been 15 days and counting since the flawed police operation on the home of Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo.
In an update on the infowar since my column from this past Monday on PolitickerMD.com, The Gazette’s Prince George’s County’s editorial board in their opinion this week said that a gigantic red flag should be waving about the overall management of public safety in Prince George’s County.
The editors stated that “it would be unfair to judge the county’s public safety by the tragically overzealous actions of one branch. However, when you look at each department, the picture gets grimmer.” They go on to recap the fact Prince George’s County police chief Melvin High announced his resignation at the end of this month amid news that crime in the county decreased only 1.7 percent from the previous year so far with 58 homicides, second to Baltimore City.
They also list 19-year-old Ronnie White being found dead while in custody of the county corrections department, the director of that department being fired earlier that month after four guns went missing from a locked armory. Before that, corrections officers were accused of smuggling cell phones to gang members and having inappropriate relations with inmates. The cherry on top of this was finding disgraced county homeland security official Keith Washington and another inmate in possesion of handcuff keys.
While they echoed my sentiment that the acts of a vocal minority should not be a black mark on those who faithfully put their lives on the line while following the rules, they did not call for any resignations. They did however say that county authorities to check whether they should change protocols and the way the departments are wrong.
Maryland Politics Today is calling for the immediate resignation of Prince George’s County police chief Melvin High and county sheriff Michael A. Jackson. We also are calling for them to apologize to Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo and his family.
I encourage you to keep the letters coming into the the newspapers and keep the issue alive! The Gazette, although I wish their opinion went further, wrote a well thought out editorial. Urge the editorial boards of the other papers in the area to call out county leadership on it’s dismal management of public safety, but crime in particular.
Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo and his family was cleared of any wrong doing in regards to the package containing 32 pounds of weed inside. That package was set to go to a different destination and not to Calvo’s wife, Trinity Tomsic, as addressed on the package. The Washington Post reporting today that Prince George’s County Police Chief Melvin High exonerated the mayor and his family, expressed regret that they were victimized by drug dealers and that their dogs were killed. High however DID NOT apologize.
Also not apologizing, county Sheriff Michael Jackson (D) who gave his first interview since the flawed operation from the end of July. Remember, the officers involved performed a no knock warrant when they did not have one, nor did they request one. More on Jackson in a minute.
Maryland Politics Today is still calling for an apology from Jackson and for an apology from High in addition to his resignation.
Prince George’s County SWAT team and county narcotics officers burst into the home of Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo last week after officers saw the mayor accept a package that was delivered by officers posing as delivery men. That package which was traced from Arizona contained just above 30 pounds in marijuana.
Calvo in a email to The Gazette said that he was preparing to go to a community meeting when the SWAT team knocked the door down and shot and killed his two black labs. He then added that soon after he was forced to kneel on the floor while his mother-in-law was face down in another room. Calvo, 37, has been mayor of Berwyn Heights since 2004 and also works at the SEED Foundation. He was also an aide to former county councilwoman Audrey Scott (R). A rally to support the Mayor and his family was held over the weekend at the city’s sports park.
The Washington Post says that the package was addressed to Calvo’s wife, Trinity Tomsic, and that investigators are looking into the possibility that they were unwitting recipients and that a deliveryman might have intended to intercept the package as part of a drug smuggling scheme. A spokesman for the sheriff’s office said that the department regretted the shooting of the dogs however deputies on the scene felt threatened by them. Berwyn Heights police chief Patrick Murphy said that he was not notified of the raid. He has been vocal about his force not being informed of the raid.
This morning, The Post has learned that officers conducting the raid had the proper warrant to search the home, however, they did not have permission to knock the doors down as they have been stating at this time. The sheriff’s office has not said anything last Wednesday beyond their regret of shooting the dogs.
