Lawsuit Goes Forward Over Deaths Of Two Dogs In Pot Raid

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Photo: Reason
Mayor Cheye Calvo and his wife walk their two black Labs, Payton and Chase, in 2008. Both dogs were killed in a botched pot raid.

​A judge has ruled the suit Mayor Cheye Calvo filed regarding the deaths of his dogs in a horribly botched 2008 pot raid can go forward. The judge denied motions by Prince George County and the State of Maryland to put a stop to the mayor’s lawsuit, reports Nancy Norman of NBC Washington.

Last July, drug smugglers sent a package containing 32 pounds of marijuana to the Calvo household. A SWAT team, alerted to the package, raided the mayor’s house, bound Calvo and held him at gunpoint. The officers heartlessly shot and killed Calvo’s pet dogs — one of them while, the mayor says, the dog was trying to run away and hide.
Mayor Calvo was later exonerated of any drug charges. It turned out he was just randomly sent the marijuana in a bizarre drug smuggling scheme. The cannabis was left outside the house; in the scenario imagined by the drug smugglers, someone would come and pick up the package before the unsuspecting residents got home.

Unfortunately, the Prince George County SWAT team showed up, all gung-ho to arrest someone — even if it was the mayor — for marijuana.
Incredibly, Prince George’s County police refused to apologize for the August 2008 raid, for the tactics they used in the raid, or for killing Calvo’s dogs.
In addition to filing the suit, Mayor Calvo now champions laws to establish more oversight regarding SWAT team activity.
Mayor Calvo and his wife thought about putting the whole nightmarish incident behind them, but instead bought two more pet dogs.
The new dogs won’t replace Payton and Chase, according to the mayor. But their new pets will keep their lives moving forward.


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