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Police Raid Home Mayor Berwyn Heights, killing his two dogs

By Aaron C. Davis
Writer Washington Post
Thursday, July 31, 2008, B01

A SWAT team of police raided the home of Mayor of the City of Prince George's County, Berwyn Heights, Tuesday, shooting and killing his two dogs, after submitting a package of 32-pound of marijuana that had been delivered at his door, police said.

Chey Mayor Calvo was not arrested in the raid, which was conducted approximately 7 pm by the County Sheriff's Office SWAT team and narcotics officers. Prince George's police spokesman Henry Tippett said yesterday that all residents of the house - Calvo, his wife and mother-in-law - are "persons of interest" in the case.

The package was addressed to Calvo's wife, Trinity Tomsic, said law enforcement officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the case is ongoing.

Tippett said police are trying to determine for whom the drugs were intended.

Calvo said yesterday that he did not know how the drugs wound up on his doorstep. He works part time as mayor and serves as director of expansion for the SEED Foundation, a national group known nonprofit that manages urban public boarding school.

"My government blew through my doors and killed my dog," said Calvo. "They thought we were drug dealers, and we have been treated as such. I do not think they really ever considered that we were not. "

Calvo described a chaotic scene, in which he - underwear and socks only - and her stepmother were handcuffed and interrogated for hours. They were surrounded by the carcasses of dogs and pools of blood of dogs, Calvo said.

The spokesman for the sheriff's office and police in Prince George complained yesterday that the mayor's dogs were killed. But they defended the way the raid was conducted, saying it was good for a case involving such a large quantity of drugs.

Sgt. Mario Ellis, spokesman for the Sheriff's Office, told deputies who entered Calvo home "apparently felt threatened" by the dogs.

"We're not in the habit of going to peoples homes and Shooting Dogs," Ellis said. "If we were, there would be many more dead dogs in the county."

Calvo, 37, was mayor of the town of 3,000 people near College Park since 2004. His wife is a finance officer of the state, "he said.

The investigation that led police to their home in the 8500 block Edmonston Road began in Arizona, authorities said. There, a police dog in a transportation center identified as the package full of marijuana. Prince George's officers posed as deliverymen and brought it to the Calvo home.

Calvo said he was returning to work early Tuesday. While walking the dogs, Calvo said, he noticed several black sport utility vehicles and a woman in a car parked in the street.

"I thought someone was a party," he recalled.

It was the police. They watched, waiting for someone to put the package into the house.

As Calvo returned home, he said, he spotted the large package that his stepmother had told a deliveryman to leave on the porch. He placed it on a buffet table near the front door and went upstairs to change.

"I brought it inside because I thought it was something we got for the garden," he said.

Moments later, just.