https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/news/2008-08-08/659040/

FBI Investigating Deadly Drug Raid at Home of Maryland Mayor

By Jordan Smith, August 8, 2008, 12:13pm, Newsdesk

The FBI has launched an investigation into the drug bust at the home of a Maryland mayor last week, which ended with the deaths of the mayor's two dogs.

To recap: Apparently a drug dog in Arizona hit on pot inside a package in the post office that was addressed to Trinity Tomsic, the wife of Berwyn Heights, Maryland, Mayor Cheye Calvo. Police brought the package to Maryland and, dressed up like mail carriers, delivered the package to Calvo and Tomsic's house, where it sat outside on the stoop all day July 30. When Calvo got home, he picked up the package, dropped it off just inside the front door, and headed upstairs. That's when the Prince George's Co. narcos and sheriff's office SWAT team swooped in to raid the home. According to Raw Story, sheriff's office spokesman Sgt. Mario Ellis said the officers "apparently felt threatened" and thus shot the dogs, but Calvo tells a different and far more disturbing story: The offcers broke in and shot their seven-year-old Labrador Payton then actually pursued their four-year-old Lab, Chase, who ran away from the cops and was ultimately shot from behind.

According to FBI Baltimore field office spokesman Richard Wolf, the agency has begun "reviewing the events that occurred at Mr. Calvo's residence," reports the Washington Post. The FBI involvement comes one day after Calvo and Tomsic issued an emotional plea for help. "We have witnessed a frightening law enforcement culture in which the law is disregarded, the rights of innocent occupants are ignored and the rights of innocent animals mean nothing," Calvo told reporters. "A shadow was cast over our good names. We were harmed by the very people who took an oath to protect us." The Post is now reporting that officers at the scene "tied up" Calvo and his mother-in-law and interrogated them for hours in the home, reportedly as they sat next to the bloody corpses of their murdered dogs.

Meanwhile, on Aug. 6 police involved in the deadly raid as much as admitted that they'd made a mistake in raiding the Calvo home. Police told reporters that they'd actually arrested a delivery person in connection with a scheme to smuggle drugs through the mail by addressing drug-filled packages to uninvolved and unsuspecting people, then intercepting the packages before they arrive at their addressed destination. In the case of Calvo and Tomsic the not-so-freakin-new scheme didn't work out – and, apparently, the cops weren't quick enough (or didn't take the time to step back and think about things) to figure out what was happening before it was too late.