Deadly Force
What a SWAT team did to Cheye Calvo's family may seem extreme. But decades into America's war on drugs, it's business as usual.
By April Witt
WashPost
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Payton swung his big, goofy head onto the bed, worked his snout under a pillow and gave a gentle bump. The mayor's wife, nudged awake, opened her eyes and smiled. Payton, the couple's playful No. 1 dog, was letting her know that he and his timid little brother, Chase, needed their morning walk. As the mayor's wife stirred, the two black Labs -- known collectively as "the boys" -- panted and bounded round the bed gleefully. "Get up! Get up! Get up! Get Up!" the boys seemed to be saying. They did this every morning. Inside this sunny red-brick house on a well-tended corner lot in the tiny town of Berwyn Heights in Prince George's County, the family routines were precise from thousands of loving retracings; and they almost all revolved around the boys.
After six years of marriage, Trinity Tomsic and her husband, Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye (sounds like "Shy") Calvo, still hoped for children. As the couple waited, the boys were more than a balm; they were a shared joy. Cheye, 37, and Trinity, 33, had even bought this quaint little house because it had a fenced yard with an expansive lawn where the boys could romp -- dog heaven. On this morning, Tuesday, July 29, Trinity fed the boys by 5 a.m., then planned to take Chase running before walking Payton. Running was the one activity at which shy Chase bested Payton, who had long ago been slowed by a leg injury. "Chase knew we were going to go running before I even had my tennis shoes on," Trinity later recalled. "I don't know how he knew. He just always did."
Trinity snapped Chase in his running harness, then reconsidered. She was a finance officer for the state of Maryland. She had a stack of crucial reports awaiting her approval. Maybe she should just leave for the office now. "I came very close to telling him that we'd have to run later," she recalled. But Chase looked so ridiculously excited that Trinity couldn't stand to disappoint him. "He was jumping up and down, up and down, like, 'We're going to go running! We're going to go running.' It was the best thing to see him so happy."
(More here.)
By April Witt
WashPost
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Payton swung his big, goofy head onto the bed, worked his snout under a pillow and gave a gentle bump. The mayor's wife, nudged awake, opened her eyes and smiled. Payton, the couple's playful No. 1 dog, was letting her know that he and his timid little brother, Chase, needed their morning walk. As the mayor's wife stirred, the two black Labs -- known collectively as "the boys" -- panted and bounded round the bed gleefully. "Get up! Get up! Get up! Get Up!" the boys seemed to be saying. They did this every morning. Inside this sunny red-brick house on a well-tended corner lot in the tiny town of Berwyn Heights in Prince George's County, the family routines were precise from thousands of loving retracings; and they almost all revolved around the boys.
After six years of marriage, Trinity Tomsic and her husband, Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye (sounds like "Shy") Calvo, still hoped for children. As the couple waited, the boys were more than a balm; they were a shared joy. Cheye, 37, and Trinity, 33, had even bought this quaint little house because it had a fenced yard with an expansive lawn where the boys could romp -- dog heaven. On this morning, Tuesday, July 29, Trinity fed the boys by 5 a.m., then planned to take Chase running before walking Payton. Running was the one activity at which shy Chase bested Payton, who had long ago been slowed by a leg injury. "Chase knew we were going to go running before I even had my tennis shoes on," Trinity later recalled. "I don't know how he knew. He just always did."
Trinity snapped Chase in his running harness, then reconsidered. She was a finance officer for the state of Maryland. She had a stack of crucial reports awaiting her approval. Maybe she should just leave for the office now. "I came very close to telling him that we'd have to run later," she recalled. But Chase looked so ridiculously excited that Trinity couldn't stand to disappoint him. "He was jumping up and down, up and down, like, 'We're going to go running! We're going to go running.' It was the best thing to see him so happy."
(More here.)
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1 Comments:
Can anyone explain why the barbaric and obviously counterproductive war on drugs continues in a country that claims to cherish freedom? Shouldn't it be crystal clear by now to all but the severely intelligence deprived that it is and always has been a de facto price support mechanism for banned substances? May I remind you that Al Capone did not become wealthy by selling legal spirits. In that respect only has it been fabulously successful. In all other senses it has been an extraordinarily expensive miserable failure that picks our pockets, extinguishes our freedoms, spills blood, and fills our prisons.
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