Leaving the Weeds to Control Themselves

On July 29, 2008, a violent gang, looking for malum prohibitum drugs, invaded the Berwyn Heights, Maryland, home of Cheye (pronounced "Shy") Calvo. Needless to say, violent gangs have utterly no regard for the safety or well-being or property of their victims. They want what they want, consequences and accountability and rights be damned.

This particular gang terrorized this entirely innocent family for 4 hours. They killed the family's 2 Labrador Retrievers, one while he was retreating in (particularly in hindsight, entirely) justifiable terror. Ultimately unsatisfied, they left the violated and shell-shocked family to put their lives back together. And clean up the blood. And the government sworn to protect this family's rights found nothing wrong with the physical and emotional carnage.

To be fair, though, that's because this gang, these criminals, was a SWAT team sent by government. Starting to see the motivation? Yep, collateral damage in yet still even more prohibition-related crime. In the "War on People Who Use (Some) Drugs."™ Or in this case, only on unsuspecting people, just living their lives, whom the gang thought were using "some" drugs. Although, truthfully, the more one learns about the case, the clearer it becomes that there wasn't much thinking going on at all.

Yet according to Wikipedia, over 2 years after the costly and embarrassing raid, then-Sheriff Michael A. Jackson defiantly defended his department's indefensible-in-a-free-society aggression, stating, “we'd do it again. Tonight.”

You may be next, citizen, 'cause they don't work for you. They're not accountable to you. They want what they want, consequences and accountability and rights be damned. You have the right to remain terrified. And in NH, too, your government's reaction is less than comforting.

Oh, did I mention Mr. Calvo was and is the 5-term mayor of Berwyn Heights, Maryland? Yeah, the Sheriff wasn't aware, either...

Cheye Calvo graced the NH Liberty Alliance's 2012 Liberty Dinner as the keynote speaker, 7/15/2012, on the jarringly and increasingly mundane nature of state violence. Not merely state-sanctioned. State-perpetrated. Radley Balko has done extensive reporting on this incident. The NHLA 2012 Liberty Rating should be available presently here.