Patrick recently wrote about Australian cops shooting a small dog. Not to be outdone, a Maryland SWAT team raided the home of Cheye Calvo, mayor of Berwyn Heights, and shot his two Labradors. The SWAT team raided the house because postal officials detected a 32-pound box of marijuana being delivered to his wife at the house. You know how violent people get on marijuana, and when you add Labradors into the mix, there's no surprise that they called in SWAT. Calvo ought to be happy they didn't order an air strike.

Calvo described a chaotic scene, in which he — wearing only underwear and socks — and his mother-in-law were handcuffed and interrogated for hours. They were surrounded by the dogs' carcasses and pools of the dogs' blood, Calvo said.

The SWAT team wants you to know that if they ever really get a hair up their asses about dogs, then you'll damn well know it, Fido:

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

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

As Hit & Run points out, shooting dogs during drug raids is a sort of trend. Try Googling it. It will take you a while to read them all.

Fortunately we know that excess of force and questionable tactical decisions — including when and where to go in with SWAT-level intensity — are carefully monitored, and excesses punished. So, for instance, when a Minneapolis SWAT team — expecting to raid a violent gang member — instead raided the home of an innocent family with six children, there were serious consequences for the responsible officers. They were punished in a humiliating ceremony in which shiny disks of metal were placed on their chests.

Remember — the Great War on Drugs is for America's children. And Cops Are Your Friends.

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