Radley Balko has the details of yet another ridiculously excessive drug raid, this time in Carroll County, MD. From the victim:

After reviewing the search warrant I was horrified to realize these "hut-hut" men came in with M-16s in the middle of the night because my son had been arrested for a misdemeanor marijuana charge. The affidavit filed for the search warrant stated that "it had been the officer’s experience that persons who are arrested with illegal drugs continued to use, abuse and/or distribute illegal drugs". This was the probable cause.

As awful as that sounds, it’s actually worse. The kid a) didn’t even live there anymore, and b) had already been to court for the marijuana charge. What they were they doing raiding his parents? It’s just absurd. Whoever signed that warrant should be fired, if not jailed for reckless endangerment.

And if that’s not enough, it appears that Carrol County’s judges have been signing warrants like this routinely. Sounds like a good reason to pass legislation requiring better documentation of drug raids in Maryland.

Following the botched drug raid death of his two dogs, Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo has gone from drug war victim to hero of justice. His dreadful experience – and dignified response – has inspired two Maryland legislators to introduce a bill that will improve data collection on aggressive police raids:

All the bill does is require each local police department to submit a monthly report of any SWAT activities, with details of time, place, evidence seized, arrests, and any injuries. "This bill is an important first step that doesn’t restrict [SWAT] use," Calvo said. "It merely brings transparency." Transparency should be the least the public demands with regard to the use of potentially deadly force. [Examiner]

Don’t be at all surprised when law enforcement interests in Maryland bitterly oppose any effort to document their activities. They are going to completely freak out about this. You know why? Because police in Maryland conduct unnecessarily violent drug raids all the time, endangering innocent people routinely and without consequence. Naturally, they would prefer that such conduct not be scrutinized.