Two Labrador retrievers shot dead in Maryland, one while running away from uniformed intruders who stormed unannounced into the house. A 26-year-old mother killed in Lima, Ohio, while kneeling on the floor and holding her one-year-old son. An 88-year-old man mistakenly shot dead in Atlanta in a botched raid. An optometrist in Fairfax accidentally shot and killed while being investigated for betting on football games with a group of friends.
These are some of the many horror stories of armed raids by special-weapons-and-tactics (SWAT) teams. The first one generated nationwide headlines last July because it involved the high-profile, utterly mistaken invasion of the home of Mayor Cheye Calvo of Berwyn Heights, Maryland. Calvo’s front door was bashed in, his beloved black labs killed, and his mother-in-law pushed face down on the kitchen floor with a gun to her head. All this, even though police never got a “no-knock” search warrant.
