Rise of the Warrior Cop (56 page)

Percentage of towns between 25,000 and 50,000 people with a SWAT team in 1984: 25.6 percent

. . . in 1990: 52.1 percent

. . . in 2005: 80 percent

Approximate number of SWAT raids in the United States in 1995: 30,000

. . . in 2001: 45,000

. . . in 2005: 50,000–60,000

Total number of federal agencies employing law enforcement personnel in 1996: 53

. . . in 2008: 73

Total number of federal law enforcement officers as of 1996: 74,500 (28 per 100,000 citizens)

. . . in 2008: 120,000 (40 per 100,000 citizens)

Number of SWAT teams in the FBI alone in 2013: 56

Unlikely federal agencies with SWAT teams: US Fish and Wildlife Service, Consumer Product Safety Commission, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services, US National Park Service, Food and Drug Administration

Value of surplus military gear received by Johnston, Rhode Island, from the Pentagon in 2010–2011: $4.1 million

Population of Johnston, Rhode Island, in 2010: 28,769

Partial list of equipment given to the Johnston police department: 30 M-16 rifles, 599 M-16 magazines containing about 18,000 rounds, a “sniper targeting calculator,” 44 bayonets, 12 Humvees, and 23 snow blowers
¹⁰⁵

CHAPTER 9

REFORM

There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.

—CHARLES DE MONTESQUIEU

C
heye Calvo only intended to be home long enough to grab a bite to eat and walk his dogs.
¹
Calvo worked full-time at an educational foundation in Washington, DC, but he also had an unusual part-time job: he was mayor of the small town of Berwyn Heights, Maryland. In 2004, at age thirty-three, he was the youngest elected mayor in the history of Prince George’s County, Maryland. Now thirty-seven, he lived with his wife, Trinity Tomsic, her mother, Georgia Porter, and their two black labradors, Payton and Chase. Calvo was due back in town later that night for a community meeting.

As Calvo took the dogs out for a walk the evening of July 29, 2008, his mother-in-law told him that a package had been delivered a few minutes earlier. He figured it was something he had ordered for his garden. “On the walk, I noticed a few black SUVs in the neighborhood, but thought little of it except to wave to the drivers,” he would later recall. When Calvo and the dogs returned, he
picked up the package, brought it inside, then went upstairs to change for his meeting.

The next thing Calvo remembers is the sound of his mother-in-law screaming. He ran to the window and saw heavily armed men clad in black rushing his front door. Next came the explosion. He’d later learn that this was when the police blew open his front door. Then there was gunfire. Then boots stomping the floor. Then more gunfire. Calvo, still in his boxers, screamed, “I’m upstairs, please don’t shoot!” He was instructed to walk downstairs with his hands in the air, the muzzles of two guns pointed directly at him. He still didn’t know it was the police. He described what happened next at a Cato Institute forum six weeks later. “At the bottom of the stairs, they bound my hands, pulled me across the living room, and forced me to kneel on the floor in front of my broken door. I thought it was a home invasion. I was fearful that I was about to be executed.” I later asked Calvo what might have happened if he’d had a gun in his home for self-defense. His answer: “I’d be dead.” In another interview, he would add, “The worst thing I could have done was defend my home.”