Perhaps even more baffling, officials continued to insist that the raid shouldn’t have happened any other way. Even as they acknowledged that Calvo and his family were innocent, in the months and years following the raid they would repeat again and again that not a single officer did anything wrong, and that no one had any reason for remorse. In 2010 Sheriff Michael Jackson was asked during his campaign for Prince George’s County executive if he had any regrets about the raid. His response: “Quite frankly, we’d do it again. Tonight.” Even when Chief High called Calvo to tell him that he had been cleared of any criminal suspicion, High made sure to explicitly tell the mayor that the call should not be interpreted as an apology. The statements from county officials over the next several months were also astonishingly callous. A day after he called Calvo, High told the press that the raiding cops showed “restraint and compassion” and insisted that they should be credited for not arresting Calvo or members of his family. (The only incriminating evidence found in the home was the unopened box of marijuana that the deputies themselves had delivered.) Months later, Prince George’s County executive Jack Johnson said something even more preposterous. He insisted that once Prince George’s County police agencies had cleared themselves, that was the only apology necessary—and in fact that they deserved praise for clearing Calvo’s name after nearly killing him. “Well, I think in America that is the apology, when we’re cleared,” Johnson said. “At the end of the day, the investigation showed [Calvo] was not involved. And that’s, you know, a pat on the back for everybody involved, I think.” On September 8, about five weeks after the raid, Sheriff Jackson’s office announced that his internal investigation had cleared his deputies of any wrongdoing. Everything was done according to procedure. Or, as Jackson put it, “the guys did what they were supposed to do.” Nine months later, Jackson’s office would conclude another investigation, again clearing his deputies. Neither outcome was surprising, given that Jackson had been defending his deputies since the night of the raid. It’s probably also worth noting that the father of Det. Shawn Scarlata—the officer who initiated the investigation leading to the raid— was on the internal affairs team that conducted the investigations.
The officials in Prince George’s County, two of them elected, openly and without reservation stated that they had no problem with the collateral damage done to the Calvo family. It was part of the war against getting high—which even they had to know is a war that can’t be won. They didn’t even really think it was something to regret or learn from, or to try to avoid in the future. As Calvo himself pointed out on several occasions, this isn’t a problem that can be laid at the feet of the police officers who raided his home. This problem can’t be fixed by firing the police involved. This is a political problem. It’s a policy problem
