Maryland Legislation

Bills have been introduced in both the Maryland House of Delegates and the Maryland Senate to require all jurisdictions to report all SWAT deployments monthly to the Attorney General starting January 1, 2010.  In addition to reporting the number of deployments, the bills require that forcible entries, resulting arrests, evidence seized, weapon discharges, and injuries to people and animals also be reported on the same schedule.

Senate Bill 447 has been introduced by Senator Muse and co-sponsored by six out of eleven members of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee.  The Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee held a hearing on the bill at 1:00 p.m. on Tuesday, March 3, 2009.  

View Washington Post coverage 

View Baltimore Sun coverage

View Cheye Calvo's Testimony

The bill was passed unanimously by the Senate (43-0) on March 19, 2009.

House Bill 1267 has been introduced by Delegate Valderrama and 20 co-sponsors, including 10 of the 22 members of the Judiciary Committee.  At a hearing on the bill on Tuesday, March 24, 2009, seven victims of inappropriate and terrifying SWAT raids testified.  Watch the News8 story by clicking on the arrow in the bottom left corner: 

House Bill 1267 passed overwhelmingly on March 25th, 2009 by a vote of 123 to 13.  Unlike the Senate bill, the House bill contains a five-year sunset provision.  It also requires data collection to begin on July 1, 2009, six months earlier than the Senate bill. 

The Senate passed the House's version of the bill, House Bill 1267, by a vote of 46-0 on April 6, 2009.  Now it goes to Governor O'Malley for his signature. 

Other States

As the Cato Report’s map of botched SWAT raids makes obvious, inappropriate SWAT raids are a problem in many states other than Maryland.  If your state shares this problem, please create or join a task force for your state via our discussion board.