{"id":30627,"date":"2024-06-07T10:05:22","date_gmt":"2024-06-07T14:05:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/?p=1066104"},"modified":"2024-06-07T10:05:22","modified_gmt":"2024-06-07T14:05:22","slug":"city-sued-for-1-million-after-cop-murders-a-tiny-dog-for-the-crime-of-being-lost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/legal-innovation-center\/2024\/06\/07\/city-sued-for-1-million-after-cop-murders-a-tiny-dog-for-the-crime-of-being-lost\/","title":{"rendered":"City Sued For $1 Million After Cop Murders A Tiny Dog For The Crime Of Being Lost"},"content":{"rendered":"

You know what kind of person kills animals on the regular? Psychopaths, at least according to a casual survey of pop culture references. You know who else? Cops.\u00a0But I repeat myself<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Laurel Matthews, a supervisory program specialist with the Department of Justice\u2019s Community Oriented Policing Services (DOJ COPS) office, says it\u2019s an awful lot. She calls fatal police vs. dogs encounters an \u201cepidemic\u201d and estimates that 25 to 30 pet dogs are killed each day by law enforcement officers.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

30 dogs a day. Only a handful of court cases where courts have found officers violated the Constitution by killing innocent pets. Judges often hold that killing an animal amounts to a \u201cseizure\u201d under the Fourth Amendment, but in most cases, qualified immunity carries the day.<\/p>\n

Occasionally, it goes the other way. A court\u00a0stripped immunity<\/a>\u00a0from a cop who killed a dog 13\u00a0seconds<\/em>\u00a0after arriving to a call about people cleaning out their cars in a vacant parking lot. In another case, immunity was denied when the court determined the\u00a0officer acted unreasonably<\/a>\u00a0by killing a family\u2019s dog while other officers on the scene were shouting at him to back off and all the family to bring their dog back inside.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s this incident, which could\u00a0easily serve as a metapho<\/a>r for policing as it\u2019s practiced here in the United States:<\/p>\n

Lawsuit: Deputy Tried To Shoot \u2018Charging\u2019 Pomeranian, Shot Woman On Porch Instead<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This case is more of the same. Hopefully, it will end like the ones listed above: with a denial of qualified immunity. A family whose deaf and blind 13-pound Shih Tzu was shot and killed by Sturgeon, Missouri police officer Myron Woods earlier this month has sued the city and the officer for $1 million,\u00a0as Nina Golgowski reports for the Huffington Post<\/a>:<\/p>\n

[Officer]<\/em>\u00a0Woodson had been called in to help find the owner of the dog<\/em><\/strong>, a 13-pound Shih Tzu named Teddy. The officer shot him twice at point-blank range, as seen in\u00a0body camera footage.<\/a>\u00a0Minutes after the shooting, Hunter, who\u2019d gotten a call from a friend about Teddy escaping his backyard kennel, confronted the officer.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cAt no time during the encounter between Teddy and Defendant Woodson did Teddy show any aggression towards Defendant Woodson,\u201d states the complaint. \u201cTeddy never barked, growled, or even moved towards Defendant Woodson. Instead, the small, blind and deaf dog simply kept trying to walk away, oblivious to the danger that Defendant Woodson posed to him.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The\u00a0body camera footage<\/a>\u00a0backs up the\u00a0lawsuit\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0claims.\u00a0I must warn you this is a tough watch, even if you\u2019re fairly accustomed to footage of inexplicable acts of violence committed by police officers<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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