Court Strips Immunity From Cop Who Shot A Dog Within Seconds Of Arriving On The Scene Of A Non-Crime – Techdirt

from the killing-dogs-is-still-regular-police-business dept

Cops kill dogs literally all the time. It happens so often even the DOJ has taken notice.

Laurel Matthews, a supervisory program specialist with the Department of Justices Community Oriented Policing Services (DOJ COPS) office, says its an awful lot. She calls fatal police vs. dogs encounters an epidemic and estimates that 25 to 30 pet dogs are killed each day by law enforcement officers.

So, when Loveland (CO) police officer Matthew Grashorn arrived on the scene of a non-crime, he did what cops do: he killed someones dog. This killing happened only 13 seconds after Officer Grashorn arrived, something confirmed by his own body camera recording.

Colorado residents Wendy Love and Jay Hamm had done nothing more than stop in the vacant parking lot of a local business to give their dogs a chance to stretch their legs while the couple took a look at the second-hand ice machine they had acquired. The business owner called the police after noticing this on his security cameras, claiming he felt the couple was perhaps attempting to tamper with his locked dumpster.

Officer Grashorn arrived, exited his vehicle, and was greeted by one of the couples dogs running toward him. He yelled at the couple to get their dog, which the couple did, calling back their 16-year-old dog, Bubba, who was first to greet the officer. However, another of their dogs, a terrier/boxer mix named Herkimer trotted towards the officer. Grashorn shot the second dog. Then he prevented the couple from comforting the wounded animal or seeking help for its wounds, delaying any medical care until after a supervisor had arrived. By that time it was too late for Herkimer. He was euthanized after spending four days in intensive care.

Adding insult to injuries resulting in death, Grashorn issued a summons for unlawful ownership of a dangerous dog to the grieving couple, a charge that was ultimately dismissed.

The couple sued the city of Loveland, along with Officer Grashorn. Grashorn claimed the dog aggressively approached him, justifying his ultimately deadly force. The couple claimed the dog merely approached the officer with normal curiosity and never posed a threat.

A year after the filing of the lawsuit, the couple has finally secured a bit of justice. As Colorado Politics reports (and, even better, provides a copy of the ruling), Officer Grashorn has been denied qualified immunity by the federal court.

The court comes to this conclusion despite never having viewed the body cam video, which the couple inexplicably failed to enter into evidence. No doubt this will be corrected as the case moves forward to trial, but its still an unforced error.

Despite this lack of evidence that would likely resolve a bunch of disputed facts, the court agrees that the killing of the couples dog was not only a seizure under the Fourth Amendment, but an unreasonable one at that. From the decision [PDF]:

[T]he Court finds it would be clear to a reasonable officer that killing a pet dog is a Fourth Amendment seizure and would violate the Fourth Amendment, absent a warrant particularly describing the things to be seized or circumstances justifying an exception to the warrant requirement. Whatever lawful justifications may exist for the seizure in this case, the Court finds the circumstances alleged in the Complaint do not establish an exception to the warrant requirement as a matter of law. And regardless of whether Defendant Grashorn believed Herkimer posed an imminent threat justifying the use of deadly force, the allegations do not establish that the shooting the dog was reasonable.

The court doesnt bother to discuss whether or not this violation of rights is clearly established. That will likely come into play during the inevitable appeal of the decision. It merely states flatly that a reasonable officer would not believe deadly force was justified in this situation. If that ruling withstands an appeal, cops who kill dogs in this jurisdiction will be on notice theyll need to provide more than subjective statements about feeling threatened by the mere approach of mans best friend.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, colorado, dogs, jay hamm, loveland, matthew grashorn, police, qualified immunity, wendy love

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Court Strips Immunity From Cop Who Shot A Dog Within Seconds Of Arriving On The Scene Of A Non-Crime - Techdirt