Court: Police Can Shoot A Dog If It Moves Or Barks When Cop Enters Home
BY Herschel Smith
8 years ago
A ruling from the 6th Circuit Court serves as a warning to dog owners: Teach your dog to sit still and be quiet or risk police justifiably shooting the dog.
Mark and Cheryl Brown petitioned the court to hold the city and police officers from Battle Creek, Mich., accountable for shooting and killing their dogs while executing a search warrant of their home looking for evidence of drugs. The plaintiffs said the police officers’ actions amounted to the unlawful seizure of property in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
The circuit court on Monday agreed with a lower court ruling siding with the police officers.
“The standard we set out today is that a police officer’s use of deadly force against a dog while executing a warrant to search a home for illegal drug activity is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment when, given the totality of the circumstances and viewed from the perspective of an objectively reasonable officer, the dog poses an imminent threat to the officer’s safety,” Judge Eric Clay wrote in the court’s opinion.
In the case of the Browns’ two pit bulls, the imminent threat came from the dogs barking and moving around. One officer shot the first pit bull after he said it “had only moved a few inches” in a movement that he considered to be a “lunge.” The injured dog retreated to the basement, where the officer shot and killed it as well as the second dog while conducting a sweep of the residence.
“Officer Klein testified that after he shot and killed the first dog, he noticed the second dog standing about halfway across the basement,” the court’s opinion explained. “The second dog was not moving towards the officers when they discovered her in the basement, but rather she was ‘just standing there,’ barking and was turned sideways to the officers. Klein then fired the first two rounds at the second dog.”
After the wounded dog ran into a back corner of the basement, another officer shot the dog rather than seeking help for it.
“Officer Case saw that ‘there was blood coming out of numerous holes in the dog, and … [Officer Case] didn’t want to see it suffer,’ so he put her out of her misery and fired the last shot,” Clay wrote.
The court decided that the plaintiffs failed to provide evidence showing the first dog did not lunge at police officers and that the second dog didn’t bark.
Judge Eric Clay, Officer Klein and Officer Case are all pussies. To a man. They deserve to get the shit beat out of them. And then they deserve to spend court mandated time working on a farm around horses, dogs, goats, cows, chickens and other animals, until they have learned to work with animals without killing them. Hand gestures, physical gate and posture, voice inflection and timbre, and body language. It all matters, dumb ass. Learn it. Do it. If you live in a city where you don’t have access to farm animals, then MOVE. Pussy.
Within five minutes I would have been playing with those dogs in the back yard, them having earned my trust and me theirs – because I’m not a pathological brute and I have a brain and experience. And as for that matter, if a father doesn’t take his son backpacking, doesn’t teach him to raise animals, and doesn’t teach him to live in the outdoors, he also deserves to get the shit beat out of him.
Seriously folks. Many, many problems that appear in front of courts could be solved by good friends, deacons of the church, and co-workers who took responsibility for their colleagues and took them out behind the wood shed like their father should have done and forced them to grow up.
I’ve said before that the righteous man has regard for the life of his beast and the beasts of others. The wicked man does not. I would like to see the Supreme Court strike this down on any of a number of violations of the constitution. I’m not sure they will, and in fact I would bet against it.
So here is my question for cops. Riddle me this. When is the last time a cop was killed by a dog in America?
I’m waiting.
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On December 23, 2016 at 7:14 am, Anon said:
And “they wonder” why Citizen LE encounters keep escalating to bad endings for everyone.
On December 23, 2016 at 8:29 am, Hal P. said:
So now if a Cop enter your home and speaks you can shoot him
On December 23, 2016 at 8:30 am, Pat Hines said:
This actually begs for citizen escalation to the maximum level immediately. “I was afraid for the destruction of my dogs, which are my property, so I fired to stop the officer from acting”.
This, fortunately, is in the Sixth District, but because US Courts of Appeals are populated with lazy judges who frequently use decisions from other districts, it may spread.
On December 23, 2016 at 9:44 am, Col. Douglas Mortimer said:
Scumbags. From these particular officers all the way up to the circuit court, populated by judges who wouldn’t know the Constitution from a bar napkin. I’m tired of hearing how cops “need to get home to their families at night”. Yeah I get that. But becoming a police officer has a certain amount of risk involved and people becoming cops need to know that up front and understand it well. If you can’t handle the risk, find another job. You don’t get to go home at night, at the expense of poor judgement and ruining someone’s life when you are supposed to be there to “protect and serve”.
I was in the US Army from 91-95, most of that time I was stationed in Europe. Guess what, I accepted the fact that any given moment, I may be called upon to give my life and never get to go home.
I’m not saying a police officer’s life is worth less than anyone else. I am not a cop hater, but the dogs were clearly not a threat. Some cops just get off on shooting people’s dogs. Since I am not engaged in illegal activity, I don’t expect late night visits from the police with or without search warrants. If anyone, and I mean anyone comes into my home unannounced, I have an app for that. And I may or may not die for it, but it is my home, and I will defend it to the end. My dog barks if someone walks by on the sidewalk. That is what dogs do.
But f*&K it, the cops can seemingly come into your home, trample all over your life and kick you right in the ass on their way out. Life, liberty and property be damned. My dog is a loved member of my family, not just a pet.
On December 23, 2016 at 11:46 am, Archer said:
I’m tired of hearing how cops “need to get home to their families at night”.
Agreed. This notion just establishes precedent that cops deserve to “get home at the end of the shift” more than anyone else.
And in the case of the Brown family above, they were home with their family, and the cops raided them.
Let me repeat that so it sinks in. The cops, who “deserve to go safely home to their families”, raided a home and put people in danger who were already safely (or so they thought) home with their family.
Did they even find any drugs? Or did they execute a warrant — and two dogs — and walk away empty-handed?
On December 23, 2016 at 12:49 pm, Col. Douglas Mortimer said:
Right on, you made the point better than I could pre-coffee this morning…
On December 23, 2016 at 2:56 pm, johnmcv said:
Juries are finding for the defense in these cases of midnight door busting and the po lice get hurt/killed….especially when it entails a wrong address.
On December 23, 2016 at 7:22 pm, LibertyFirst said:
“”I’m not saying a police officer’s life is worth less than anyone else.”” I’m saying ANY of my family member’s live are worth MORE than an invading unknown, even if they have a funny costume and a badge.
On December 24, 2016 at 8:50 am, DAN III said:
Mortimer,
You seem to not understand something. You are not Free. The home you call yours is not yours. Even if you’re not buried with a mortgage beyond what you can sell for in this obama economy, just refuse to pay your property taxes.
Property “ownership” was once the sign of wealth. Well, you don’t “own” property. You only rent it. This government of scoundrels have long ago destroyed our Freedoms and Liberty.
Don’t pay your property taxes. Don’t pay the socialist school taxes. Watch how long before your heel-clicking Sheriff comes armed to the teeth with an eviction notice telling you to get out of HIS house.
Wake up man !
On December 24, 2016 at 4:26 pm, MadMagyar said:
Worse than that (the “real property” vs “land” issue) is the fact that WE are considered chattel property – of whatever bank has bought us (the Fed, the World Bank, the IMF). Or, rather more to the point, whatever bank the government has pledged our bodies and the product of our labor to in exchange for a reduction of the debt on loans they started taking out in 1913. That’s what the recording of birth certificates in the Department of Commerce and Social Security (Federal Income Contributions Act – look up the legal definition of “contribution”) was really about.
So, legally, we are no longer considered men or women, but “persons” – a legal fiction either defined or referred to in STATUTORY law. As far as they (the governments and banks) are concerned, we are THEIR property, to be used and controlled as they see fit. That’s why courts are ignoring arguments about “rights” based on the Constitution, because it does NOT apply to a slave-owner’s property. We have no “rights”, only privileges. Why? Because we don’t assert our rights as men or women anymore. We kow-tow to our masters as “persons” (legislative/corporatized fictions).
Do a word search on “man” or “woman” in your state’s statutes. You probably won’t find it except in places like family law where a “man” is stipulated to be the father of a child, and in environmental regulations where they talk about “man-made” lakes. At least that what I found in my state statutes. Not a word otherwise. So, just when did we become corporate fictions that they can apply statutes to?
When we start going into courts as Men or Women, instead of as “persons” called plaintiffs or defendants, and demanding our Rights as such be acknowledged and supported instead of trampled on, then things will begin to turn around. Listen to some interviews (on YouTube) with The Informer, James Montgomery, and Karl Lentz. That’s the answer to this nightmare we’ve let the governments and lawyers create.
On December 23, 2016 at 2:06 pm, Ned Weatherby said:
Heck – I wonder when was the last time a cop was even bitten by a dog…
On December 23, 2016 at 2:07 pm, chrismalllory said:
“When is the last time a cop was killed by a dog in America?”
According to http://www.odmp.org/ in 2016, one cop was killed when he was thrown by a horse, in 2011 a cop was killed by a cow, and in 2007 a cop was killed by a yellow jacket.
From 1791 to 2016 the same site returns 77 officers killed in “animal related” incidents. I did not check all of them, but most seem to be horse or insect sting related. I remember reading of one cop that died from rabies he got from a dog bite back in the early part of the 20th Century, but I did not find it on their list. I might have just missed it.
On December 23, 2016 at 6:12 pm, UNCLEELMO said:
Thanks for the research. That’s really interesting info.
On December 24, 2016 at 8:54 am, DAN III said:
Alright Mallory, let’s rephrase the question:
How many badged thugs have been killed by household pets in the last 100 years ?
On December 24, 2016 at 4:02 pm, chrismalllory said:
Definitely not as many have been killed by horses and probably not as many as have been killed by cows.
On December 23, 2016 at 2:51 pm, johnmcv said:
It can be a bit difficult to back the po loce when you have cloakas that do this crappe.
On December 23, 2016 at 9:58 pm, RDaneel said:
I want this to stand. Then we have a way of identifying the sub-humans amongst us. Then they are easy to hunt down.
On December 24, 2016 at 12:56 am, RegT said:
I’m a former police officer, and usually very pro-police, but if any cop shoots my dog (a completely non-violent and friendly breed), he will end up spending the rest of his life in a wheelchair, unable to walk, at the very least. A very sharp chisel applied to the spine between the 12th and 11th thoracic vertebrae should cause paraplegia. A good folding knife with a tanto-style blade would work, too.
Do it up between the 7th and 6th cervical (neck) vertebrae, and he’ll need to take lessons from Stephen Hawking on how to get around, eat, speak, etc. Personally, I’d choose C6-C7. And if I were to do that, it wouldn’t matter if I was made to spend the rest of my life in prison. Any coward wearing a badge that would shoot a dog that wasn’t attacking him (or someone else) deserves to be crippled for the rest of his life, and being in prison would be a small price to pay for the pleasure of stopping a badge-wearing sociopath from harming any more pets or people.
You would be surprised how many animals get killed simply because the cop wants to “enjoy” using his duty weapon to kill something, and they know they can get away with killing a pet almost every time. Just like sick, sociopathic children who start by killing cats or other small animals, cops who kill animals will move on to humans when the thrill of killing someone’s pet starts to pale.
This sick behavior will continue until some of these sociopaths pay for their twisted pleasure. Since the courts and the departments they work for refuse to punish them, it will be up to citizens to provide some significant consequences for the killing of beloved family pets.
On December 24, 2016 at 4:07 pm, Ned Weatherby said:
Reg – I totally understand.
On December 24, 2016 at 5:55 am, Daniel Barger said:
Poodle shooting has NOTHING to do with ‘animal skills’….and only a tiny bit to do with cowardice.
While massive numbers of cops are closet bullys and by default cowards they are not shooting these dogs because they are afraid of them. They shoot these dogs BECAUSE THEY CAN. They
are sending a STATE SPONSORED MESSAGE. And that message is “we can do ANYTHING we want to ANYONE or ANYTHING with TOTAL IMPUNITY up to and including MURDERING YOU”.
THAT is what is going on. They are sending the very real message that the law applies to US but NOT TO THEM and that they can do what they wish without fear of repercussion. And as long as they get away with this criminality they will continue it.
Since the courts are part and party to this criminality do NOT expect the ‘tip of the spear’ to
be punished. Expect instead for them to be rewarded and awarded for their poodle shooting skill.
On December 27, 2016 at 4:55 pm, Duke Norfolk said:
Spot on. It’s the attitude of govt that has become so toxic. And that attitude is expressed in its purest form through the large proportion of cops who are psychopaths/bullies who are just itching to shoot someone; and a dog will fill the bill. It’s a form of terrorism, for sure.
On December 24, 2016 at 8:38 am, DAN III said:
There are no good cops.
On December 24, 2016 at 4:04 pm, Ned Weatherby said:
Apologies if this is OT. I just had two things happen – blew out my knee on the roof fixing a leak during a fearsome storm, and putting my 15 year old sweet dog down on the same day. Honestly – if some asshole – any asshole – entered our property and ended one of our dog’s lives one day earlier than if they died of old age, nothing would, most likely, happen immediately. That is, of course, if I could keep my wife from immediately shooting the perp to death, probably starting at their knees… But putting my dog down was up to me (she was my baby, more than my wife’s, but that didn’t keep us from both crying our eyes out). My dog was ready, and I couldn’t have waited ’till Monday. She was going downhill fast, and wanted relief.
Having to deal with that just reminds me of how effed up it is when LEO’s arbitrarily murder a dog family member. I am truly astounded as to why no harm ever befalls them later. I can only opine that is a testament to how forgiving the American public is. How long is that likely to continue with idiotic rulings like these? Incidentally, even judges can have their “26-pound miniature pinscher-boxer mix” shot to death by fearful police: http://cjonline.com/news-local/2015-08-03/topeka-police-officer-fatally-shoots-retired-judges-dog-his-backyard
A 26 lb dog. I could deal with that even now with only one leg. And probably not even get bitten.
On December 25, 2016 at 5:00 am, RetdMSgt . said:
It’s because police departments don’t bother recruiting officers who are smarter than the dogs they’re trying to deal with.
On December 27, 2016 at 6:54 pm, Deserttrek said:
any cop that would shoot dogs will abuse children , drive drunk and beat his wife