Doggycide in Minneapolis, MN

Includes blatantly flawed court ruling concerning illegal entry:

What happened: A policeman went into a plaintiff’s garage because plaintiff’s garage door was open and the policeman wanted to investigate. The plaintiff’s pit bull dog ran, or jogged (depending upon whom you believe), at the policeman, so the policeman shot the pet in the head and killed it.

Decision: No liability for the police because of qualified immunity. Decision seems to say that a police officer can shoot a dog even if the dog is on its own property.

Criticisms: [In short: 1) The court opinion doesn’t specify whether both the officer and the dog were inside the garage at the time of the shooting, which matters because 2) people (including police) are not allowed to trespass, and thus anything that happened afterwards should never have happened to begin with given the officer’s original transgression. Finally, 3) The officer did not have probable cause to enter an open garage even despite searching for suspects, thus he was not supposed to be there.] As it is, the opinion simply seems wrong for failing to consider the Constitutionality of the entry, and instead improperly focusing exclusively on what happened after the dog started his approach.

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Doggycide Bingo Index

Confirmed hits:

Dead dog

Firearm as first reaction

No apology

Wrong address (no probable cause for entry)

No disciplinary action taken

No investigation

Owner/cops disagree on dog behavior

Illegal police entry

Total: 8/25
Somewhat routine. No bingo.

(via The Agitator)

Tags: Minneapolis, MN • illegal entry • Doggycide Bingo