DOJ: Police Shooting Family Dogs has Become ‘Epidemic’
by Dale Chappell published in Criminal Legal News July, 2018, page 20
Cops in this country kill so many dogs each year that a specialist at the Department of Justice’s (“DOJ”) community-oriented program services office says it has become an “epidemic.” The DOJ estimates that around 25 to 30 dogs are killed by cops every day, with some numbers as high as 10,000 per year. The totals could, in fact, be higher, since most police agencies do not formally track officer-involved shootings involving animals.
In Detroit, cops killed at least 25 dogs in 2015 and 21 before the first half of 2016. According to police records, two detectives had killed at least 100 dogs between them over the course of their careers. Meanwhile Metro Atlanta cops kill on average 50 dogs per year, and a Buffalo, New York, news channel investigation found that police there killed 92 dogs over three years, with one officer having killed 26 himself.
The pet owner’s recourse to hold cops accountable for killing a family pet, though, is not easy. The law provides “immunity” for cops unless their actions were “plainly incompetent” or they violated the law, according to the courts. Dogs are considered “property” under the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, so a cop killing someone’s dog is recognized as a “seizure” of the person’s property. In order for someone to show a constitutional violation when a cop kills his dog, a person must show that the cop’s actions were “unreasonable” given the situation. Absent a constitutional claim, a person could sue for damages because of the loss of property (the dog), but any damage award is usually limited to the “market value” of the dog, typically the purchase price. Some states, however, do offer limited damages for emotional distress for the loss of a dog, but not many. Still, cops are normally exempt from claims under those remedies...
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