I’m getting sick of reading these kinds of stories:
The owner of a dog shot and killed by a Salt Lake City police officer last week released video of his initial confrontation with two other officers before finding his dog lying in his backyard.
…Police had been in the neighborhood searching for a missing three-year-old boy.
…Salt Lake City police spokesperson Robin Heiden said last week the officer had felt threatened enough to need to fire his weapon, but she declined to release more information until an internal affairs investigation is complete.
A local civil litigation attorney who has no connection to the case agreed discuss with 2News the legal issues in the case.
Did the officer legally enter Kendall’s property? Pankratz believes both parties could make a case for that question.
Under Utah and United States law, police generally need to have probable cause and a warrant to search a private property. However, the “exigent circumstance doctrine” allows certain exceptions, including missing child searches.
So while executing a missing child search police allegedly encountered a large dog acting aggressively while searching a fenced in yard, and shot and killed it.
I’m really not going to question the exact events of the shooting. Honestly it sounds very believable. Dogs can get aggressive when strangers enter their territory. Still why were police there in the first place? They didn’t have a warrant, at best they could have probable cause. But then there’s this little detail.
But did the officer actually believe the child was on that property, a block and a half from the boy’s home? He would later be found sleeping in his own basement.
The kid wasn’t there. He was at home sleeping under a box and some blankets according to other stories. So the missing child report seems legit, and I believe the dog would likely be defending his property, because that’s what dogs do.
But again, this problem all arises from why police entered the property in the first place. If you ask me this case REEKS of complacency of police and the 4th Amendment, and the upper level police brass not being very concerned with officers overstepping their boundaries.
Here’s the video the homeowner took of the confrontation with police after the smoke had cleared:
While I have every sympathy with the owner, I will note that dogs or any other animal are NOT people, and shouldn’t be treated as such. Also his assessment that the officers should have just retreated and shut the gate may not have been a valid course of action if the police accounts that the dog was VERY close are true.
One reason I carry a gun is in case of dangerous dogs, especially when I’m with my daughter. A dog can easily kill a baby before I could diffuse the situation, so if a dog is posing a likely threat to me or my baby I’m going to kill the damn thing as quickly as possible and let the chips fall where they may.
Still let’s get specific. There is a house near mine that I sometimes walk past that has a 100+ pound dog of some breed I’m unfamiliar with. This dog is VERY aggressive in his behavior, barking and growling without the standard tail wagging that shows he’s just defending his territory. When I see him he’s in a fenced-in yard, with an approximately 4″ fence.
My plan of action goes as following. When I pass this house I am ALWAYS on the opposite side of the street. This means I’m on the side without the sidewalk. I frequently have my hand on my gun the moment I see this dog is in the yard. Now that’s the end of it, but in the event that this dog jumps that fence (which he is certainly capable of doing) I’m going to engage him. Thankfully this hasn’t happened. Still this engagement will be on PUBLIC property, NOT in the owner’s backyard. If I was to be an asshole and jump the fence or open the gate I would EXPECT to get mauled by this dog, and it would be MY fault.
My issue is not with cops shooting a dog that was threatening them, or even cops searching for a missing child that wasn’t really missing. Instead it was cops entering private property under what appears to be VERY tenuous probable cause.
I’m sorry, police, but “Probable Cause” does not mean “Because I felt like it”, which is what this case really seems like at this moment.
What do you all think?
I think that there are cops out there that just hate dogs. They kill them whenever they have an excuse.
Because once you got a badge and a gun, who is going to stop you?
The tears of the owners are like wine to these psychos.
You know, I’m about getting to the point where when I hear someone ask about the police “What do you think?” my response is automatically “Fuck the police.”
My first thought was to ask why they couldn’t knock on the door before going into the backyard, but after reading the article, it sounds like no one was home. There’s certainly a possibility that there were legitimate exigent circumstances. Beyond that, there’s not enough information to tell if their entry into the backyard was justified or not.
Yep the guy was at work. Also another fact that is known is he came home early because animal control CALLED HIM AT WORK!
Who knows if they knocked on the door first, or only did it after they wanted somebody to get rid of the dead dog. Either way they managed to contact him after the fact, and there was no kid or evidence that there was a kid on his property. Sure they MIGHT have had probable cause, but from all evidence presented they were on a wild goose chase, and they decided to trespass on his property just to look busy as the events unfolded.
So yeah, it’s POSSIBLE they had probable cause, but all the evidence points that they were just tresspassing for something to do in what turned out to be a wild goose chanse.
If I were the attorney for the dog’s owner, I would be interviewing everyone within a two block radius of the kids house, asking who had a dog, what breed, was it inside or out, etc. I would ask the other officers if they entered any back yards without permission, and by what right they did so. I would follow her exact route, and interview every homeowner to find out how she appeared that day – was she aggressive, etc.
When the I got the other cops in the witness stand, I would ask all the other cops why they didn’t shoot all the other dogs in that area, and did they agree with the shooters actions – obviously there is room for a judgement call, but I suspect that the sight of the thin blue line covering each other’s butts will stiffen the spines of the jury.
I would also be going over the shooting officer’s history – had she shot other dogs, has she ever been bit, does she own a dog, does she even like dogs, is she afraid of dogs, does she have a history of trespassing without a warrant, etc. I might also insist on psychological testing or brain scans of the officer to reveal any sociopath characteristics.
I think a decent attorney could reveal her as a little gestapo wannabe. The problem is that even if you win, SHE doesn’t pay, unless you can prove a felony under color of law, which is a tough case. The best you can hope for is that she could get blackballed from law enforcement jobs.
Honestly if there is a dog in the back yard that is mean enough that you have to shoot it, do you really need to go into that yard looking for the missing child? If the kid was there the dog would have let you know one way or another.
Unless they saw a child in there, either mauled or captive to the dog, why would they go in?
I’d say it was unjustified.
The owner’s 4th Amendment rights are bypassable via the circumstances of the search, but that doesn’t mean his 5th and 14th are bypassed as well, he was deprived of property without due process.
As far as shooting dogs–be careful, a lady here was charged with a felony for shooting from her window a terrier in her own backyard since the “threat” wasn’t life-threatening.
Well the property issue (again playing devil’s advocate FOR the police from the moment they entered his property) is that people can destroy property to do their job and save lives. EMTs are allowed to cut your car’s seatbelt, smash windows, and cut your clothing off in order to render medical services. Fire Departments smash windows, axe doors, and do copious amounts of water damage in their line of duty. I’ve also seen fire departments smash cars with their trucks to get to a fire on a narrow street with cars parked on both sides.
These are ALL fine practices and I support them given that the public servants are rendering aid to society, and the damages they do are both justifiable and reasonable in the line of their duties. I’ll note that an officer conducting a search that is approached by an unrestrained dog behaving aggressively, I can understand the officer shooting that animal.
Still the only reason why that dog was unrestrained was because they opened the gate on private property. The reason given was they were looking for a child who it turns out was in his home a good distance away (they were not neighbors, this was just a house in the same neighborhood).
If they’re just looking all over in hopes to find the kid, why not just drive all over the neighborhood and observe what they can from the street before they start entering random yards for random reasons?
Pingback: Tonight on The Squirrel Report! | The Squirrel Report
Pingback: Don’t SWAT me Squirrel!!! | Weer'd World
Pingback: Squirrel Report – 111 | The Squirrel Report