“police officers will gun down your dog”

M. Simon sent me a disturbing link to Radley Balko’s latest (unfortunately among many) puppycide stories. When police in Taneytown, Maryland came to a house to search for a man who wasn’t there, they shot the family dog owned by the man’s parents. Awarding the couple $620,000, the jury found that the police entered without permission and violated their rights by shooting their dog. (The latter is a violation of their property rights, as no dog can sue for wrongful death — something the police are well aware of.)

[The jury] found that Deputy First Class Timothy Brooks violated the Jenkinses rights under the Maryland constitution when he shot their chocolate Labrador retriever, Brandi, on Jan. 9, 2010, while he and Deputy First Class Nathan Rector were at their Bullfrog Road home looking for their son, who was wanted on a civil warrant called a body attachment.

The jury also found that Brooks and Rector violated the couple’s rights by entering their home without permission.

In defense, the cops claimed that the Jenkinses should have “told the deputies that his son wasn’t home, because he hadn’t lived there in several months since being kicked out, and that he could have taken more action to secure the dogs.” As the Jenkins’ lawyer put it, “What they’re suggesting is that Mr. Jenkins should have known that police officers will gun down your dog.”

Well, that is something I know full well, and it is something I worry about. Because not only can the cops raid the wrong house by mistake, but they often find themselves in what is called “hot pursuit.” Meaning they will run through your yard with guns drawn. This happened to me once in Berkeley, because I was unfortunate enough to be living near a local BofA branch when it was robbed by the SLA (the gang that had kidnapped Patty Hearst), who fled into the neighborhood on foot, running through yards and climbing over fences. I had no idea that anything was going on at all, as no shots had been fired and I had heard no sirens; all I knew is that I was late for class, so I bolted out the back door in my usual manic way and dashed down the wooden stairs (wearing heavy Frye boots, which make a lot of noise). Immediately, I had pistols and shotguns pointed directly in my face, I was told “GET ON THE GROUND YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!” and later it occurred to me that not only could I have easily have been killed, but nothing would have happened to the police. They are free to make mistakes in hot pursuit. I am just lucky I wasn’t carrying an umbrella.

Now, I was completely clueless, but let’s suppose a similar sort of hot pursuit happened and the homeowner heard the commotion and grabbed a gun to investigate.  He’d be shot dead, and that would be the end of it. If I had had a dog at the time of the SLA raid, the dog would have barked in defense of its yard, and been shot dead.

It is a bad business, and I see no adequate way to “secure a dog” in the event of trouble, especially when you don’t see it coming.

Besides, isn’t being ready for “trouble” precisely what dogs are for?

But let’s suppose that you’re very conscientious and try to do the right thing — even under the extreme pressure of a SWAT Team raid.

How would you secure a dog? Lock it in the bathroom? A closet? Remember, the cops in the vast majority of these situations are there to execute a search. For, like, tiny little particles of things that might be anywhere in the house. How are they going to search the area containing the dog while the dog is in it and in full-defense-of-master-and-turf mode? Furthermore, some drug dealers will use their dogs as hiding places to “hold” their stash. I remember some Berkeley crack dealers used to use their pit bull’s gigantic leather studded collar as a stash place, so that even if the customers know where it was they wouldn’t touch it. The cops know about these tricks, and they also know about the use of dogs to guard drug dealing operations, so when they’re in raid mode, every dog becomes a suspect.

I suppose if you were totally paranoid you could create an armor plated space just for your dog, and put a strong security padlock on it, hoping that this would force the cops to get a locksmith and maybe you’d have time to call animal control and alert them during the delay, but the cops usually don’t allow “suspects” to make phone calls until booking time.

When the founders wrote the Fourth Amendment, they didn’t envision a future court system that would hold it in such contempt, nor did they envision lethal searches for the sort of thing that they themselves grew in the ground.

Such progress.

MORE: As the story Drudge linked the other day shows, a dog will willingly take a bullet for you.

It happened Saturday evening in Becker’s apartment house in the Graniteville section of Staten Island. A gunman, posing as a FedEx deliveryman, wearing a uniform, rang the bell and said he had a package, but then pushed his way into the apartment.

“He barged in. My first reaction after seeing the gun is push him out, so I pushed him to the door. Like I said, he fell like wedged right by the door. I slammed him inside the door and he was stuck and tried to get out now because he was getting crushed,” Becker said.

[…]

“Now Kilo came out to protect me. Grrr, he tried to come through the door at the guy, his head was out. Grrr, then I heard the guy, three gunshots,” Becker said.

One of the shots hit the dog in the head.

“It did ricochet off the skull and went straight down and exited at the neck,” Dr. Panarello said.

Fortunately, the dog lived. Had it been the cops instead of a burglar, they’d have kept shooting until Kilo was dead.

At age 12, that’s an old dog, too. What a hero.