Roommates who sued a Maryland county Monday claim police officers illegally entered their apartment without a warrant, detained them at gunpoint without justification and unnecessarily shot their pet dog, which was left paralyzed and ultimately euthanized.

The dog, a boxer mix named Hennessey, did not attack the three officers who entered the apartment before two of them shot the animal with their firearms and the third fired a stun gun at it, according to the federal lawsuit.

The lawsuit seeks at least $16 million in damages over the June 2, 2021 encounter, which started with Prince George’s County police officers responding to a report of a dog bite at an apartment complex where the four plaintiffs lived. What happened next was captured on police body camera video and video from a plaintiff’s cellphone.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
    1615·
    1 year ago

    Someone shared in another thread that police officers in the U.S. kill something like 10,000 dogs a year. Psychopaths murder dogs. You don’t become a cop unless you’re a psychopath.

    • Neato@kbin.social
      44·
      1 year ago

      Never, ever let a cop into your home if you have a dog. Cops are driven by fear and sadism.

      • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
        35·
        1 year ago

        Never, ever let a cop into your home

        they can come back with a warrant or not at all. the police are absolutely not here to help and nothing will be made better by police involvement.

        • CmdrShepard@lemmy.oneEnglish
          14·
          1 year ago

          Also don’t open the door for police. I’ve seen numerous encounters where they’ll block the door and refuse to let you close it. Once you try to close it or a gentle breeze comes by an pushes the door into their foot, they’ll violently throw you to the ground, taze you, and then charge you with assaulting a police officer.

    • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
      347·
      1 year ago

      Not true, I know I guy who got fired from the company I worked for a few years ago, so what did he do when he wasn’t good at the job, he became a police officer.

    • be_excellent_to_each_other@kbin.social
      21·
      1 year ago

      Not sure if that person was me, but reposting a recent comment I made to that effect anyhow. The estimate and the word “epidemic” both originate from a DOJ report of all things.

      https://www.criminallegalnews.org/news/2018/jun/16/doj-police-shooting-family-dogs-has-become-epidemic/

      I believe the DOJ report is linked somewhere in that article, if not I’ll dig it up if requested.

      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.