cops killing dogs – Techdirt (original) (raw)

Fifth Circuit Rejects Dog-Killing Cop’s Pleas For Qualified Immunity

from the restoring-a-bit-of-faith-in-the-5th's-judicial-process dept

Well, well, well. Is the Fifth Circuit finally going to start redeeming itself?

Just recently, the Fifth Circuit Appeals Court bucked the appellate trend (well, what there was of it…) by declaring geofence warrants unconstitutional. That ran counter to the expectations of this court, which has often chosen to treat the Constitution as a set of suggestions, especially when it likes the arguments any government in its jurisdiction is making.

And here it is bucking its own trend by denying qualified immunity to Deputy James Killian, who went on a (dog-)killing spree while responding to a domestic disturbance report. On December 2016 (welcome to the extremely slow roll of justice, folks) the deputy was dispatched to handle a call about a “big fight going on” between Rubicela Ramirez and her boyfriend, Francisco Gonzales. What followed Killian’s arrival on the scene was both a literal and Constitutional bloodbath.

The Fifth Circuit’s opinion [PDF] details what came next:

The next thirty-eight seconds of video show what happened from there. From the living room, Killian entered the kitchen, where he encountered Ramirez entering from another door. Killian ordered her to “come here, get over here, get over here and face that wall.” Ramirez approached Killian. Killian then ordered: “get over there and face that g— d—n wall, b—h,” simultaneously pepper spraying Ramirez’s face. While this was happening, Gonzales entered the kitchen from the same door as had Ramirez. At the same time, a pit bull entered the kitchen from another door and walked up to Gonzales, wagging his tail. Killian ordered Gonzales to “get over here” and said “I’ll shoot your dog.” The dog—Bruno—began to walk towards Killian, and Killian shot him three times.

We’ll get to more of this horror show in a moment, but let’s walk through a few of these selected moments in Killian’s law enforcing effort. First, he gave Rubicela Ramirez conflicting instructions. He told her to both “get over here” and “face that wall.” Killian was not standing against a wall presumably, so it would have been difficult for Ramirez to both move towards the deputy and the wall simultaneously.

Furthermore, as in any domestic dispute, the woman is usually considered to be the victim. (I realize this is not always the case, but that’s the presumption… and usually a solid one.) The deputy chose to greet the presumptive victim with this: “Get over there and face the goddamn wall, bitch.” Not only was this an abhorrent way to treat a potential victim, but it was completely uncalled for. (Calling her a “bitch” was never excusable, btw.) Ramirez had done nothing more than enter her own kitchen. And for that simple action, she was treated like a perp who had deliberately aggravated the responding officers.

Then there’s the dog, which did nothing more than exist. At least Killian was right about one thing: he promised to shoot the dog and he did, despite the dog apparently no more of a threat to him than the “bitch” he had ordered to face the wall, as well as the boyfriend, who was even less prepared for the presence of a law enforcement officer in his kitchen.

What was already terrible got even worse because Deputy James Killian has no business being a law enforcement officer.

Killian then ordered Ramirez and Gonzales to get onto the ground and continued to pepper spray them. Neither Ramirez nor Gonzales immediately complied, but Gonzales put his hands onto his head. Then, a German Shepherd appeared in the kitchen and walked toward Killian, who immediately shot it four times as he backed into the living room. Killian briefly exited the house from the door that he had entered and radioed for help. He then returned to the living room and continued to order Ramirez and Gonzales to get onto the ground. Ramirez and Gonzales went to their knees. Killian continued to pepper spray them. For the next few minutes, the three shouted profanities at each other as Killian unsuccessfully tried to get Ramirez and Gonzales to lie down on the ground.

Enter the third contradictory instruction: get on the ground. Come over here. Get up against the wall. Lay down on the floor. Even if one might make the argument it’s possible to both get up against the wall and lay down on the floor, there’s a really good reason neither Ramirez or Gonzales complied with this instruction. And that reason has everything to do with confirmed dog killer, Deputy James Killian.

The video makes it disturbingly clear that the kitchen floor, onto which Killian was ordering Ramirez and Gonzales to lie down, was covered by this point in their dogs’ blood.

Having pumped seven bullets into two dogs and an untold amount of pepper spray into the faces of the couple, Killian handcuffed the pair and sat them on the living room couch. Shortly after that, Sheriff Kent Riley arrived at the home. Ramirez recognized Sheriff Riley and figured he might be there to actually help, rather than harm. And he might have been there to do that. But when Ramirez stood up and called for the sheriff by his first name, this happened:

Killian immediately grabbed her by the hair and wrestled her to the ground. As he did so, his body camera fell off briefly and went black.

The couple’s allegations say this isn’t exactly what happened. It wasn’t “wrestling” so much as it was a brief, extremely violent attack by the deputy.

Ramirez and Gonzales maintain that immediately after Killian took Ramirez to the ground, he slammed her head against the floor, though the video was still black at this point and does not show it.

Undeniably awful. Awful enough the lower court denied immunity to Killian and put the whole thing in front of a jury. While the jury did find in favor of the deputy on some of the allegations, one of them stuck:

The unreasonable-seizure claim proceeded to trial. Before beginning his case-in-chief, Killian moved for judgment as a matter of law, arguing that Ramirez and Gonzales had failed to present evidence sufficient to overcome Killian’s qualified immunity defense. The district court denied the motion. The case then went to the jury, which was charged consistent with Fifth Circuit Pattern Jury Instruction 10.3. The jury found that Killian had “acted in an objectively unreasonable manner” and that “no reasonable officer could have believed that shooting the dog was lawful,” awarding Ramirez and Gonzales $100,300 in compensatory and punitive damages.

Having failed with the first judgment as a matter of law attempt, Killian immediately fired off another one after the jury had rendered its verdict. Somehow, that one worked and the lower court reversed its own conclusions (and the jury verdict), claiming the suing couple had not presented enough evidence to overcome Killian’s invocation of qualified immunity.

The Fifth Circuit, however, is not as welcoming of Killian’s repeated pleas that he should be allowed to escape judgment. While the court agrees Killian had the right to enter the house without a warrant in response to the domestic altercation call, nothing about what followed his entry is covered by Constitutional exceptions. And that means some of stuff that was written off earlier (like the excessive force claim) gets reinstated, along with the “unreasonable seizure” that was Killian’s killing of the couple’s two dogs.

While it is true that Killian was investigating a possible assault—a serious crime —Ramirez and Gonzales were not actively resisting arrest. Killian’s contention that his first orders were not contradictory, and that Ramirez and Gonzales did not comply, are flatly refuted by the video evidence. Killian’s order to “come here” was the exact opposite of his order to “get over there.” Nor were there any indications that either Ramirez or Gonzales posed a threat to Killian.

[…]

Moving now to Ramirez’s and Gonzales’s head-banging claim, we likewise find that they have satisfied both steps of the qualified immunity inquiry at the summary judgment stage. This is an even easier determination. Ramirez and Gonzales allege that, after Killian took Ramirez to the ground and was firmly on top of her, he slammed her head against the floor. There was summary judgment evidence that Ramirez suffered injury in the form of a black eye. And evaluating the evidence in Ramirez’s and Gonzales’s favor, Ramirez gave no indication that she was attempting to escape when she stood from the couch, as she was simply begging Sheriff Riley for help. Nor is it particularly plausible, especially once another officer arrived on-scene, that a handcuffed, pepper-sprayed subject could have posed much of a threat to Killian, either when she was standing or after Killian took her to the ground.

Established. Established. As to the dogs, it’s similarly well-established.

We are not even the first court to hold that a robust consensus of persuasive authority clearly establishes this exact legal proposition. The First Circuit in Maldonado “reject[ed]” the defendant state official’s argument that the “law was not clearly established because this court had not earlier addressed” whether killing a pet dog could constitute an unreasonable seizure. Rather, because four other circuits had already held as much, “the law was sufficiently recognized by courts to be clearly established.”

Furthermore, the lower court screwed up when it gave Deputy Killian a second swing at the “judgment as a matter of law” pinata. In doing that, it shifted the burden of proof to the plaintiffs, demanding they satisfy a completely non-existent third prong of the qualified immunity argument: “reasonable officer evidence.” That’s just not a thing, says the Appeals Court. The other two factors have already been satisfied, something that probably should have been gleaned from the jury finding in favor of the plaintiffs on the unlawful seizure claim.

Three errors is three errors too many. Back it goes to the lower court with the excessive force claims reinstated and the dog-killing judgment put back into place. Deputy Killian heads back to court as well, guaranteed that, if nothing else, he’s cost taxpayers a little more than $100,000. If the government is smart, it will offer a settlement before things get any worse or any more costly.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, 5th circuit, cops killing dogs, excessive force, james killian, police misconduct, texas

City Sued For $1 Million After Cop Murders A Tiny Dog For The Crime Of Being Lost

from the public-so-much-safer-now-thanks-to-hero-cop dept

You know what kind of person kills animals on the regular? Psychopaths, at least according to a casual survey of pop culture references. You know who else? Cops. But I repeat myself.

Laurel Matthews, a supervisory program specialist with the Department of Justice’s Community Oriented Policing Services (DOJ COPS) office, says it’s an awful lot. She calls fatal police vs. dogs encounters an “epidemic” and estimates that 25 to 30 pet dogs are killed each day by law enforcement officers.

30 dogs a day. Only a handful of court cases where courts have found officers violated the Constitution by killing innocent pets. Judges often hold that killing an animal amounts to a “seizure” under the Fourth Amendment, but in most cases, qualified immunity carries the day.

Occasionally, it goes the other way. A court stripped immunity from a cop who killed a dog 13 seconds after arriving to a call about people cleaning out their cars in a vacant parking lot. In another case, immunity was denied when the court determined the officer acted unreasonably by killing a family’s dog while other officers on the scene were shouting at him to back off and all the family to bring their dog back inside.

Then there’s this incident, which could easily serve as a metaphor for policing as it’s practiced here in the United States:

Lawsuit: Deputy Tried To Shoot ‘Charging’ Pomeranian, Shot Woman On Porch Instead

This case is more of the same. Hopefully, it will end like the ones listed above: with a denial of qualified immunity. A family whose deaf and blind 13-pound Shih Tzu was shot and killed by Sturgeon, Missouri police officer Myron Woods earlier this month has sued the city and the officer for $1 million, as Nina Golgowski reports for the Huffington Post:

[Officer] Woodson had been called in to help find the owner of the dog, a 13-pound Shih Tzu named Teddy. The officer shot him twice at point-blank range, as seen in body camera footage. Minutes after the shooting, Hunter, who’d gotten a call from a friend about Teddy escaping his backyard kennel, confronted the officer.

“At no time during the encounter between Teddy and Defendant Woodson did Teddy show any aggression towards Defendant Woodson,” states the complaint. “Teddy never barked, growled, or even moved towards Defendant Woodson. Instead, the small, blind and deaf dog simply kept trying to walk away, oblivious to the danger that Defendant Woodson posed to him.”

The body camera footage backs up the lawsuit’s claims. I must warn you this is a tough watch, even if you’re fairly accustomed to footage of inexplicable acts of violence committed by police officers.

It’s a hideous chain of events. The officer starts looking for the dog while armed with the restraint device animal control officers use on animals: the extended pole with a loop at the end of it. While the officer had no way of knowing the dog was deaf and blind, he had nothing to worry about. He had a restraint device and was dealing with a small Shih Tzu that not only ignored the officer’s presence, but was in obvious distress.

But like many living things in obvious distress (people undergoing mental health crises, people undergoing physical health crises, potential suicides, and… um… lost dogs), the officer chose to end the crisis by killing the living thing in obvious need of assistance.

Roughly five minutes into the recording (and less than two minutes after encountering the dog), officer Myron Woods ditches the restraint device, pulls out his gun, and kills the dog.

Any normal person would try to help someone or something in distress. Pretty much any officer that considers themselves “reasonable” thinks the problem can be solved with bullets and, if need be, even more bullets.

It only took one to kill this dog. And, of course, the officer felt he had done the right thing. He was so confident in this conclusion he felt comfortable sharing his rationale with the owner of the dog he had just killed.

When Hunter confronted Woodson about what he had done, Hunter said the officer told him he thought Teddy looked injured or abandoned and wanted “to put him down.”

The town could have (and should have!) left this officer to fend for himself after he committed this truly senseless act of violence. But it didn’t. Instead, it spun this as nothing more than good police work from an officer acting in the interest of public safety.

In a statement Thursday, the city said it is standing by the officer’s actions. Officials have reviewed the dispatch report and body camera footage and believe “the officer acted within his authority” to protect citizens from the dog causing injury to others.

“The dog’s strange behavior appeared consistent with the dispatch report of an injured or possibly sick dog,” the city said, after initially claiming in a separate post that the officer feared it had rabies. It added that it would send its officers to a local county animal control facility for training and education “in hopes that this unfortunate situation does not occur again.”

Even the person who reported the lost dog called for the officer’s resignation. She also expressed her displeasure of the city’s support for the officer to the mayor. Mayor Kevin Abahamson refused to respond to this (and complaints from other city residents), choosing instead to resign after the city’s board of Aldermen took issue with the statement released by the mayor about the shooting.

And just to drive the point home that this was a truly senseless killing by an officer who could have done literally anything else to handle this completely non-threatening situation, here’s a bit from the lawsuit (filed with the assistance of the Animal Legal Defense Fund) that details officer Woodson’s actions and statements as captured by his own body camera:

Teddy’s attempt to simply walk away from Defendant Woodson indicated a total lack of aggression on Teddy’s part as well as his desire for avoidance rather than confrontation.

As he walked after Teddy, Defendant Woodson audibly remarked “Maybe I’ll get a blanket and just wrap you up,” indicating that he perceived no threat or danger and believed that he could possibly get close enough to just reach down and safely pick Teddy up by covering him with a blanket.

Despite contemplating simply using a blanket to safely capture Teddy, Defendant Woodson did not return to his vehicle to obtain a blanket but rather transferred his catch-pole from his right hand to his left hand and followed after Teddy.

[…]

In walking after Teddy, Defendant Woodson did so in a calm manner, even whistling and calling out to Teddy.

Even with Defendant Woodson following after him, Teddy showed no signs of aggression, did not turn around to face his pursuer, and did not bark or growl.

Upon reaching within feet of Teddy, Defendant Woodson made no further attempts to use his catch-pole (which he had facing the wrong way rendering the device effectively useless and abandoned anyway) and instead unholstered his firearm.

On May 19, 2024, at 5:43:27 p.m. (five-forty-three p.m. and 27 seconds or 17:43:27 in military time), Defendant Myron Woodson – while in the employ of Defendant City of Sturgeon, while on duty and attired in the uniform of his department, and while acting under color of state law – calmly and deliberately removed his firearm from his holster and fired a single shot into Teddy from near point-blank range.

At the time Defendant Woodson fired his fatal shot into Teddy, Teddy was seemingly unaware of the mortal danger presented by Defendant Woodson and was angled away from Defendant Woodson and again simply attempting to walk away.

Defendant Woodson’s shot caused the little dog’s body to jerk backwards and fall to the ground.

At the moment he shot Teddy, Defendant Woodson was not in fear for his safety or the safety of anyone else.

Approximately five (5) to seven (7) seconds later, Defendant Woodson fired a second point blank shot into Teddy’s body.

That’s what you’ll see in the video embedded above, if you’ve got the stomach for it. If not, I’m sorry. The dry text version contained in the lawsuit isn’t that much easier to take.

Now, it’s up to the federal court to decide whether this was a “reasonable” act by a police officer. I sincerely hope it does not decide it is. Given what’s alleged in the lawsuit and captured on Woodson’s body cam, this was the act of an officer who just got tired of playing dog-catcher and opted to play dog-killer instead.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, civil rights, cops killing dogs, lawsuit, missouri, police violence