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.

  • SaakoPaahtaa@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    What’s up with US police and dogs, what’s the beef? I used to work briefly on emergency services and dogs, no matter how demonic, were just pushed aside if they decided to come have a sniff. Which rarely happened in the first place.

    • funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works
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      11 months ago

      the overlap between people who would make good police officers and those who get a boner from killing animals and hurting women and minorities is 100%, because those are significant parts of the job description

    • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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      11 months ago

      They’re allowed to kill dogs with no questions asked, so they do. I assume the only reason they don’t kill cats is because cats usually have the good sense to hide.