681
submitted 1 year ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] ExLisper@linux.community 7 points 1 year ago

Except I don't think the officers are ever found liable, only the police departments.

[-] jonne@infosec.pub 23 points 1 year ago

The legal fiction that is qualified immunity needs to be banned. It was just made up buy judges.

[-] SheeEttin@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It's fine when used properly. When acting in good faith, officers, just like any company employee, should generally not be held liable.

However, if they are not acting in good faith, or their actions deviate from good practice, then much like a chemical company employee dumping something toxic out into the environment, then yes they should face personal civil and criminal liability.

For example, if there's an active shooter, and the police shoot and kill him, I think most people would agree that that's acceptable, and the family of the shooter should not have grounds to sue over the shooter's death.

If the police walk up and shoot your dog for no reason, that's unacceptable and they should absolutely face personal liability.

Per the article:

"After reviewing all of the evidence in this matter a determination was made that actions of the officers didn't generate criminal liability because they were acting in good faith," the office said in a statement to The Post.

I hope the court disagrees, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

[-] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 1 points 11 months ago

Yeah but apparently the cops themselves usually get to decide if they acted in good faith.

this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2023
681 points (99.0% liked)

News

23360 readers
1832 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS