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.

  • jpreston2005@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I’ll just say this. If you name your pet after liquor, I’m automatically assuming you’re trashy. Police were there to investigate a dog biting incident, and I somehow doubt these 4 are faultless.

    based entirely on that trashy ass pet name.

    • LilB0kChoy@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Did they name their dog after liquor?

      Maybe they adopted the dog with that name.

      Maybe it’s named after W. Louis Hennessy, an American jurist who serves as judge in the District Court for Charles County, Maryland.

      Maybe it’s named after the NY Jets long snapper.

      Maybe your preconceptions and biases speak more about you than the people in the story.

      Be better.

    • arthurpizza@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      You’re right, we should strip away the rights of anyone with a dog name you don’t like. That feels like a normal and sane thing to do.

    • agent_flounder@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Deciding they deserve what they got because you think they’re trashy is what makes a person trashy, not naming a pet after booze. JFC what an unhinged take.

    • dilithium_dame@startrek.website
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      1 year ago

      I realize I’m inviting down votes as well, but, ignoring the dog’s name, did he actually bite someone? If so, I can understand why the police were there and that is different from officers randomly barging into an apartment and shooting whatever dog happens to be around (which is a great story to stir people up and get clicks). Though it is still odd how it was handled, I would expect an animal control officer to be first to make contact with the dog’s owners. Not to go straight to shooting the dog?

      • argon@infosec.pub
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        1 year ago

        The dog was inside the apartment which they illegally entered. They should never have come into contact with the dog at all.

        If the dog had actually bitten someone there are proper procedures to deal with that situation. Cops aren’t a murder squad who get to apply justice on the fly.