No, Police Can Not Just Straight Up Kill Your Dogs

News coming out from multiple places are reporting that a Federal Court has ruled that the shooting of two dogs was justified and thusly gives all Police wanton license to kill any and all barking or moving dogs.

“A ruling by the 6th Circuit Federal Court in Michigan last week gave police nationwide the authority to shoot a dog if it moves or barks when officers enter a home.”

Hell, even our local NBC affiliate has taken this kind of language as fact, but it’s only partially true — because the federal ruling, while siding with police, has no language that gives sweeping permission for all police to do the same.

Judge Eric Clay stated “a police officer’s use of deadly force against a dog while executing a search warrant to search a home for illegal drug activity is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment when… the dog poses an imminent threat to the officer’s safety.”

This all comes from an accident in Michigan in which two officers entered a property via search warrant to look for illegal drug activity — two pit bulls lunged and they shot them, without justification this would actually be a breach of 4th Amendment Constitutional rights which prohibits the illegal seizure of property. A dog is your property, and killing it without justification is legally defined as seizure — to change this would be an alteration of the Constitution and that did not happen.

So please, don’t worry — your dogs will not be drooling target practice for deranged dog killing police officers. It simply isn’t true.

You can read more about how this is being misconstrued by media outlets on Snopes.

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