This footage was submitted from Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, showing the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff’s Office knocking on a man’s door and then kicking his tiny dog shortly afterwards, after the dog apparently attempted to urinate on the cop’s leg. The officers knocked on the man’s door while investigating him for allegedly causing damage to a police cruiser. Without obtaining a warrant first, the officers ended up arresting the man.

As I’ve explained numerous times, according to the 1980 Supreme Court opinion in Payton v. New York, in order to legally arrest someone in a home, rather than in a public place, absent consent or exigent circumstances, police officers must have a warrant. But what about kicking the homeowner’s dog? Or shooting the dog?

As an initial matter, it is well-settled that privately owned dogs are “effects” under the Fourth Amendment, and that the shooting and killing of such a dog constitutes a “seizure.” So it’s a different legal standard that standard police shooting cases. It’s an overall reasonableness standard, recognizing that police can shoot dogs where officer safety justifies the decision. 

The question is whether, at the time the officer shot the dog, he held a reasonable belief that the dog posed a threat to himself or others. If the facts are sufficient to show that such a belief was unreasonable, then the law is clearly established in most circuits that shooting a dog under those circumstances would constitute an unreasonable seizure of property under the Fourth Amendment. That’s not a great way of looking at the value of our dogs, but that’s the actual legal analysis.