Just released, body cam footage shows Gastonia, North Carolina police arresting a homeless veteran, suspected of panhandling in a median, and tasing his dog, named Sunshine. Unfortunately, Sunshine didn’t make it. This is brand new footage, ordered released by a judge, against the will of Gastonia law enforcement, who fought the release of the footage, supposedly to guarantee the homeless vet, Joshua Rohrer, a “fair trial.” Yeah, right. If law enforcement doesn’t want you to see it, then you probably need to see it. 

Here’s the raw footage:

In the applicable jurisdiction – the Fourth Circuit – these cases seem to come out of North Carolina. There is a very recent published opinion out of the Fourth Circuit – Ray v. Roane – which deprived police officers of qualified immunity in a civil lawsuit for shooting someone’s dog. Here’s a video I just did a few weeks back in June on another similar video:

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 the Fourth Circuit that shooting a dog under those circumstances would constitute an unreasonable seizure of Mr. Rohrer’s 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.

Here, the tasing officer, Maurice Taylor, claims that the dog “bit his boot.” Although I snipped the footage for Youtube reasons, you can click the link and watch the entire raw footage on Mr. Rohrer’s channel. You can see that the tasering took place well after the dog allegedly bit the boot. Immediately after the officer claims the dog bit the boot, you can see the dog wagging its tail. I have my doubts. Perhaps what really happened is the dog came up to him, wagging his tail, and Officer Friendly kicked her in the face. They don’t call them “jack booted thugs” for nothing. 

That reminds me of the officer from yesterday’s video, where the guy he beat up actually attacked his fists. At the point where the taser is deployed, the arguable officer safety concern actually involves his partner. You can see the dog on video at this point, and the dog clearly doesn’t make any move to attack the partner. 

All-in-all, the response to this itself speaks of the lack of reasonableness of the decision under the circumstances. And how many cops were present towards the end of the footage. Fifteen? Twenty? Who is paying these people, and where are they now?