By Olivia Demarinis
(staff@latinpost.com)
Animal advocates are raising
awareness about the high rates of law enforcement officers who shoot pet dogs
while answering calls on duty.
Several pet owners are suing
police departments and state legislatures for their mistreatment of their
animals.
While there is no official data
on how often these killings occur in the U.S., media reports suggest that at
least a few dozen pets are killed each year, but many activists suspect more go
unreported. Outcry against these senseless killings say that it is an abuse of
power by the police and officials should be better trained to deal with pets in
the line of duty.
An argument citing a violation
of the Fourth Amendment was upheld when a San Jose chapter of the Hells Angels sued
the police department and city in 2005 for killing members' dogs during a gang
raid in 1998. In federal appeals, a judge found that "the Fourth Amendment
forbids the killing of a person's dog ... when that destruction is
unnecessary." The Hells Angels won $1.8 million in damages.
Similar lawsuits have been
filed in Idaho, California and Nevada, among other states.
Animal-rights activists are
concurrently lobbying for increased pet training for police officers. Illinois
and Colorado have already implemented some measures to reduce dog shootings,
other states are currently considering such legislation.
In 2011, the Department of
Justice published a report on police incidents involving dogs along with advice
on how to avoid killing the animals.
"It's much more likely
that a cop is going to encounter a dog than a terrorist, yet there's no
training," Ledy Van Kavage, an attorney for the advocacy group Best
Friends Animal Society, said. "If you have a fear or hatred of dogs, then
you shouldn't be a police officer, just like if you have a hatred of different
social groups."
