A Detroit woman filed a lawsuit last week after Detroit cops serving a search warrant entered her home looking for marijuana shot and killed her three passive dogs, then turned to her and said, “I should have killed you, too.”
“They went around and killed them – like a death squad,” said Chris Olson, Smith’s attorney in an interview with the New York Daily News.
He said his client is terrified because the same cops that shot her three dogs and then gloated about it drive through her neighborhood everyday.
“Debo”never acted aggressively before police fatally shot him.
According to the lawsuit, when Detroit police knocked on Nikita Smith’s door, she cooperated with them and said, “let me put my dogs up.”
Smith then put her two pit bulls, Mama and Debo, in the basement and blocked the entranceway. She put her Rottweiler named Smoke in the bathroom.
After police entered Smith’s home, Debo the pit bull managed to get past the makeshift entranceway-obstruction, walked up to its owner and sat next to her.
When Smith reached down to pet her dog, an unidentified cop shot Debo multiple times even though Smith was in close proximity to the dog.
Smith watched her dog die as he bled out on the floor.
“You could have been killed,” one of the cops told her.
Next, with advanced knowledge of another dog in the basement, three cops stormed down the stairs into the basement and fatally shot Mama, a pregnant pit bull where she died in a pool of blood in a corner of the basement.
“Mama” wasn’t barking or acting aggressively before police shot her, according to the lawsuit.
That’s when officers Gaines and Paul, who knew Smith had put her dog away, made their way to the bathroom.
One of them sarcastically said ‘there’s a dog in there’, opened the bathroom door and then closed it again.
“Should we do that one, too?”
“Yes,” another officer responded.
“Smoke” was locked in the bathroom when police fatally shot her through the bathroom door and then gloated, “did you see that?” I got that one good!
Officers Paul and Gaines fired multiple shots through the door fatally killing Smoke, the Rottweiler.
After the canine-bloodbath was over, officer Gaines exclaimed, “did you see that? I got that one good!”
According to the lawsuit, that’s when one of the cops turned to Smith and said, “I should have killed you too.”
Smith took pictures of the gory aftermath.
After Olson submitted FOIA requests on Smith’s behalf requesting records, police claimed they had no audio or video of the incident.
The complaint argues shooting someone’s dog is already recognized as an unreasonable seizure under the Fourth Amendment citing Dziekan v. Gaynor, an interestingly similar case involving the Hell’s Angels and dogs that actually were aggressive.
This isn’t the first time Detroit made recent news shooting dogs this year.
In February, PINAC reported about case handled by the same attorney when the city agreed to pay a man $100,000 after Detroit police shot and killed his French Mastiff while it was chained in his front yard in January of 2015.
Police ultimately charged Smith with possession of marijuana. But those charges were dropped when the officers failed to show up to testify.
“They had a warrant to search the house,” Olson told the Daily News. “That we don’t really quarrel with. But when you search the house, you can’t go in the house and kill all the dogs.”
After the shootings, Olson submitted a FOIA requesting to identify three of the five officers that shot their dogs.
The city declined their request.
Below are more pictures of the scene taken by Smith, as well as the lawsuit.
Bathroom door police shot through to kill “Mama”, the pit bull.
Bathroom after “Mama” was shot.
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